Tasks overview

The livechat plugin includes a Task Application. The present document describes how this is implemented.

Basics

This features relies on XEP-0060: Publish-Subscribe. This XEP provide a way to store and retrieve items, and to receive push notifications when an item is created/deleted/modified.

There is a Prosody Module, mod_pubsub_peertubelivechat, to implement some specific use of the pubsub mechanism.

We use the JID+NodeID addressing to specify some nodes related to each MUC room. The JID is the MUC room JID, the NodeID is functionnality we want to address. For now, this modules only implement one such node: “livechat-tasks”, to handle tasks and task lists. But the module code anticipates futur uses.

The “livechat-tasks” node contains two type of objects: Task and TaskList (XML Namespaces: urn:peertube-plugin-livechat:tasklist and urn:peertube-plugin-livechat:task). Tasks have an attribute containing their task list id.

On the front-end, we have the livechat-converse-tasks plugin for ConverseJS.

Workflow

Here is the basic workflow used to subscribe to tasks/task-lists, and receive existing items.

  • the browsers connect to the chat, and ConverseJS uses the XMPP discovery to get the room features.
  • mod_pubsub_peertubelivechat declares two features: urn:peertube-plugin-livechat:tasklist and urn:peertube-plugin-livechat:task.
  • the browsers detect these feature, and checks that the user has admin or owner affiliation on the MUC component.
  • if not, won’t display the Task Application, and stops here.
  • if yes, we will continue:
  • display the Task Application.
  • Create a new PubSubManager object, that will subscribe to the pubsub node.
  • The backend receives the subscription request, test user rights (must be owner/admin on the MUC), and adds the user to the subscribers.
  • Note: a user with multiple browsers tabs will send multiple subscription requests, but this is not an issue.
  • If the node did not exist, the backend automatically created it, and use the MUC name to create a first task-list with that name.
  • Once subscribed, the frontend will request all current entries.
  • The backend tests rights, and send all node entries.
  • On the frontend, the PubSubManager handles the response by dispatching received items to the correct frontend component.

Note: on the backend side, we subscribe all users with the “publisher” affiliation level. This allows them to publish items, but not change the node configuration.

Here is the worflow to create/modify/delete items:

  • the frontend send a publish request.
  • backend checks rights.
  • backend sends notifications to all subscribers, including the current users.
  • On the front-end PubSubManager receives the notification, and dispatch it to the relevant component.

Unsubscribing

When users leaves a MUC room, they are automatically unsubscribed from the “livechat-tasks” node related to this room.

When users lose the owner/admin affiliation, they are removed from the “livechat-tasks” node subscriptions.

Items

Here we describes the content of node items.

Task lists

  • Item tag: tasklist
  • XML Namespace: urn:peertube-plugin-livechat:tasklist
  • item childs:
    • name: the text content is the task list name

Example: here is an example of IQ stanza to create a task-list item.

<iq
  from="user@example.com"
  id="45cf7543-67bf-4d03-bb5d-a55038a0512a:sendIQ"
  to="035fcc4b-072f-4827-b296-6998b04e3456@room.example.com"
  type="set"
  xmlns="jabber:client"
>
  <pubsub xmlns="http://jabber.org/protocol/pubsub">
    <publish node="livechat-tasks">
      <item>
        <tasklist xmlns="urn:peertube-plugin-livechat:tasklist">
          <name>Task List Name</name>
        </tasklist>
      </item>
    </publish>
  </pubsub>
</iq>

Tasks

  • Item tag: task
  • XML Namespace: urn:peertube-plugin-livechat:task
  • item attributes:
    • done: if present and equal to “true”, means that the task is done
    • list: the list id
    • order: the order of the task in the task list
  • item childs:
    • name: the text content is the task name
    • description: the text content is the task description

Example: here is an example of IQ stanza to create a task-list item.

<iq
  from="user@example.com"
  id="9fd9a162-1b6c-4b38-a2a1-2485b34f0d8d:sendIQ"
  to="035fcc4b-072f-4827-b296-6998b04e3456@room.example.com"
  type="set"
  xmlns="jabber:client"
>
  <pubsub xmlns="http://jabber.org/protocol/pubsub">
    <publish node="livechat-tasks">
      <item>
        <task
          list="8302c024-c16e-4fbd-aca7-c94cdb2025de"
          order="0"
          done="true"
          xmlns="urn:peertube-plugin-livechat:task"
        >
          <name>The task name</name>
          <description>here is the description</description>
        </task>
      </item>
    </publish>
  </pubsub>
</iq>

Note: in the above example, we added done="true" just for the example. Don’t add the attribute if you want not the task to be marked as done (or if you want to undone the task).