[Sugar-devel] Collaboration support for sugar web activities

[Code Raguet]

Hi, Emil. Awesome work!

I'd like to collaborate with the collaboration.js API design and
implementation.
I'll ping at IRC




On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 5:10 PM, Emil Dudev <emildudev at gmail.com> wrote:

> After a lot of debugging of javascript, I'm finally able to show a small
> preview of what TogetherJS will look like.
> The branches will be at the bottom.
>
> For testing purposes I've chosen the Get Things Done web activity.
> The first thing I added to GTD was colors, so entries by different users
> can be distinguished. This is probably not the best way, but it's simple.
> When you open the activity, you'll notice a new icon at the top. When you
> click on the icon, TogetherJS will start. You will notice it's panel at the
> right side of the screen. There you should have access to the chat and some
> user options (I've disabled the audio chat).
> After TogetherJS has started, you can go to the network view and invite a
> user. Because this feature is not fully implemented, only the creator will
> be able to invite other users. Also, there will be little to no indication
> of an accepted invite.
> When the other user accepts the invite, GTD will start and TogetherJS will
> start automatically, too. Since it's still in development, Mozilla's public
> hub server is used, and it may take a while for the connection to start.
> With me it takes about 10-15 seconds before the session starts.
> After that, the users can begin collaborating. They can see their pointers
> (I've disabled click indication). The list should be synced. TogetherJS's
> chat is available the entire time.
> Since GTD is simple, it was easy to setup list syncing. The code can be an
> example.
> I've noticed some bugs in my syncing code, but it's nothing big and you
> can still see TogetherJS's capabilities.
>
> About the code:
> I've implemented only the bare minimum to get my tests working. Full
> support of sugar's invites is needed (indication of accepted invite, list
> of users on the shared activity...).
> The code is full of different kind of notes (mostly TODO ones). This is
> just on this stage.
> About the javascript code: I've added a file collaboration.js, which
> should be the interface between an activity and TogetherJS. The file I've
> created is... not good enough. Probably it would be best to integrate it
> with a Storage element, like it is done in dictstore. I have no idea how
> such an API would look like.
> As noted above, currently Mozilla's hub server is used. I have plans to
> redirect this through telepathy, but I'll probably work on that next week.
>
> A long email with lots of information. I've probably forgot to mention
> something. If there is something, I'll add it later.
>
> Changes:
> sugar-toolkit-gtk3:
> https://github.com/edudev/sugar-toolkit-gtk3/tree/collaboration
> sugar: https://github.com/edudev/sugar/tree/collaboration
> gtd-activity: https://github.com/edudev/gtd-activity/tree/collaboration
> togetherjs (This is not needed, it's just to show the changes I've made):
> https://github.com/edudev/togetherjs/tree/sugar
>
> Regards,
> Emil Dudev
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 9:52 AM, Emil Dudev <emildudev at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks to Manuel Quiñones, I was able to check out in detail a Mozilla
>> project - https://togetherjs.org
>>
>> TogetherJS is a javascript library for... well, collaboration.
>>
>>
>>
>> It consists of a client side and a server side.
>>
>> The server side acts only as a bridge between clients and it repeats
>> the messages it recieves. It's nothing complicated, nothing
>> interesting, I'll ignore that for now.
>>
>>
>>
>> Once in a TogetherJS session, users can communicate with each other
>> (there is a chat offered by TogetherJS). User's pointers are also
>> shared (if desired). There also other features like audio chat and
>> video syncing, which are somewhat experimental (by what I understood
>> from the docs).
>>
>> More importantly, except these features, the library comes with an
>> API, which will allow web activity authors to sync different objects
>> from the page. Everything is controlled by javascript.
>>
>>
>>
>> I've already started on integrating TogetherJS with sugar.
>>
>> In order for two users to be in the same session, they must share one
>> togetherjs ID. I've based this ID sharing on telepathy - like the
>> current activity invites are sent.
>>
>> After having the same ID, the session is then supported by the upper
>> mentioned server. Mozilla has offered such a server for public use,
>> but I do not think that sugar should be using it. I think that it
>> would be best if this is handled via telepathy, just like the current
>> activities communicate. As mentioned above, the server has no special
>> role other than receiving messages and sending them to all
>> participating clients.
>>
>> An alternative would be to host such a server for sugar's needs (the
>> server is a single nodejs script). I do not like this way, as it would
>> cause web activities to depend on an Internet connection.
>>
>>
>>
>> I hope that by the end of the week I can show a web activity having
>> collaboration support based on TogetherJS.
>>
>>
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Emil Dudev
>>
>
>
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