Civil emergency communications integration with Mumble

[Soup-n-Sandwich]

Hi guys, First time post for me. I want to thank all of the developer for a great product and have some questions for the developers.

I have a massive project going on here for non-profit civil radio communications that will also be integrated into a custom Computer Aided Dispatch software. This turns out to be quite the challenge so far as the CAD system is web-based. Although I'm learning the administrative side of Mumble I'm a ways yet from getting channels working the way I'll need them to work but from what I've read here and on some other Mumble docs, it seems possible to do what we need to do as Mumble so far is extremely flexible when it comes to it's configuration and permissions, I just don't have a handle on the advanced configurations yet. I was hoping to possibly get some input to some questions before I get into the specifics about the project. I'll post the permission questions in a separate post. I'm hoping you all may be able to help us make this needed capability a reality.

Ok on to the questions:

1. Is there a way to have all of the channels be on the same tier and not a sub-channel of the Root channel?

2. Is it possible to integrate Mumble into a web-based application like this CAD program? Maybe with an API? I understand there is a web-based version of Mumble but so far we haven't had any success getting it running or installed on our server.

3. Is it best to not use the root channel at all? We have several channels there are needed. Some are open must have some level of restriction. I attempted to set the root channel to not have Enter or Speaker permissions but it seems to dump every user into this channel initially. So rather than fighting it I was thinking it may be better to use this root channel as the open channel with the lest or no restrictions and build the sub channels requiring more permission from there.

4. I was thinking that this project of ours may be able help fund the Mumble project. Is there any developers interested in forking the Mumble project for this civil emergency communications project? We would need a little help with the client (likely web-based) as well as the iOS and Android apps.

Thanks guys for your input.

Soup

[kissaki]

Hello

Why do you want to drop the root channel?

The defaultchannel server setting allows you to specify a default channel other than the root channel (which is the default).

If the root channel is the default, that will overwrite the not-enterable restriction if there are no other channels to enter. This is to prevent there not being any channel to enter after connecting. But as I said you can change the default channel. (On my server I have a designated lobby / welcome channel.

Personally I think it’s best to have channels on one level as you ask for, and use grouping-channels that are not necessarily enter-able to prevent any user confusion (for users that are not that familiar with tree structuring) and only allow entering sub-channels.

Dropping the root channel altogether is not possible. It is the root of all channels, the technical initial reference point. It could theoretically be hidden in clients though.

It would technically be possible to use web clients with mumble. As you mentioned there are some projects that try to do that. It would be nice if we could provide an official resource/client for that, but due to lack of time/resources, we have nothing like that at the moment.

We do lack resources. Davide is trying to get some funding going. I don’t think I can promise anything at this moment regarding myself or others time to support you. But maybe you want to ask davide personally. He'd possibly be able to commit time on a project/contract basis. Depending on the time commitment necessary I may be able to contribute a bit as well. That being said we already lack people and time resources on the Mumble project itself.

[Soup-n-Sandwich]

Kissaki Ah! Thank you very much for the reply! We have so much going on right now, all of which has Mumble in mind. I wasn't aware of the defaultchannel. I assume this setting is in the murmur.ini configuration file. I'll check that out.

I see so much potential in this application. We were planning on implementing it in a big way with our Computer Aided Dispatch or CAD software but as a web based client built directly into this application. We would also need iOS and Android clients. Since the the application is designed for a slightly different user group and function than Mumble was initially designed for some tweaks would be necessary. I have a talented developer that is helping be get this computer aided dispatch software ready for the many civil groups that will be using it and I couldn't think of a better voice PTT application for the job than Mumble.

I can give more details as to the project to you and Davide if you guys are interested but I truly feel this will also fund your project as we should have a lot of paying subscriber to this project once release.

The main points to the project for use to use Mumble as a base is for PC (Mac/Windows/Linux) user I think the web based app would be better. This would allow for a much simpler way to user the client rather than installed it on these different platforms. Although the web client would make it easier on the end user the real reason for this is I don't see a way to integrate the client into the web based CAD program. It's very difficult to get answers on the current web based Mumble application and it's been extremely difficult to get it working. After each problem is solved another one follows. Without developer help I don't see how we are going to do this.

The second issue that we've had is learning the necessary administrative "permission" to set up the channels for our needs. The goal was to create a master configuration file and this use default master as the template for new subscriber to the system. The trouble is that I've yet to find how to correctly configure the channels to suit the needs. Keep in mind that this will be use as a Radio Over IP rather than a gaming voice chat application. I see the potential for our needs with it, I just think we need some guidance.

I think one of the other very important parts of the project is consistency in the iOS and Android apps. I understand these do existing but some user interface tweaks would need to be done to make it more "radio like" and more user friendly.

I'll contact Davide and see what his thoughts are. Thanks for your input Kissaki.

Chris