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Version: 3.0

new-features

BigBlueButton 3.0 runs on Ubuntu 22.04

Overview​

This document is still a draft, BigBlueButton 3.0 is under development​

BigBlueButton 3.0 offers users improved usability, increased engagement, and more performance.

  • Usability - making common functions (such as raise hand) easier
  • Engagement - giving the instructor more ways to engage students
  • Performance - increasing overall performance and scalability

Here's a breakdown of what's new in 3.0.

Usability​

Upgraded whiteboard​

We have done significant work to adopt the newly released version 2 of tl;draw. It comes with even more tools and capabilities and has allowed us to embark on more ambitious whiteboard projects, for example a prototype of an Infinite Canvas.

Improved UX for joining audio for transparentListenOnly​

When transparentListenOnly is enabled on the server, users can now switch seamlessly between Listen Only and Microphone modes without needing to rejoin audio.

To further improve the user experience, you can disable listenOnlyMode (public.app.listenOnlyMode in /etc/bigbluebutton/bbb-html5.yml or userdata-bbb_listen_only_mode). This removes the need to choose between Microphone or Listen Only mode when joining audio in a session. Instead, you are taken directly to the audio configuration screen.

audio controls when joining audio

Once you are joined in audio you can dynamicly change your audio device configuration from a dropdown located on the mute-yourself button.

mute yourself has a dropdown menu allowing device changes

New layouts for specific integration scenarios​

Several new layouts have been added ("Cameras Only", "Presentation Only", and "Participants and Chat Only") to address various use cases of hybrid education - for example splitting views of the BigBlueButton session to be visible on different physical screens.

Improved Away mode​

We have made changes so that when you set yourself as being Away, your microphone is now automatically muted, your webcam is also muted (blank).

set yourself away

When you return and unmute yourself this counts as disabling Away mode. The control for toggling away mode is now positioned in the Reactions bar.

set yourself active

Away mode also is recorded in the public chat area.

away public chat

Leave meeting button​

A contribution from community member Jan Kessler, the direct Leave Meeting button was first introduced in BigBlueButton 2.7.5. Starting with BigBlueButton 3.0 we are making it enabled by default.

leave the meeting red button

Viewers can leave the meeting by using this new red button, previously hidden near the Setting menu. For moderators, the button includes the option to end the meeting as well.

Better looking polling results​

We have enhanced the view of the polling results that appear over the whiteboard. It is now much more intuitive to read.

better polling results

Private chat messages have a "seen" indicator​

We have added an indicator showing when your private chat recipient has seen the message.

checkmark beside the message indicating it was seen

Push to talk was added​

You can now use the "M" shortcut while in a conference to control how long your microphone is open. If the option for push to talk is enabled in settings.yml holding "M" will keep your microphone unmuted for as long you hold the key down. Releasing it will mute you again.

Engagement​

Behind the scene​

Introduction of plugins​

We have made significant changes to the architecture of BigBlueButton and have introduced support to plugins -- optional custom modules included in the client which allow expanding the capabilities of BigBlueButton. A data channel is provided to allow for data exchange between clients. See the HTML5 Plugin SDK for examples and more information.

At the moment of writing these documentation, the official list of plugins includes:

Replaced Akka framework with Pekko​

Following the license change of Akka back in September 2022 we considered several options and decided to replace our use of Akka with Apache Pekko More on the transition: https://github.com/bigbluebutton/bigbluebutton/pull/18694

Override client settings through API /create call​

Administrators will appreciate that we now allow passing of custom client settings through the meeting create API call. You no longer need separate servers to accommodate for sessions requiring vastly different settings.yml configuration

Removal of Meteor and MongoDB​

For years we have discussed internally the topic of replacing Meteor.js with other technologies in order to improve scalability, performance, etc. In the last year we have introduced several different new components to replace Meteor. These new components are: bbb-graphql-server, bbb-graphql-middleware, bbb-graphql-actions, database Postgres, GraphQL server Hasura. As of BigBlueButton 3.0.0-beta.1 we are no longer using Meteor or MongoDB.

Note: The services bbb-html5-backend, bbb-html5-frontend, bbb-html5 and mongod have been removed. The client code is compacted and served by NginX. The service disable-transparent-huge-pages.service was also removed as it was used to improve performance of MongoDB and is now obsolete. The package bbb-html5-nodejs is no longer needed.

Important: Please make sure you're no longer carrying around NodeJS v14 which we used to deploy in bbb-html5-nodejs. Your directory /usr/lib/bbb-html5/node should not exist.

We have forked the tldraw project and use our fork​

We upgraded tl;draw from version 1 to version 2.0.0-alpha.19 (the last version on Apache 2.0 licence). That was quite a significant task but brought better performance, better looks, improved stylus support and many more. Note that we have forked tldraw's project as of their version 2.0.0-alpha.19 to ensure we remain on the Apache 2.0 license. We will be maintaining the fork so that BigBlueButton has a stable whiteboard in the future.

Support for Collabora Online as document converter​

Collabora Productivity contributed the support for an alternative conversion script where Collabora Online (deployed locally [as a docker container] or running remotely) can be used for document conversion. For more information check the pull request

Experimental​

Infinite Whiteboard (experimental)​

We have added initial support for inifinite whiteboard in the live session. Only the presenter can trigger it. It allows for annotations to be created in the margins, or to write content without being limited by space.

the trigger for infinite whiteboard is in the middle of the presenter toolbar

Everyone sees the margins and follows the presenter's point of view. If multi-user whiteboard is also enabled, viewers can roam around the canvas independently.

with inifinite whiteboard enabled annotations can be made on the margins and more

Recording is not yet implemented, meaning that if you enable this experimental feature on your server and use it in a recorded session, the recording will most likely have broken whiteboard at best. The recording (and playback) work is planned for after BigBlueButton 3.0.

