search

bigbluebutton / bigbluebutton-html-plugin-sdk

BigBlueButton Plugin SDK
GNU Lesser General Public License v3.0
6 stars 5 forks source link

readme

BigBlueButton SDK for HTML5 Client Plugins

This repository contains the SDK for developing BigBlueButton plugins. Plugins are React components that can be loaded from external sources by the BigBlueButton HTML5 client to extend its functionalities.

Examples

A variety of example implementations to manipulate different parts of the BBB client can be found in the samples folder.

Usage

This is a general instruction on how to use a plugin. For a detailed configuration example of each use case, have a look at the READMEs in the respective samples-folders.

Running the Plugin from Source

For development purposes you can run a plugin locally from source.

For example if you take the sample-action-button-dropdown-plugin, you do the following:

  1. Start the development server:

    cd $HOME/src/bigbluebutton-html-plugin-sdk/samples/sample-action-button-dropdown-plugin
npm install
npm start

  2. Add reference to it on BigBlueButton's settings.yml:

    public:
 plugins:
   - name: SampleActionButtonDropdownPlugin
     url: http://127.0.0.1:4701/static/SampleActionButtonDropdownPlugin.js

N.B.: Be aware that in this case the url is interpreted from the plugin in the browser, so the localhost is actually your local development machine.

Building the Plugin

To build a plugin for production use (again, using the example of sample-action-button-dropdown-plugin), follow these steps:

cd $HOME/src/bigbluebutton-html-plugin-sdk/samples/sample-action-button-dropdown-plugin
npm install
npm run build-bundle

The above command will generate the dist folder, containing the bundled JavaScript file named SampleActionButtonDropdownPlugin.js. This file can be hosted on any HTTPS server.

To use the plugin with BigBlueButton, add the plugin's URL to settings.yml as shown below:

public:
  app:
    ... // All app configurations
  plugins:
    - name: SampleActionButtonDropdownPlugin
      url: <<PLUGIN_URL>>
  ... // All other configurations

Hosting the Plugin on a BBB Server

While the plugin can be hosted on any Server, it is also possible to host the bundled file directly on a BigBlueButton server. For that you copy the dist/SampleActionButtonDropdownPlugin.js to the folder /var/www/bigbluebutton-default/assets/plugins. In this case, the <<PLUGIN_URL>> will be https://<your-host>/plugins/SampleActionButtonDropdownPlugin.js.

API

Extensible UI areas

Foreach of the following ui-extensible-area, we have a different setter function accessible via pluginApi.

Mind that, although each area has its own structure, all the functions follows a certain argument structure, and returns nothing, that would be:

pluginApi.setterFunctionExample([{
  objectProperty1: 'string',
  objectProperty2: 123,
}])

See, it is basicaly a function that requires an array as an argument, with which the more items you push to that array, the more of that extensible area you will have.

That being said, here are the extensible areas we have so far:

Mind that no plugin will interfere into another's extensible area. So feel free to set whatever you need into a certain plugin with no worries.

Getters available through the API:

Realtime data consumption

So for these types of hooks, the return will follow the same structure:

export interface GraphqlResponseWrapper<TData> {
  loading: boolean;
  data?: TData;
  error?: ApolloError;
}

So we have the data, which is different for each hook, that's why it's a generic, the error, that will be set if, and only if, there is an error, otherwise it is undefined, and loading, which tells the developer if the query is still loading (being fetched) or not.

Real time data exchange

So for this hook to read the data from the data channel, the developer will be able to choose the format in which they want it.The possible formats are described down below:

An interesting thing about this hook is that it is generic, so, you can use a custom type, and this will be found not only in the consumer part of the data structure returned, but also in functions in which you need to specify an object to be persisted, meaning it will force the object to be of the type you mentioned previously (that is the case for pushEntry and replaceEntry). One can find examples of usage of this in the data-channel plugin sample or most of the official ones. The syntax is described below:

const {
  data: response, // Data that will be returned
  pushEntry: pushEntryFunction, // Function to push another item to the data-channel
  deleteEntry: deleteEntryFunction, // Function to delete specific item or wipe all
  replaceEntry: replaceEntryFunction, // Function replace a specifi item
} = useDataChannel<CustomType>(
  channelName, // Defined according to what is on settings.yml from bbb-htlm5
  DataChannelTypes.All_ITEMS, // | LATEST_ITEM | NEW_ITEMS -> ALL_ITEMS is default
  subChannelName = 'default', // If no subchannelName is specified, it will be 'default'
);

Wiping all data off will delete every item from the specific data-channel within the specific subchannel-name.

The data-channel name must be written in the settings.yml.

