asterisk users - Mar 2005 - ANNOUNCEMENT: Updates for app_cbmysql andMeetMe2gui (out of tree modules)

First off, let me thank Bela?d Arezqui (aka Areski) for his
PHP gui.  I knew nothing about PHP last week, and the code
makes for easy editing and additions.
>Lots of interest here for conferencing.
>I've probably convinced more people to start using asterisk@home for
>this feature than anything else.
>Can I input some suggestions;
Sure
>Need to change the rinky dink call icons (let me know if you need some
>better samples)
I've thought the same, but my goal is a little grander.  We have
all employee photos available.  Once I get the caller-id integrated
with the presence, I plan to link to thumbnails.  As an alternative
it would not be too hard to make the avatars optional.  Look for an
update in April, unless my deployment goes very well and I can work
on the code while in Korea.
>Need to change the ability for a muted caller to flag they have a
>question and a desire to talk (I do a lot of mute all except 1 or 2
>users but I have to have a question work around by them asking questions
>via messenger)
Excellent idea.  I'm still getting my head around the guts of the
conferencing code, but this might not be too hard to implement.  
>Eg if they hit dtmf '*' they have a question and I could take them
off
>mute
>It would be an easy mod for you then to introduce polling using digits 1
>through to 9
>Eg hit 1 if you want the meeting on Tuesday
>2 for Wednesday 
>3 for Thursday
If I understand this bit, you'd like to see an option to actually schedule
a conference from the telephone.  That would be do-able, but I think I
would create a different app to keep the clutter out of the fast-path.
>If you are open to more ideas I have a ton of features I'd like to see,
>email me if you have the time/interest.

For people who do use MeetMe/MeetMe2 or app_conference, does anyone
find that they need a feature to force a conference to end on time,
with or without an announcement?

I'm thinking of a couple options-
	Easiest-
		Allow MeetMe2 to check the booking table w/option for
		announcement.  I'm not fond of this one, since it
		adds further clutter to the conferencing code.
	A little harder-
		Leverage conf-background.agi.  I need more research on this,
		but basically it would sleep a lot, waking up once a minute
		to check the time and play the announcement and Kick all
		callers.  I don't have this one, but is yet another add-on.
	Hardest-
		Add two new conference options g(60), G(60,5).
		Where g(60) is for the conference to end in 60 minutes,
		and G(60,5) is for the conference to end in 60 minutes
		with a 5 minute warning.

		I like this one, since it could be used without cbmysql,
		and does not require access to additional tables

I had hoped to keep it short, but I'd love to get any feedback on the
above approachs.

Dan