Simultaneous writing for multiple users

[Fu Jiantao]

Dear core-dev,

Currently, only the presenter is allowed to write on the
whiteboard. I've check the code and find that if we allow multiple
presenters, it can support simultaneous writing for multiple users,
doing so seems only need to modify the client(logic, some ui code),
without touch the server code. using presenters list instead.

My question is:

1. What do you think about this feature?

Actually, the requirement comes for learntobe.org(Neeraj Kapoor)

2. am i in the right direction?

Thanks in advance!


Regards,
Jeromy

[Chad Pilkey]

I've actually already added an option to the whiteboard module to allow multi-user editing. I gave it three options: presenter only (default), pres + mod, and all.

The code is in the master already, but I will stress that it isn't tested and there's likely edge cases I missed.

Chad

[nekapoor]

Hey Chad, 

With your implementation, how does the undo button work?  Does it just undo only the markings made by a person in the conference or just the latest mark made on the presentation?  

And, in your implementation, does the moderator have control of giving and taking back control of who can be presenter?  

Thanks, this is really exciting!

[Fu Jiantao]

Thanks Chad, very helpful, I will update the code and read them.

Go on with the possible affections:

the recording on the server need also modified, it won't break the
recording if that information is not used (Not very sure yet about the
recording enhancement in coming release 0.81)

Undo is tricky if the server logic is not modified, thanks for point
out, the server will store the annotations of the presenters, and will
remove the last one when undo, so it would be better store the
annotations for each presenter.

2013/3/24 Chad Pilkey <capi...@gmail.com>:

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[Chad Pilkey]

When you enable multi-editing, undo will just remove whatever the last mark was no matter who authored the mark. If you changed it to only remove your marks it would complicate the logic quite a bit and it would introduce a lot of edge cases and even new use cases for moderation.

The recording functionality shouldn't need to be changed at all as well, the server doesn't care who made an annotation.

[Fu Jiantao]

Hi Chad,

I quick went through the code.

Good start point for me. Thanks a lot!

But I need some other features:

1. moderate can control who can do this. Currently implementation
support only configuration.

2. The undo logic is the same as before, seems tricky for the user.

Thanks
Jeromy

2013/3/24 Fu Jiantao <fuj...@gmail.com>:

[Chad Pilkey]

Both of those are definitely possible and probably wouldn't require too much work, but they would definitely require changes to the apps code. The hardest part, in my opinion, would be designing the UI so that it's simple, easy to use, and doesn't clutter up the existing UI.

[Andy]

Hi Chad,

Is this a new feature in 0.81, or can I enable this feature on our 0.8 server?

Thanks, Andy

[Fred Dixon]

Hi Andy,

This code is only in 0.81 master and not available in 0.80 release.

Right now, we're currently focusing our testing in the core items slated for release in BigBlueButton 0.81-beta, see

  https://code.google.com/p/bigbluebutton/wiki/081Overview

Regards,... Fred

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[Chad Pilkey]

I would also stress that I the multi-user whiteboard feature that I put hasn't been thoroughly tested so it's quite possible that there's edge case bugs. It was just something I thought would be neat so I put it in.

The logic is pretty simple to enable and you could potentially backport it to 0.8, but there would be no official support. If you have programming knowledge the two main functions that control access in 0.81 are https://github.com/bigbluebutton/bigbluebutton/blob/master/bigbluebutton-client/src/org/bigbluebutton/modules/whiteboard/views/WhiteboardToolbar.mxml#L243 and https://github.com/bigbluebutton/bigbluebutton/blob/master/bigbluebutton-client/src/org/bigbluebutton/modules/whiteboard/views/WhiteboardToolbar.mxml#L262. I also added a property to the config.xml to control the level of access.

[Sam Naef]

Hi Chad,

Wow this is super news, I thought it still had to be written

( bbb ticket: https://code.google.com/p/bigbluebutton/issues/detail?id=1302)

Does this mean that if we spin up the latest version of bbb we'll still be able to get simultaneous whiteboard editors if we follow your steps in:

https://github.com/bigbluebutton/bigbluebutton/blob/master/bigbluebutton-client/src/org/bigbluebutton/modules/whiteboard/views/WhiteboardToolbar.mxml#L243 https://github.com/bigbluebutton/bigbluebutton/blob/master/bigbluebutton-client/src/org/bigbluebutton/modules/whiteboard/views/WhiteboardToolbar.mxml#L262.

I'm not a programmer, but if I send these links to my programmers and tell them to add a property to the config.xml to control the level of access also… should they be able to make simultaneous whiteboard editing?

Thanks!

Sam

- founder of iSKILLu (enabling free 121 learning worldwide)

[Fred Dixon]

Hi Sam,

Note that you've replied to a post is 2 years old.  That puts timing puts it against development versions of the previous release (0.81).

> I send these links to my programmers and tell them to add a property to the config.xml to control the level of access also… should they be able to make simultaneous whiteboard editing?

You'll definitely need someone with development skills.  In broad strokes, they should go through 0.81's whiteboard and understand how it works, then understand what Chad had done (and what's left to make it complete and fix bugs), then go through 0.9.0-beta's whiteboard and understand the differences with 0.81, and then apply (or adapt) Chad's work to 0.9.0-beta.

Technically it's possible, but it's not something we've focused on in 0.9.0-beta (we have enough to keep us pretty busy with this release as it is :-).

Regards,.. Fred

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[Sam Naef]

Hi Fred,

Super thanks very much for these crucial steps.

I'll discuss with my programmers and see what they think.

Chad - if you're still around are you able to offer any input?

i.e. whether there's a testable version of your changes somewhere?

Thanks all,

Sam

[Chad Pilkey]

 It never really worked after I wrote it and a lot has changed since I put it in so it's possible that it works even worse now.

The problem of multi-user whiteboard isn't a simple one. The code is designed with one presenter in mind from the very start. Having two users drawing at once leads to conflicts between them. I realized that after I wrote my quick fix (that didn't work).

To do it correctly requires more work and clearly defining what should happen in each of the many conflicts. Also, as Fred mentioned we are focused on trying to get 0.9 out and other things have a higher priority at the moment.