Nextcloud App for BigBlueButton integration

@oppitza,

Great! The Talk UI is very nice and maintains conversation history. As well, given it is integrated into NC (e.g. projects, tags, side file chat) and is developed by NC itself, I would recommend we use this as a starting platform. No need to reinvent the well.

We are going into production shortly.

Our repo is ready for primetime and used in production
Looking forward to contributions from the community

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You should activate issues on your fork.

Thanks - done!

WOOOOOOOW!

guys (especially @oppitza and @ramezrafla and all the other guys here):

YOU absolutely rock!

thank you for your ideas and contributions. :heavy_heart_exclamation:

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Thanks!

It’s production-ready. All you need are:

  1. BBB server
  2. Access to config.php to set BBB parameters (we are adding shortly settings to the admin page)

It supports both full-fledged conversation with BBB and file-based conversations on the side with the built-in signalling server (less attendees so works well)

Let me know if you face any issues or need help.

@oppitza, you should give it a spin. Will make things easier in the future in terms of maintainability and integration in the calendar / tasks etc.

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While this is cool, this seems like a rather basic modification and could maybe be better done inside NC-Talk?

How about a admin setting is added to choose the regular Spreed backend or as optional alternatives BBB or Jitsi-Meet iframes?

That would actually also help with the community unrest about the non open-source scaleable backend for NC-Talk :slight_smile:

@Krischan
I agree that this is the best way forward. However, I am not holding my breath.

It took me 3 work days with limited knowledge of NC and Vue (We are a ReactJS house) to get it done. It would have taken NC much less I am sure. Why haven’t they done it so far? Not long …

Why haven’t they?

@Krischan There is an issue on Github already about this issue: https://github.com/nextcloud/spreed/issues/3209

No that is for an alternative backend. Its nice that people look into that as well, but understandably for Nextcloud as a business there is nothing to “win” there.

But what @ramezrafla seems to have prototyped here is a complete replacement of the Spreed interface inside NCTalk with BBB. Of course that will likely have issues with the NCTalk mobile app and so on and requires technical expertise to setup the BBB server.
But I see an actual benefit in it for Nextcloud as a company as well, as they could thus taylor NCTalk to a wider range of use-cases or allow customers to use pre-existing BBB or Jitsi-meet services.

But anyways, I am also surprised that if Spreed is basically just an iframe integration in NCTalk, why this hasn’t been proposed earlier. It would seem like a really easy improvement.

Most BBB integrations via their API is to load a new tab, redirect current tab or load the client in an iframe. What we did is quite conventional. In fact, the API is all about creating a meeting then loading the client. Jitsi’s api explicitly mentions iframe parent in their JS API.

Frankly, I don’t see the need for NC’s internal (or paid) signalling for webrtc (except maybe for the file-side chat which has a simple camera-only client – BBB does not have that yet). Another exception is for low-volume self-hosted NC instances … in which case you don’t need a full videoconf anyway. I don’t see a business-case for their high-performance server.

NOTES:

  1. We just made an improvement to Talk with BigBlueButton to show the BBB client full-width and hide all the sidebars when a call is launched (you can, of course reopen the right sidebar with the call info).
  2. There is an open-source nodejs signalling server here: https://gitlab.com/powerpaul17/nc_talk_backend – haven’t tried it and doc is skimpy
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The founder of Nextcloud @frank Karlitscheck has expressed support for a new effort to write an open source Nextcloud Talk backend server alternative and has offered help:

I suggest @ramezrafla and vicole ping him directly to ask for support for the Big Blue Button integration as well. Given Nextcloud’s new partnership with Ionos and Viakom to push Nextcloud as solution for schools and SMEs there should be enough synergy to make this interesting for them:

Nextcloud Talk is based on code done by Spreed, a company that is keeping the High Performance Backend to Talk closed source and is asking huge license fees for it . So its just not accurate to imply that Nextcloud is benefiting from the fact that the High Performance Backend is closed source

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A bunch of public and private school districts are just getting used to using Zoom, and their demand has blown up since giving unlocked accounts to schools for free… and now with both major privacy and security revelations recently, school districts are starting to ban its use just as quickly. Many of them also use Google Drive to reduce storage costs, but our state AG also has a lawsuit on Google for data mining students.

There is definitely room for Nextcloud to pick up popularity, both among data storage and teleconferencing.

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Thanks @menelic, @frank

Schools and Colleges are using Big Blue Button as their preferred communication tool (if they are not using Office365 or GSuite) as it includes white board, break out rooms etc. Our ‘Talk with Big Blue Button’ App is used in production and ready for prime-time.

We listed on the README a few things that need to be done (3 things to be exact). If interested, Nextcloud folks can reach out to me to plan next steps. As it is, it serves our purpose very well, time for the community / NC to step in if more customisation are needed.

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@menelic
I can’t speak on the veracity of this claim. But I can tell you that Big Blue Button has been around for a very long time (and others too, like Red5; Jitsi is over 10 years old). I can’t see any good reason for NC to support a no-name no-body small basement outfit with their own implementation of some esoteric signalling algorithm no one knows about and they keep their own server closed source. All their public repos on Github are abandoned and desolate.

And I am mincing my words …

However, to say it’s business and provides a stream of revenue to finance operations, that … I buy.

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Would be great to have BBB support too. But we need someone to actually implement it. Does someone volunteer?

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@frank, it’s done already and working in production

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Nice. I’m not sure abut the UI but this can be discussed of course. Can you make this installable as a separate app? Maybe as a plugin for Talk. Or as a complete standalone solution that can be used in parallel to Talk?

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Agreed, we need to change the name (mentioned in the README)

It was meant as a drop-in replacement for Talk as we faced hurdles for large audiences. We’d appreciate some assistance as this is our first NC App. In terms of plugin for Talk, not sure as I haven’t seen such support for Talk.

What don’t you like about the UI :slight_smile: – it’s the same UI as NC Talk

Except, that we go full width when starting a new call (as the BBB client was designed for that, which makes sense given all the features on-screen, such as presentation, chat room etc.) – Note: image in README to be updated

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Thanks @ramezrafla. I seach for this.
Nextcloud & BBB.

I have installed from your GIT repo an its work fine.

Thanks.

1 Like