Upgraded components​

Under the hood, BigBlueButton 3.0 installs on Ubuntu 22.04 64-bit, and the following key components have been upgraded ...

For full details on what is new in BigBlueButton 3.0, see the release notes.

Recent releases:

Other notable changes​

Removal of Kurento​

We have removed all use of Kurento Media Server. For the live media transmission we rely on mediasoup. For the recording portion we make use of our own component bbb-webrtc-recorder. BigBlueButton 3.0 is the first release where we do not install Kurento.

Select Random User feature removed and is now a plugin​

The functionality Select Random User which used to be part of the BigBlueButton core was removed. A plugin with the same functionality was developed and made public.

Typed captions feature removed and is now a plugin​

We removed the built-in typed captions support given that we support several options for automatic captions which seem to be much more popular. We implemented a plugin for typed captions - Typed captions plugin which you could use instead.

Removed userStatus​

The userStatus feature was replaced by userReaction. They were vastly overlapping, causing some confusion when using and maintaining.

Upgrade of config editing tool yq​

We have upgraded yq from version 3.4.1 (which was no longer maintained) to 4.16.2. This is a major jump and the syntax used is quite different as well. We went through all internal uses of yq - packaging, bbb-install.sh, bbb-conf and others and updated the syntax. However, if you have custom scripts, you may have to rework the syntax too. Here is a guide.

Improved support for various SHA algorithms for checksum calculation​

In BigBlueButton 2.6.17/2.7.5/3.0.0-alpha.5 we added a new configuration property for bbb-apps-akka package under services called checkSumAlgorithmForBreakouts. By default the value is "sha256". It controls the algorithm for checksum calculation for the breakout rooms join link. In case you overwrite bbb-web's supportedChecksumAlgorithms property removing sha256 you will need to set a supported algorithm here too. For example if you want to only use sha512, set supportedChecksumAlgorithms=sha512 in /etc/bigbluebutton/bbb-web.properties and also set checkSumAlgorithmForBreakouts="sha512" in /etc/bigbluebutton/bbb-apps-akka.conf and then restart BigBlueButton.

Deprecating join parameter defaultLayout, replacing with userdata-bbb_default_layout.​

In BigBlueButton 3.0.0-alpha.5 we replaced the JOIN parameter defaultLayout with the JOIN parameter userdata-bbb_default_layout. If none provided the meetingLayout (passed on CREATE) will be used. If none passed, and if none passed there, the defaultMeetingLayout from bbb-web will be used.

Added new setting and userdata to allow skipping echo test if session has valid input/output devices stored​

  • Client settings.yml: skipEchoTestIfPreviousDevice. Defaults to false
  • Can be overrided on JOIN with Custom Parameter: userdata-bbb_skip_echotest_if_previous_device=

Recording event TranscriptUpdatedRecordEvent blocked​

In BigBlueButton 2.7.5/3.0.0-alpha.5 we stopped propagating the events.xml event TranscriptUpdatedRecordEvent due to some issues with providing too much and too repetitive data.

Added new setting and userdata to allow skipping video preview if session has valid input devices stored​

  • Client settings.yml: skipVideoPreviewIfPreviousDevice. Defaults to false
  • Can be overrided on JOIN with Custom Parameter: userdata-bbb_skip_video_preview_if_previous_device=

Replaced all user facing instances of "meeting" with the word "session"​

The word "session" is more generic and encompasses both educational and work contexts. Up until BigBlueButton 3.0 we were using the two keywords interchangeably. Moving forward we are preferring to use "session".

Changes to events.xml​

Retired events

  • DeskShareNotifyViewersRTMPRecordEvent
  • DeskshareStartRtmpRecordEvent
  • DeskshareStopRtmpRecordEvent
  • TranscriptUpdatedRecordEvent

Modified/added events

bbb-web properties changes​

  • allowOverrideClientSettingsOnCreateCall=false added
  • sessionsCleanupDelayInMinutes=60 added
  • graphqlWebsocketUrl=${bigbluebutton.web.serverURL}/graphql added
  • defaultAllowPromoteGuestToModerator=false added

Removed support for POST requests on join endpoint and Content-Type headers are now required​

In BigBlueButton 2.6.18/2.7.8 POST requests are no longer allowed for the join endpoint. To ensure they are validated properly, a Content-Type header must also be provided for POST requests that contain data in the request body. Endpoints now support a limited set of content types that includes text/xml, application/xml, application/x-www-form-url-encoded, and multipart/form-data. By default each endpoint only supports application/x-www-form-urlencoded and multipart/form-data, but individual endpoints can override this and define their own set of supported content types. The create endpoint supports all of the four previously listed content types while insertDocument supports only text/xml and application/xml. Any requests with a content type that differs from the set supported by the target endpoint will be rejected with a new unsupportedContentType error.

Changes in document formats we support​

We improved the documentation for which types of files we support when uploading presentations. Support for .odi and .odc was dropped. Support for .svg, .odg and .webp was officially added even though animated webp's are no longer animated after the image processing.

Development​

For information on developing in BigBlueButton, see setting up a development environment for 3.0.

The build scripts for packaging 3.0 (using fpm) are located in the GitHub repository here.

Contribution​

We welcome contributors to BigBlueButton 3.0! The best ways to contribute at the current time are: