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Brent Baccala edited this page Feb 18, 2021 · 8 revisions

bbb-vnc-collaborate

  1. Usage

    From a Big Blue Button session, "share remote desktop" and use the URL wss://BBB_SERVER/vnc/{jwt}. Replace BBB_SERVER with the DNS name of your Big Blue Button server, but type the string {jwt} into the URL just like it appears - those five characters. No password is required, as the JSON Web Token provides the authentication.

    See {jwt} - why is this needed?`

  2. Inside the desktops, you may want to run set-gnome-terminal-fonts to get more convenient control over the display fonts.

    You might want to run xrandr to set the display geometry. I like to use xrandr --fb 1280x768. Select "Restart FVWM" after this step so that the window manager recognizes the new geometry.

    You might want to set the default display geometry in /etc/vnc.conf.

    You might want to set your screen background color using xsetroot -solid orange, for example.

    You might want to set a JPEG as your screen background using display -window root photo.jpg, for example.

  3. If you want to modify your window manager configuration, take a quick look at /usr/share/fvwm/default-config/config. That's the default configuration file, and all it does is load the default configuration from the vnc_collaborate module.

    So, put your custom configuration into the .fvwm/config file under your home directory, and just start that file with the following line:

    PipeRead 'python3 -m vnc_collaborate print fvwm_config'

    Add anything you'd like after that. Or run that python command to see the default config.

  4. If you want to change your window manager (GNOME, anyone?), you're out of luck at the moment.

    We use the FVWM window manager to support screensharing between the remote desktops, and no other window manager can do that (at this time).

    Closing issue #26 would fix this problem.

  5. To obtain "teacher mode" access (a grid view of all student desktops), add the teacher account to the bigbluebutton group, using a command like this:

    sudo adduser BrentBaccala bigbluebutton

    Then hide and restore the teacher's desktop to obtain the grid view.

    1. Clicking on a student's desktop brings that desktop full screen and allows interaction with it.
    2. SHIFT-ALT-Q escapes back to the grid view. You can also get back to the grid view by hiding and restoring the teacher's remote desktop.
    3. The right button menu includes a screenshare option that can be used to project any desktop (teacher or student) to all of the other desktops.
    4. Students (viewers) can be selectively deafed using the right button pull down menu in the grid view. Clicking on a student's desktop undeafs that student, while escaping back to the grid re-deafs them (if they were deafed in the first place). This feature can be used to facilitate break-out or lab sessions, where the students are working independently and the teacher wishes to speak with them individually.
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