Etherpad is is an open source collaborative text editor that can be embedded in a Matrix chat room using the Dimension integrations manager
When enabled together with the Jitsi audio/video conferencing system (see our docs on Jitsi), it will be made available as an option during the conferences.
For the self-hosted Etherpad instance to be available to your users, you must first enable and configure the Dimension integrations manager as described in the playbook documentation
Etherpad installation is disabled by default. You can enable it in your configuration file (inventory/host_vars/matrix.<your-domain>/vars.yml
):
matrix_etherpad_enabled: true
The Dimension administrator users can configure the default URL template. The Dimension configuration menu can be accessed with the sprocket icon as you begin to add a widget to a room in Element. There you will find the Etherpad Widget Configuration action beneath the Widgets tab. Replace scalar.vector.im
with your own Dimension domain.
If you wish to disable the Etherpad chat button, you can do it by appending ?showChat=false
to the end of the pad URL, or the template.
Example: https://dimension.<your-domain>/etherpad/p/$roomId_$padName?showChat=false
Etherpad comes with a admin web-UI which is disabled by default. You can enable it by setting a username and password in your configuration file (inventory/host_vars/matrix.<your-domain>/vars.yml
):
matrix_etherpad_admin_username: admin
matrix_etherpad_admin_password: some-password
The admin web-UI should then be available on: https://dimension.<your-domain>/etherpad/admin
If you want to manage and remove old unused pads from Etherpad, you will first need to able Admin access as described above.
Then from the plugin manager page (https://dimension.<your-domain>/etherpad/admin/plugins
), install the adminpads2
plugin. Once installed, you should have a "Manage pads" section in the Admin web-UI.
If your Etherpad widget fails to load, this might be due to Dimension generating a Pad name so long, the Etherpad app rejects it.
$roomId_$padName
can end up being longer than 50 characters. You can avoid having this problem by altering the template so it only contains the three word random identifier $padName
.