BMCHAT Meet
How it works

BMChat Meet is a WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communications) Application, it is a pure web based program works on the modern browsers, which is zero installation. Supported browser includes Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, Safari.

Ochi, just forgot that Internet Explorer has retired at June 15, 2022, which is no longer supported.

BMChat Meet can run in PC, MAC, Tablet, Smart Phones include iOS and Andriod. You can see the same design on both the laptops and mobile devices.

Top(first): Windows; Left(second): iPhone; Right(third): Android

Hierarchy

BMChat Meet is organized with Site -> Room -> User in hierachy.

Each site has one or more rooms, each of the rooms has their own setting defines the users have different operation priviliges in the room according to their ranks, and there are two different kind of users which are belonged to a single room or shared between all the rooms in the same site:
Guest can login without any credential authentication with the lowest rank, VIP must login with the Ugid (Unique global Identity) and password, with the high ranks. VIP with higher rank can manage the VIP in lower rank and guests. Guests can be upgraded to the rank private with more operation in the rooms, and VIP can also be downgraded to Guest (Mostly are for the punishment for making trouble in the rooms).
More detail about the concepts of users please refer to the following table:
Rank
Participant type
Moderator
Guest (زائر)
Guest
No
Private (جندي)
Temporary Moderator
No
Second Class (جندي أول)
VIP
Yes
First Class (عريف)
VIP
Yes
Corporal (وكيل رقيب)
VIP
Yes
Sergeant (رقيب)
VIP
Yes
Senior Sergeant (رقيب أول)
VIP
Yes
Sergeant Major (رئيس رقباء)
VIP
Yes
Warrant Officer (مرشح)
VIP
Yes
Second Lieutenant (ملازم)
VIP
Yes
Lieutenant (ملازم أول)
VIP
Yes
Captain (نقيب)
VIP
Yes
Major (رائد)
VIP
Yes
Lieutenant Colonel (مقدم)
VIP
Yes
Colonel (عقيد)
VIP
Yes
Brigadier (عميد)
VIP
Yes
Major General (لواء)
VIP
Yes
Lieutenant General (فريق)
VIP
Yes
Colonel General (فريق أول)
VIP
Yes
Field Marshal (مشير)
VIP
Yes
Default privilege of the ranks, which can be modified in the control panel for each of the rooms dedicately:
Rank
Text out
 Private message Microphone Camera Share audio Share video Share desktop Virtual background Reactions
Stealth
Guest (زائر)
No
 Yes No No No No No No No
No
Private (جندي)
Yes
 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
No
Second Class (جندي أول)
Yes
 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
No
First Class (عريف)
Yes
 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
No
Corporal (وكيل رقيب)
Yes
 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
No
Sergeant (رقيب)
Yes
 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
No
Senior Sergeant (رقيب أول)
Yes
 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
No
Sergeant Major (رئيس رقباء)
Yes
 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
No
Warrant Officer (مرشح)
Yes
 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
No
Second Lieutenant (ملازم)
Yes
 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
No
Lieutenant (ملازم أول)
Yes
 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
No
Captain (نقيب)
Yes
 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
No
Major (رائد)
Yes
 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
No
Lieutenant Colonel (مقدم)
Yes
 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
No
Colonel (عقيد)
Yes
 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
No
Brigadier (عميد)
Yes
 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Yes
Major General (لواء)
Yes
 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Yes
Lieutenant General (فريق)
Yes
 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Yes
Colonel General (فريق أول)
Yes
 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Yes
Field Marshal (مشير)
Yes
 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Yes

