Develop mobile application using API BBB HTML5 Client

[Ramakant Verma]

Hello Every One,

I am willing to develop a cross platform  online meeting mobile application.
I Know mobile does not support the Flash client.
So i decided to use HTML 5 Client
I have installed it on server using the following command given at url http://docs.bigbluebutton.org/html/html5-overview.html#try-out-the-html5-client-by-installing-it-from-packages

$ sudo apt-get install bbb-html5
$ sudo bbb-conf --restart

I have checked my HTML 5 Client using http://my_ip>/html5client/check and it works fine, I got result as  {"html5clientStatus":"running"}.And i have flash client also installed.
I tried to access the BBB server in mobile browser , I got Message say that Flash Client does not support instead use the HTML 5 Client , and when I click on it, It take me to user name page and I can connect to Meeting successfully in mobile Browser.

For web development we can use the API listed on this page http://docs.bigbluebutton.org/dev/api.html, and its working fine.
Now I have few concern
1 How to develop for mobile application (native or cross platform, creating meeting and join in web browser is not a good idea as Meeting UI does  not render completely)
2 How to force server to serve using HTML 5 Client rather than giving option of flash client and HTML 5Client, when call is from mobile
3 where are the API for getting video , audio stream , chat etc

I google a lot , but i don't  find even single sample of mobile application .
Thanks in advance.

[Anton Georgiev]

Hey Verma,

I would recommend setting up a development environment for the html5 client instead of using the packages. You should use the code from 'master' branch in github. The version of the client on 'master' is actually quite different from the package as we've rewritten a big chunk of the code in the last months [and haven't updated the packages]. The client has not reached a beta yet, there are still quire a few aspects of it under construction (i.e. video) but it's stable enough for development. We use React on the client side on top of the Meteor platform (server-client). So when you are searching for sample applications look for key words React/ReactNative/Meteor.

That being said, the most challenging aspect is the media. We rely on webrtc which is supported only on Android at the moment (not on iOS) mobile devices.

>2 How to force server to serve using HTML 5 Client rather than giving option of flash client and HTML 5Client, when call is from mobile

You can use this page to login straight into html5 client: <ip>/demo/demoHTML5.jsp

>1 How to develop for mobile application

We are mostly focusing on the in-browser approach. We are also looking into ReactNative but do not have clear guidelines. If you are interested in the full capabilities of a BBB client perhaps you should try (re)creating a webrtc app for mobile and morph it into a bbb-client.

> 3 where are the API for getting video , audio stream , chat etc 

The html5 client has a server component which is receiving/sending events in redis pubsub. The meeting/chat/... info is stored in MongoDB and is sync-ed with the client side. There is no API to go around for the html5 client. For general API: http://docs.bigbluebutton.org/dev/api.html

Regards,

Anton