Jabber whiteboard doesn't work

[Irving Popovetsky]

Binary package hint: inkscape

I'd really like to use the Inkscape "share whiteboard" feature, but so far I've been completely unsuccessful in getting it to work.
I've tried many different versions, including:
 * Included versions of 0.46 with Hardy and Intrepid (up to patch as of this time)
 * Nightly snapshot builds (0.46-devel) on multiple platforms, including Windows

With the following jabber servers:
 * jabberd 1.4.3-3.3ubuntu
 * Jive Openfire 3.6.2
 * ejabberd2 (on jabber.org)

Each time, the process is as follows:
1. Open Inkscape and Pedro client on two different machines, connect to the same jabber server using different usernames
2. Initiate traditional chat between the two users (so far so good)
3. Initiate Share Whiteboard request from user1 to user2. (Rejected by ejabberd2 with a protocol error, others pass)
4. Accept the Share Whiteboard request by user2, blank whiteboard appears for both users.
5. Either user creates a shape and then one of two things happen:
     a) The data (namespace=svg) is rejected by the Jabber server with some kind of illegal request or protocol error.
     b) The Inkscape client which drew the shape crashes

I'm very curious to know if anyone uses this feature successfully, and if so under what conditions. I'd be happy to provide more information, but I think reproducing this issue in a controlled setting is very easy and telling.

Thanks for looking at this.

[Nubae (dvanassche)]

I too could not get inkscape to share the whiteboard, although the chat session works fine. I tried this under the latest intrepid Inkscape with ejabberd as server. (private ejabberd server)

[vonHalenbach (lustik)]

I am sorry, that you can't share your drawings in a live session as expected. The whiteboard functionality is to my knowlege still quite undeveloped and not considered stable enough for real use. Because of this, we call it still "beta" and to my knowlege it is not enabled by default.

If you know someone who can invest some hours coding time on this whiteboard, please get in touch with one of the leading developers of inkscape.

Best regards

Stefan

[Irving Popovetsky (irving-popovetsky)]

Thanks for the feedback, Stefan.

From what I've seen, the whiteboard feature is enabled by default in all of the major Linux distros (Ubuntu, Fedora, SuSE) as well as the Stable and Nightly Inkscape builds for Windows.
This may give some people the impression that it is a supported feature, distro maintainers may want to take a second look at that.

Are there any Inkscape developers who know this code well enough to gauge the effort required to make the whiteboard usable again? This may be a good candidate for a code bounty or something.

Thanks,
-Irving

[tshirtman (gabriel-pettier)]

hit by this too... this feature would be very appreciated.

Also I've found a related bug in debian.
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=484527

[ScislaC (scislac)]

Irving,

From my understanding, getting the whiteboard working again (and it being properly fixed) is quite an undertaking still. I definitely agree that it needs to be disabled in all distros until it actually works. I will make sure this is noted for 0.47.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

A pre-release of the upcoming Inkscape 0.47 is now available in Ubuntu
Karmic for testing. Because *so* much stuff has changed compared with
the version you reported your bug against, would you mind re-testing
this new version and see if this bug is now resolved?

Karmic Alpha CD ISO images are available at:

  http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/karmic/

If you're not testing Karmic yet, there are .debs of this new Inkscape
for Jaunty, Hardy, and Intrepid here:

  https://launchpad.net/~inkscape.testers/+archive/ppa

You might find further bugs when testing this alpha release. If that is
the case, please file a NEW bug report here:

   https://edge.launchpad.net/inkscape/+filebug

Thanks ahead of time for your testing efforts, and enjoy the new Inkscape!

[Orson Jones (orson-launchpad)]

I tried the ppa and got this version.
Version: 0.47~pre0-0ubuntu1~9.04

Trying to connect the whiteboard froze inkscape for some time, but waiting gave this error on the console.

TcpSocket err: open: could not connect to host 'gmail.com'
Error:Cannot connect:TcpSocket err: open: could not connect to host 'gmail.com'

[ScislaC (scislac)]

Marked as invalid, this feature is no longer supported and has been removed from Inkscape trunk. Inkscape 0.47 final will not have the menu or options available.

Sorry for all of the confusion with this, hopefully someday the Whiteboard will be rewritten to be more robust and less fragile than it was. Until such a time as the rewrite, it will not be added back into any releases until it has been thoroughly tested and is ready for the real world again.

[Irving Popovetsky (irving-popovetsky)]

There is a rewrite in progress called Inkboard NG: http://code.google.com/p/inkboardng/

It will not be ready for prime time until after 0.47 ships, but it will be ready for testing soon.