Login

There are two different kind of login in BMChat Meet.
1
Login from lobby:
To login from the lobby, access the site URL and input the nickname for guest to login, or input the credetial for VIP to login. You can use guest or VIP to login, and select your own favior language. Defalt language is detected according to your browser setting.
step-1_2
The login entrance can be a URL or a QRCode to enter, typically the URL will be set as the hyperlink of the QRCode (Click the QRCode below for your evolution):
step-2
2
Login by directlink:
Directlink is useful to accelerate the access to a particularly room or login with a particularly user, directlink can be a URL to click and enter, or a QRCode to scan and enter. Two kind of directlink are supported:
A) Directlink for room access
This is the directlink enables users to enter the room without logging in to the lobby and selecting the room, wihch is generated in the panel and shared in public, anyone can enter the room by clicking the URL or scan the QRCode. According to the configuration when generating the directlink, users can use the specified nick or random nick as the guest in the room, and the camera and microphone will be turned on or turned off automatically when entering the room. This will be helpful for the users to watch the live shown in the rooms. Here is an example to login one of the rooms of the demo site.
step-3
B) Directlink for user access
This is the directlink enables a user to login the room as VIP(Ugid owner) without loggin into lobby and selecting the room. The directlink is also generated in the panel but shared in private. The directlink for user access includes the user credential which is the sensetive information. Never share the directlink for user access in the public channel and share with the others expect the owner of the ugid. Similarly in the directlink camera and microphone can be specified turned on or turned off when it is created. This is useful for the owner of a room to play the live shown. Here is an example to start your live shown in one of the rooms of the demo site (If login failure happens which means the ugid or password is not valid anymore)
step-3

Lobby

The lobby looks like the following:
lobby


① The name of the room
② The notes of the room which supports the users to understand what the room is used for. For example: The Classroom 1 of Grade 1
③ How many online users are there in the room now
④ The maximum users can stay in the room. If the online users amount reaches to the maximum users amount and try to enter, the following error is shown:
lobby_1

⑤ If a room whose online users is greater than 10, will be marked with the symbel HOT
⑥ If a room marked with the rank which means the minimum rank of VIP to enter. If try to enter the room but the rank does not meet, the following error is shown:
lobby_2

⑦ Go back to the previous screen

Click the name of the room which is available to enter, and continue...

 

Main screen

After logging in from the lobby or by directlink, enters into the room. As seen that lobby has been divided into three parts:
A) Chat panel located in left of the screen in the room, which highlighted with the blue box on the left hand side of the snapshot below
B) Main area for showing the participants icon in tile view or the detail of the participants in filmstrip view
C) Participant panel located on the right of the screen in the room, which highlighted with the blue box on the right handside of the snapshot above


lobby
A) Chat panel
1
The conversation in text chat are shown in the panel which highlighted with the red box in the snapshot below.
2
Participants can send the public message in the message input box which highlighted with ① and emoji with the emotion panel by clicking ② (See the snapshot below). UTF-8 is used in both the public and private message which enables different language mixed and shown in the chat panel (See the snapshot above for multiple language mixed)
VIP who have the feature animation emotions enabled, one more button ① is shown next to the send message button, he can click the animation emotions from the list ②or search his favoir ones ③. Scroll up to load more animation emotions (The animation emotions search service is provided by GIPHY)

3
When the animation emotions is sent, the avatar will be changed to the animation emotion for 5 seconds to remind the participants in the room
4
Private message is also available in the chat panel (See the message in the red bubble of the snapshot below), by clicking the arrow symbel the message sent will be in private
B) Participant panel
Participant panel lists all the visible participants in the room (See the red box in the snapshot below), inputting the name or keywords in the box highlight with ⑥ can quickly filter the participants for operation. If a VIP with stealthy rank actively shows himself, he will also be shown in the list.
Click the button highlighted with ⑦ in the snapshot above can call the dialog to invite someone by sharing the site information with mails
C) Main Area
1
Main area has two different view for the participants: Tile view has the thumbnail of all the visible participants tiled on the screen; Filmstrip view has the thumbnail of all the visibile participants listed in a column for scrolling. The participant for myself is always shown in the first in both view and follow with the suffix "(me)" in the nick.
Tile view is used when no video is sharing in the room, as it can see as many participants as possible in the screen
2
Filmstrip view reserves the main area for the video show, the nick and rank of the selected participant can be show fully (See ① highlighted in the snapshot below), the filmstrip can be hidden by the handle (See ② highlighted in the snapshot below), so does resize by the vertical handle in Windows environment (See ③ highlighted in the snapshot below). The rank name is shown when the cursor moved onto the rank icon in the desktop environment (See ④ highlighted in the snapshot below )
In the filmstript view the main area can be fully used by showing the video by hiding the filmstripts:

Toolbar

Using the buttons on the toolbar can complete most of the operations in the application, detailed introduce as:
lobby_1

