Skip to main content

Add Collaboration Features to your Website with a Line of Code

Tools like Google Docs include real-time collaboration features that let multiple people work on the same document or spreadsheet at the same time. Then you have screen sharing tools, join.me or Chrome Remote Desktop for example, where there’s a master presenter and remote viewers can follow along.
Website with Real-time Chat

TogetherJS is a Mozilla project that brings similar collaboration features to your own website but without any coding. Once enabled, visitors to your website will be able to interact with each other on your site in real time.

They’ll able to see each other’s cursor (like in Google Docs), the clicks are highlighted and the screen content stays synchronized. Visitors will also have the ability to text chat and audio chat (using WebRTC) with each other while staying on your website. All this and more with a line of code.

Add TogetherJS to your own Website

To get started, all you have to do is insert a little JavaScript snippet anywhere on your web page(s). There are several configuration parameters available for the widget but we will use the default settings to keep things simple.

<script>
  TogetherJSConfig_autoStart  = true;
</script>
<script src="https://togetherjs.com/togetherjs-min.js"></script>

This will add a little floating widget to your website that will be visible to all visitors. They can click the ”+” button in the widget to generate a unique TogetherJS URL. Anyone who clicks this URL will be able to interact with each other on your page in real time. It can’t get any simpler.

I have put up a quick page where you can test TogetherJS capabilities. Click the ”+” icon and send the unique URL to another person to chat in real-time.

Add TogetherJS to any Website

There’s more. You can add TogetherJS features to any web page on the Internet with the help of a bookmarklet.

TogetherJS

This bookmarklet will load the TogetherJS library on the current web page and you can give the chat session a unique name. Another person can launch the bookmarklet on the same page on their own computer, enter the same session name and you’ll be instantly connected.

You can co-browse, watch each other’s activity or chat atop the page.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

How to Get the Quiz Score in Google Forms with Apps Script

Teachers can easily create an online quiz using Google Forms and students can view their test scores immediately after form submission. Teachers can use Google Forms to create an online quiz and students can view their test scores immediately after  form submission . With Apps Script, you can set up automatic  email notifications  and send quiz scores to parents after a student has taken the quiz. Here’s a sample Google Script that will iterate through every answer in the most recent Google Form response and log the max score (points) of a gradable question and the score for the respondent’s submitted answer. function getGoogleFormQuizScore ( ) { // Returns the form to which the script is container-bound. var form = FormApp . getActiveForm ( ) ; // Get the most recently submitted form response var response = form . getResponses ( ) . reverse ( ) [ 0 ] ; // Gets an array of all items in the form. var items = form . getItems ( ) ; for ( var...

How to Test your Eyes using the Computer

They say that you should get your eyes checked every two years but if haven’t had the chance to see a doctor all this time, you can test your vision on your computer as well. Of course these self eye tests are no substitute for visiting your doctor but if you follow the steps well, you may get some idea about how good (or bad) your vision is.  Test your Eyes Online with the Snellen Eye Chart The Snellen Eye Chart Most of us are familiar with the Snellen Chart that has rows of alphabets of different sizes – you read these letters from a distance, usually twenty feet, and the smallest row that you can recognize accurately indicates whether you have normal vision or not. The various eye testing tools that are available online make use of the same Snellen chart. Test your Eyesight Online You should start with University at Buffalo’s  IVAC tool . Use a physical ruler to measure the length of the line on the screen (the length will vary depending on your screen resolution). Also mea...

Let People Quickly Save your Events on their Calendars

Create Add to Calendar links for emails and websites and let users quickly save your events on their own Google Calendar, Outlook or Yahoo Calendar. You are organizing an online event - maybe a meeting on Zoom or a training session hosted on Google Meet - and you would like the attendees to add the event to their own calendars. Once added to their calendar, the event will act as an automatic reminder and attendees will get a notification when the conference is about to start. There are two way to go about this: You can create a new meeting in your online calendar (Google, Outlook or any other calendar) and add the individual attendees as guests so the event automatically gets added to their calendar as well. You can include an “Add to Calendar” link or button in your email messages,  forms  and website pages. Anyone can click the link to quickly save your event on to their calendars - see  live demo . Create Add to Calendar Links for Emails and Websites The  Add to C...