Add ability to join public calls without an account

[enoch85]

To get a wider spread of Talk, and enhance the usability it would be nice to somehow generate automatic guest accounts that users could use with Talk.

So for example, if I choose a contact from the telephones contacts (full contact book) a link would be generated that automatically creates a guest user that are valid for let's say 1 hour.

That way anyone with Nextcloud and Talk installed could use Talk for private chats or video calls - not depending if they have Talk or not.

Maybe my idea isn't so thought through, but I would really like to make it easier for anyone using Talk without the need for a Nextcloud Server. I know that we have public conversations, but it would be nice to invite anyone using a guest account so that the external user could get the full benefit of using Talk on their Phone as well.

Maybe send something automatically generated per SMS like:

Hey! [Full Name] wants to talk to you on Nextcloud Talk. Download the app from Play here: [Link]
Your temporary credentials are:

Username:
Password: 

The credentials are valid for 1 hour.

The server address is: [Address of the senders server based on what's used for Talk in their config]

My proposal would need some work on the server side as well I guess.

[mahibi]

@sudwhiwdh regarding the roadmap and version numbers: #984 i would like to implement this feature but i'm afraid there are other things to do first, so i can't tell when i'll find the time.

[JRGonz]

Am I to assume (as in my case) this request is the same as requesting that non-account users can use the talk app to join password protected Talk channels? ie: you can give a person a link to put into the talk app and it would ask for the password for the channel and stay logged in. Just curious. I apologize if I have the intent of this wrong.

[enoch85]

@JRGonz Basically, the request is about letting guests, without an account, to join via link to a shared conversation.

1. You have a Nextcloud server with Talk installed and working
2. You want to talk to person B via Talk
3. Person B doesn't have Nextcloud, nor Talk.
4. You share a link with person B to a channel you created in your Talk
5. Person B can join, with or without password (depending on if you set the channel to be password protected or not).

I hope that clears it up. :)

[sirweazel]

I also wanted to express interest in this feature. 3ish years ago, i tried talk with some friends and family around a holiday. I couldn't make everyone an account on the fly and get them logged in. The web only did not work well on small apple and android devices at the time (i haven't tried it recently, but I will soon). We ended up switching to zoom that day. Someone without an account, but with a link (password protected or not) could click on to get into a talk chat or call without having a nextcloud account but launched via the installed app. Maybe try and replicate the end user experience of some of the other conferencing options out there (as it goes for users without accounts). I know this is the android version request, but it would be good if it occurred for apple also.

[mahibi]

moved to planning evaluation so this request might get more attention..

[sudwhiwdh]

moved to planning evaluation so this request might get more attention.

@mahibi Are there any security-critical aspects to consider when introducing such an enhancement?

[mahibi]

@mahibi Are there any security-critical aspects to consider when introducing such an enhancement?

No critical aspects that i'm spontaneausly aware of, but we will discuss in more detail when the feature is planned.

[sudwhiwdh]

Thank you very much for addressing this issue!

Do you have an impulse right now in which development cycle you want to look at this?

[mahibi]

i can not estimate when the development will be started but being on Planning evaluation it's more likely to be picked up..