① Call out the lobby screen to enter different rooms
② Show/hide the participant panel
③ Show/hide the chat panel
④ Turn on/off the microphone, click the small button on the right top to choose the microphone and speaker (See the snapshot below)
lobby_1

⑤ Turn on/off the camera, click the small button on the right top to choose the camera, virtual camara is also supported (See the snapshot below)
lobby_1

⑥ Share your the window or desktop as shared video to the participants, works in Windows environment only
lobby_1

⑦ Raise/Lower your hand, participants in the room will notice that you want to have a speech, it is also useful for the guest to ask for promoting to private to speak out.
lobby_1

Move the mouse on the small button on the right top to send the reaction emotions
lobby_1
In mobile deivces environment the reactions are shown in the overflow menu
lobby_1


⑧ Show/hide the overflow menu from the toolbar. When the width of the toolbar decreased, buttons will be hidden automatically and shown by clicking the button:

lobby_1
lobby_1

⑨ Hang up and leave the room
lobby_1

Overflow menu

When click the button "More actions", the overflow menu is shown with more buttons:
1
① VIP can modify the avatar from the profile tab of the setting dialog, input the URL of the new avatar image.
② (must start with https://), three image hosting websites are recommended .
③ The new avatar is shown in the buttom.
Here is an example to replace the avatar with the image on top4top.io. Click the icon TOP4TOP and upload the new avatar image, copy and paste the URL of the image in top4top.io to the input box, click OK and the new avatar is shown(highlighted with blue arrows in the snapshot below).



2
Click to invite someone by sharing the site information with mails, it is same as in the participant panel
3
Switch between tile view and filmstripe view in the main area
Click to manage the performance, which is same as clicking the right hand side icon in the toolbar on the top
4


Performance management is used for watching the video from the someone's camera, there are 4 levels to adapt to different network bandwidth and connection situation.
Here is an example:
Audio only:
Low definition:
Standard definition:
High definition:
5
Switch between the full screen mode and with the browser interface
6
For the VIP who have the security options enabled, the security setting for the room can be managed by the popup dialog.

① This option enables the lobby mode. The participants must knock the door(red box in the snapshot below) or enter the password(blue box in the snapshot below) to enter the room, any VIP in the room can admit the participants to enter the room(yellow box in the snapshot below).
② This option set the password onto the room, anyone wants to enter the room must input the password. This option is useful for the sensitive topic, or no distribution is wanted in the discussion. Participaints must enter the password before entering the room
It is strongly recommended to remove the lobby mode before the last VIP leaving the room, otherwise there is no one in the room can allow the new participants to enter. When the last participaint in the room leaves the lobby mode and password will be removed automatically
7
Share video enables all the participants to watch the video in the room, which located in the video hosting websties. There are two kind of video hosting supported:
① Direct URL of the video, this is not the common situation, as sharing the video in the website and allow direct access is mostly on purpose for the special usage, simply paste the URL in the video player or browser to play will work. Here is an example which is the video hosted on the Test-Videos website for the testing purpose: https://test-videos.co.uk/vids/bigbuckbunny/mp4/h264/360/Big_Buck_Bunny_360_10s_1MB.mp4
Copy and paste the URL of the video into the Share video dialog to share with the participants in the room



② The video URL in the video websites, this is the common case that videos are shared in the video hosting website. Like the video hosted in Youtube, the URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNgP6d9HraI actually is not the direct link of video but the index of the video in Youtube. Three popular video hosting websites are listed in the Share video dialog, similiarly paste the URL of those websites to share the video in the room

As of Chrome 66, videos must be muted in order to play automatically . Some players, like Facebook, cannot be unmuted until the user interacts with the video. In some of the browsers in the mobile devices will have to manually click the video to start playing
8
Share audio enables all the participants to enjoy the audio played in your laptop, this feature works on those browsers support desktop sharing only, and most of the browsers in mobile devices don't support.
① It is possible to share the audio played from an application .
② or from another tab of the browser .
③ the audio is not only limted to playing the audio files, but also the voice output in the application like playing movie and sound comes from the online games in the webpages .

