Greenlight: Vanity/Nice URL for rooms?

[gilou]

Hi,
Is it possible/simple to let users choose the URL of the room? The default could maybe be improved to user-room-urlified-name (I guess you want a bit of privacy, but well), but if there's no conflict we could let them choose what they want? or allow admin (or other role) to create a set of rooms with clear names?

I haven't looked at the code yet, I'm just relaying a request from users of a non-profit I installed GL/BBB for!

Cheers,
Gilou

[gilou]

I'm imagining the random uid is generated here: https://github.com/bigbluebutton/greenlight/blob/a82526736b047beadd8dad46c6a1b78ad10099e6/app/models/room.rb#L87 and the 3 userchunk-xxx-xxx part is here: https://github.com/bigbluebutton/greenlight/blob/a82526736b047beadd8dad46c6a1b78ad10099e6/app/models/room.rb#L99-L102

It seems that it's then used properly through the model everywhere, so that must just be a nice URL for RoR to play with? And if we change that, it should have no impact on previously created rooms.

Could be: sort of name-chunk for the name of the room, or a function to make the room name url compliant by default?

[farhatahmad]

Is it possible/simple to let users choose the URL of the room?

Not at the moment. Allowing the users to set their own room ids is tricky from the user experience point of view. It wouldn't be too hard to implement, but I'm not sure if this is something we would want to do.

I'm imagining the random uid is generated here:

Yes that's correct

so that must just be a nice URL for RoR to play with?

Not necessarily. The uid could be set to anything as long as it's unique. We originally chose to use that format and just never thought about the idea of changing it

[gilou]

OK, it has been pointed out at least once, but I get it, let's not worry about it for now!
Thanks for your feedback, and thank for GL/BBB !

[Socob]

I would second this request; it’s a common feature in other conferencing services. Sure, it’s very low priority, but the issue should be left open as long as it’s requested by users and not addressed (either by implementation or a WONTFIX/note in the documentation).

[gilou]

OK, let's keep it open then!

I'll look into it, there are ways to do that nicely I'm sure...

[kkplein]

Wanted to ask the same question. :-) If there are doubts about allowing users to change room names, how about making it an admin feature?
In the admin screen, Server Rooms, an ID edit-button would allow the creation of some nice institutional rooms, while keeping the rest of the software / user interface untouched.

[mrkeksi]

I also ask for a primary school. The link is very easy to share via email but not every student gets the email on his mobile phone. So they have to type in the code. Is it not possible to have a word generator? Something like tree house, plant house, house stone, tree green. Just meaningless any words.

[farhatahmad]

Just a heads up, this can be done manually at the moment.

Running the commands below while replacing CURRENT_ROOM_ID with the current uid (eg ahm-a13-123) and NEW_CUSTOM_ID with the new uid you want (eg test-room) will change your url from https://greenlight-hostname/b/ahm-a13-123 to https://greenlight-hostname/b/test-room

docker exec -it greenlight-v2 bash
bundle exec rails c
Room.find_by(uid: "CURRENT_ROOM_ID").update_attribute(:uid, "NEW_CUSTOM_ID")

[kkplein]

Thanks for that suggestion! Appreciated. We will try it. Would be nice if it could be added to the (perhaps admin only) user interface though.

[adrianstoker]

Just a heads up, this can be done manually at the moment.

Running the commands below while replacing CURRENT_ROOM_ID with the current uid (eg ahm-a13-123) and NEW_CUSTOM_ID with the new uid you want (eg test-room) will change your url from https://greenlight-hostname/b/ahm-a13-123 to https://greenlight-hostname/b/test-room

docker exec -it greenlight-v2 bash
bundle exec rails c
Room.find_by(uid: "CURRENT_ROOM_ID").update_attribute(:uid, "NEW_CUSTOM_ID")

This is a perfect workaround until a decision is made on doing this from the frontend! Thanks.

[Balbuto]

Just a heads up, this can be done manually at the moment.
Running the commands below while replacing CURRENT_ROOM_ID with the current uid (eg ahm-a13-123) and NEW_CUSTOM_ID with the new uid you want (eg test-room) will change your url from https://greenlight-hostname/b/ahm-a13-123 to https://greenlight-hostname/b/test-room
docker exec -it greenlight-v2 bash
bundle exec rails c
Room.find_by(uid: "CURRENT_ROOM_ID").update_attribute(:uid, "NEW_CUSTOM_ID")

This is a perfect workaround until a decision is made on doing this from the frontend! Thanks.

Is this work for rooms with non-english lang naming (CUSTOM_ID)?

[keunes]

Allowing the users to set their own room ids is tricky from the user experience point of view.

I custom room names would be superhelpful (even if not high priority). Not sure why it would be tricky or complicated to get the UX right? By default rooms get a random url. Add a button 'Customise URL' (simliarly to the access code button) and once clicked allow users to set a custom url.

[farhatahmad]

That comment was made 3 months ago before the introduction of some of the intermediate things that was required to get this. The first step (which was done in 2.5.5 or 2.5.6) was to make room options configurable by admins. Since this is a feature that would need to be configurable, I had to wait until that was done before I can take a look at this

[gilou]

Hi, I'm available to get back on that, so I'll get back at the drawing board, unless there are some development regarding this feature?