All the permission for writing and deleting must be in the yaml too just like the example ahead:

public:
  plugins:
    - name: PluginName
      url: http://<your-hosted-plugin>/PluginName.js
      dataChannels:
        - name: channel-name
          # pushPermission options: moderator, presenter, all
          pushPermission: ['moderator','presenter']
          # replaceOrDeletePermission options: moderator, presenter, creator, all
          replaceOrdeletePermission:
            - moderator
            - sender

If no permission is mentioned in the yaml (writing or deleting), no one will be able proceed with that specific action:

The pushEntryFunction has a minor detail to pay attention to, it is possible to specify the users who you want to send the item to, if none is specified, all will receive the item, such as done ahead:

pushEntryFunction(objectToBePushed: T, options: {
  receivers?: ObjectTo[];
})
export interface ToUserId {
  userId: string;
}
export interface ToRole {
  role: DataChannelPushEntryFunctionUserRole;
}

export type ObjectTo = ToUserId | ToRole;

Real time ui data consumption

Example of usage:

  const currentLocale = pluginApi.useUiData(IntlLocaleUiDataNames.CURRENT_LOCALE, {
    locale: 'en',
    fallbackLocale: 'en',
  });
  // Do something with the currentLocale:
  currentLocale.locale;
  currentLocale.fallbackLocale;

Mind that foreach enum we have, a different type of fallback is needed as the second argument. In the example above, we want the intl, so the second argument, will follow the structure depicted.

One other thing is that the type of the return is precisely the same type required as the second argument.

Ui Commands to automatize tasks in BBB

uiCommands object: It basically contains all the possible commands available to the developer to interact with the core BBB UI, see the ones implemented down below:

See usage ahead:

  pluginApi.uiCommands.chat.form.open();
  pluginApi.uiCommands.chat.form.fill({
    text: 'Just an example message filled by the plugin',
  });

So the idea is that we have a uiCommands object and at a point, there will be the command to do the intended action, such as open the chat form and/or fill it, as demonstrated above

Server Commands

serverCommands object: It contains all the possible commands available to the developer to interact with the BBB core server, see the ones implemented down below:

Dom Element Manipulation

Learning Analytics Dashboard integration

The object structure of this function's argument must be:

interface GenericDataForLearningAnalyticsDashboard {
  cardTitle: string; // Yet to be implemented (future updates)
  columnTitle: string;
  value: string;
}

So that the data will appear in the following form:

User Count <columnTitle>
user-name 1 <value>

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

How do I remove a certain extensible area that I don't want anymore? It is pretty simple: just set an empty array of elements of that specific extensible area. Or simply remove the specific item of the array and set the new array to that extensible area in the next iteration.

See example below:

// First iteration:
  // Define both variables:
  const dropdownToUserListItem = { ... };
  const buttonToUserListItem = { ... };
  pluginApi.setActionsBarItems([dropdownToUserListItem, buttonToUserListItem]);

// Second iteration:
  // Redefine variable(s):
  const newButtonToUserListItem = { ... };
  pluginApi.setActionsBarItems([newButtonToUserListItem]);

// Third iteration:
  // I don't want any of this extensible-area:
  pluginApi.setActionsBarItems([]);
  // All set from this plugin will disappear from the UI;

How to propperly build a plugin? Just go to your plugin folder, install dependencies and run the build command as follows:

cd my-plugin-folder/
npm i
npm run build-bundl

At this point, another folder will be created into the plugin directory called "dist/" inside of that folder you will find the plugin itself MyPlugin.js. Remember that the name of this file will be the same as defined in the webpack.config.js, such as:

module.exports = {
  // ... Other configurations
  output: {
    filename: 'MyPlugin.js'
  }
  // ... Other configurations
}

Does the builded plugin need to be in the same BBB server? No, feel free to host it anywhere you want, just make sure to point the URL from settings.ymlcorrectly.

I am making my plugin based on a sample inside the SDK, but somehow, the sample is not working properly, what do I do to run it in dev mode and make it work? Well there are several motives to why the sample is not working properly, so I will go through each one of them briefly:

How to troubleshoot the plugins? See if it has loaded in the BBB, for instance. Well, each time a set of plugins are listed in the bbb-html5.yml, it will fire some logs based on the amount of plugins that it need to load inside the client. So open the console in the browser by pressing F12 key in your keyboard and search for the following log:

<ratio of loaded plugins> plugins loaded

If 1 out of 5 plugins loaded, you'll see "1/5 plugins loaded", and so on.

Also, when a plugin loaded, the client will log it's name like:

Loaded plugin MyPlugin

Sometimes, there could be the case of a plugin to not load properly and an error will log with the following message:

Error when loading plugin MyPlugin, error:  {"isTrusted":true}

In this case, the URL that leads to the plugin is not available or leads to an error. But it can log something different, so pay attention to what the error message will tell you.

Lastly, there are, of course, other scenarios and different informative logs, but these are the most common and important ones. Please contact us if you feel we left something out!