9
Select background enables the participants to replace their physical environment and display an image as their background during a video show. The main purpose of a Virtual Background is to limit visual distractions in a user’s video and to provide private. It is possible to apply the filter to blur the edge of the image, or replace the background with the specified background
10
Speaker stats shows how long the participants have held the microphone in the room, this option is same as the middle icon in the top toolbar
11
Participants can change their settings in the popup dialog, Profile and Moderator is shown for the VIP
A) Config your Microphone, Camera and Audio output
lobby
B) Configurate the avatar, this is same as ⑴
lobby
C) Set the behavior in the room for participants
lobby

① VIP who have the feature follow me enabled will have the option shown, the one who eables the option can have all the participants in the room followed with pinning the participant and switch between tile view and filestrips view
② When the options is enabled, the sound with reaction emotions sent out will be muted in the room

Both of the setting will be discarded when the participant who enables them leaves the room
D) More
lobby
① Enable / disable the notification when new messages are received.
② Enable / disable the keyboard shortcuts which clicks the buttons in the toolbox. This function works in desktop environment only.
③ When enabled the own avatar will not be shown in the top of the filmstrip.
④ Change the language of the GUI to your mothertone.
⑤ Change the frames rate when sharing the desktop. See the highlighted button by the blue arrow in the snapshot below.
lobby
⑥ List the keyboard shortcuts. This function works in desktop environment only.

Stripe context menu

Two boxes on the strip in desktop environment are used to call out the context menu, the blue box is used for user control context menu and the green box is used for connection information menu
lobby

Long click on the strip in mobile devices can also call out the single context menu, which merges the both belonged to desktop environment
lobby
A) Self view
In the self view the following options are available in the context menu:
① Flip, which horizontally mirrors the camera in the video show


② Hide self view in the filmstrip, when enabled the own avatar will not be shown in the top of the filmstrip

③ Show yourself, only available for the stealth VIP. Normally the stealth VIP is not shown in the strip list, when the option is enabled the stealth VIP is shown as a normal VIP in the strip list. The name text is changed from white to red to remind the owner he/she becomes visible

lobby lobby


B) Guest view
The only option in guest view is "Send private message", when clicked the chat will change to private mode and the message can be seen by the receiver only

lobby lobby


C) VIP view

lobby lobby

① As the participant to unmute the microphone, a notification is shown in the participant whos is asked for. It is useful to enable a guest to voice out who normally is not allowed to do so

② Mute the microphone of all the remaind participants except the selected one, and those VIP whose rank is higher than the operation can still be unmuted

③ Close the camera of all the remaind participants except the selected one, and those VIP whose rank is higher than the operation can still be camera opened

④ Grant moderator rights: This option is working for the guest participants, guest can be promoted as private and with the privilege similar to the VIP, like using chat/microphone/camera etc. Revoke moderator rights: This option is working for the VIP particpants whose rank is lower than the operator, the VIP will be degraded as guest and no longer to use chat/microphone/camera etc. This option is useful to punish the trouble maker in the room temporarily. A VIP can be recovered to the origin rank by grant moderator rights after revoked

⑤ Kick out is only available to the guest, the option is used to drive out the trouble makers

⑥ Send private message is same as the option in Guest view, when clicked the chat will change to private mode and the message can be seen by the receiver only

⑦ The volumn slider can adjust the voice volumn of a participant, it is useful when the participant's voice is too lound

⑧ Deactive moderator is only available to the VIP, this option can disable the VIP from entering any rooms in the site. The difference between Revoke moderator rights vs.Deactive moderator is: Revoke moderator rights can only disable the trouble maker temporarily, once the trouble maker leaves the room and back will recover to VIP. Deactive moderator disables the VIP from entering the room once leaving.
Normally Deactive moderator is combined with Revoke moderator rights to punish the trouble maker from temporarily to permanently. The VIP can still be recovered from the control panel if needed
D) Connection information
① Local view provides the connection detail for troubleshooting in case the network situation is not good. If all the detail is shown as N/A, please wait for a short while

lobby

② Remote view provides the network information together with audio and video information in transmission. If all the detail is shown as N/A, please wait for a short while

lobby

Participant panel context menu

The meeting participant item context menu is similiar to the strip context menu

lobby

Enahnce features

So far the following enhance features are supported, which can be assigned to a single VIP from the control panel case by case
① Animation emotions
② Security options
③ Follow me