Accept authorId for embedded apps, not just userName

[KevinTriplett]

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name: Feature request
about: Include authorId for embedded iframes
title: ''Accept authorId for embedded apps, not just userName"
labels: enhancement
assignees:

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Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
When a user accesses an embedded etherpad app from multiple devices, the same userName is displayed multiple times in the timeslider. This is (presumably) due to the server generating a different authorId associated with this user via a cookie on each device. But it's the same user and it a) confuses all users to see the same author name multiple times in the timeslider and b) reduces available space for author names that can be listed in the timeslider author line.

Describe the solution you'd like
Add a new, optional URL parameter called authorId in the URL. If authorId is provided, it associates this authorId with this user. If not, the server generates a new authorId for this user. If the provided authorId is not found in the database, the server should generate a new authorId.

Describe alternatives you've considered
I've tried creating authorIds for users using the mapper but no luck, timeslider still displays multiple authors with the same name when the same user accesses the pad from different devices -- kindly suggest what I might be doing wrong or if you see other alternates I can try.

Additional context
I'm willing to pay a bounty for this or take input as to which files to look in, make the change myself, and issue a PR.

Plugin?
No, this is part of the URL parser and belongs on the server. [update: ep_stable_authorid plugin does not help]

[webzwo0i]

Please have a look at https://github.com/ether/ep_stable_authorid
Any feedback on this plugin is highly appreciated. Please note that you need to use the develop branch.

[KevinTriplett]

Ah thanks - I’ll add this plug-in and provide feedback asap, then close the issue if no issues.

[KevinTriplett]

@webzwo0i the stable_authorid plugin appears to require server authentication to work? (In the plugin's case, the EP server identifies the user and uses this to look up the authorId.)

In my case, my app handles authentication. What I'd like to do is, when creating a new user, ask the EP server via HTTP API to generate an authorId, which I'll store locally in the user account, then provide it (authorId) to Etherpad via the URL whenever the user logs in to my app and requests access to the pad.

Am I missing something with stable_authorid that authentication can be performed locally somehow in my app? But how does the EP server associate this logged in user with an authorId? (Providing a userName in the embed URL doesn't seem to associate an authorId with this user.)

[KevinTriplett]

For anyone else, here's the problem I'm encountering (this happens to be with stable_authorid installed). See the two authors? This first line I entered from my laptop and then the second line is from my phone (I'm a fan of the animator Don Hertzfeldt):

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I pass the same userName ("Kevin T" in both cases) in the URL when embedding the pad in my app.

[webzwo0i]

Check the cookie 'token': If it's set to identical chars (which must conform to some base64-scheme, like t.123456789A==), you get the same author id. authorId is also used to detect multiple browser tabs opening the same pad, which is not supported. So in the case of identical author ids, you won't be able to open the same pad on two different browsers as the same author.

Because you said HTTP API, are you using it to create sessions? If yes, you can probably use the authorMapper param.

[KevinTriplett]

[Update: I hadn't set the cookie path to "/"]

Copying the token cookie worked! My method:

open my app with embedded Etherpad in first browser
load user's pad into first browser and add first line
post token content from first browser to my server
save token content into user record in DB

open my app in second browser
save user's token as cookie into second browser with 7-day expiration and path='/'
load user's pad into second browser and add second line

result:

Thanks for your help on this -- it's harder than it should be and it would be nicer to provide the authorId in the embed url but at least there's a crazy workaround. :D

[KevinTriplett]

Leaving this open for now -- having a way to simply provide the authorId to embedded EtherPads via the URL is desirable.