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diggsweden / jitsi-outlook

A Jitsi plugin for outlook.
MIT License
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Jitsi Outlook add-in

Unit Tests Standard commitment REUSE status

The purpose of this plug-in is to simplify the process of adding video conference links to meeting bookings. It is designed for users who value and require simplicity to complete their tasks quickly and intuitively. Therefore, it is important to preserve this simplicity as new features are added. Any additional contributions to the software must be designed in a way that does not interfere with or complicate the core functionality of booking a regular meeting with just one click.

The plugin randomly generates a Jitsi link to an appointment (while in the appointment creation window). It was built based on the Yeoman generator, as described in the this guide.

Photo: Jitsi Outlook plugin example / HaV / CC0

Jitsi Outlook plugin example / HaV / CC0

Table of Contents

Installation and Requirements

Publishing the add-in

See Development for how you can run and test the project locally.

This project does not provide a hosting or publishing recommendation, that is entirely up to the individual(s) using it. Microsoft provides a comprehensive publishing guide and provides different options in the following link.

Supported Outlook Versions

The add-in works on the following Outlook versions:

*This add-in does not work in the mobile app.

Known issues

This project is a stripped down version with basic functionality. There are ideas and possible plans for the future.

Contributing

Please see the CONTRIBUTING guide.

Development

Installing the add-in on your Outlook

For development, The add-in needs to be added to the relevant Outlook environment. The methods to do this are described in this section.

Adding the add-in to the Outlook taskbar

The manifest.xml can be added as an add-in manually, through Outlooks add-in portal:

  1. Open Outlook
  2. Click the "..." button on the toolbar
  3. Select "Get Add-ins"
  4. Click on the "My add-ins" alternative on the left side menu
  5. Click on the "Add a custom add-in" dropdown in the bottom section
  6. Select the relevant alternative for where your manifest file is stored
  7. Add the manifest.xml file and let it validate and load

When it has finished loading the add-in should be visible in the toolbar whenever you have the event organizer window open. I.e. when you are trying to organize and invite people to meeting.

Running the development server locally

You can run and test the add-in code by running the following npm command:

npm run dev-server

This will start the local development server on port 3000. If the aforementioned manifest.xml variables have been set to your local machine you will be able to run the add-in locally.

Configuration

This section describes how the add-in should and can be configured.

config.json

The add-in can be configured through the use of a configuration file (named config.json), that should be placed in the root directory. The following is an example of how the configuration file could look like:

{
    "baseUrl": "https://my-jitsi-instance-url",
    "additionalText": "Some additional text beneath the signature"
}

All of the properties listed below can also be added to enable/disable any extra features.

Property Type Description
baseUrl string Base url to your Jitsi instance.
locationString string This text is added to the Location field of the meeting.
additionalText string This text will show up at the bottom of the email signature.
fontFamily string The font family used for for the signature text (defaulting to Arial)
startWithAudioMuted boolean This forces the mic to be muted for every person entering the meeting.
startWithVideoMuted boolean This forces the camera to be disabled for every person entering the meeting.
disableInitialGUM boolean Skips the initial permission check and configuration screen (GUM = getUserMedia).

Note that configuration is entirely optional and that Jitsi's default configuration will be used as a default if no configuration file is found in the project. The add-in will default to https://meet.jit.si if no configuration file is found.

manifest.xml

The manifest.xml file found in the root directory is the core of the add-in. This file contains the specification, points of entry, used methods and assets that the add-in should use. It is through this file that Outlook knows where to find the relevant assets in the project. In order to run this add-in you will need to add some urls that are specific for your use case, these places in the file are highlighted with three variables as shown below:

Installation and setup

Thereafter, all the dependencies need to be installed:

npm install

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details

Maintainers

asom