Installing The Hangout Extension

Appendix A:

Installing The Hangout Extension

You can install the Google Hangout Extension used in this project by following the instructions below.

1. Establish an account with Google for their App Engine service.
2. Make a new App Engine Instance.
3. Download and install the App Engine tools.
4. Download the Google Hangouts project from the Google Code site.
5. Configure the Hangout code
6. Upload the Hangout Extension.
7. Edit the list of approved users
8. Start the Hangout Extension.
9. Use the Hangout.

You could probably install the Google Hangout extension using a Windows or Macintosh Operating system, but for this explanation we will assume that you are using Ubuntu Linux, 12.04 LTS.

1. You might want to set up a Google user just for working with the Hangout Extension. Setting up a Google account is easy. Go to any google sign in page and click on the 'create account' button.

2. See the following link for information about getting your own account registered for Google App Engine. https://console.developers.google.com/start/appengine Google has tons of howto's about their products. When you are presented with options about what programming language you want to use, select python.
   
   At this stage you may be required to choose a unique name for your google App Engine instance. This name is important. For development the name 'awesometelenp' was chosen. Yours must be different. At this stage you must also create your own Hangout Extension. The following link shows how to publish your app: https://developers.google.com/+/hangouts/running . The following link goes through the process of creating a project. https://developers.google.com/console/help/#creatingdeletingprojects . After this you want to enable the specific API for Google Hangouts Extensions. ‎

3. The url for the python tools for working with App Engine follow: https://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/appengine-sdks/featured/google_appengine_1.9.1.zip .
   
   Follow instructions on this page for installing the appengine software on your computer : https://developers.google.com/appengine/downloads#Google_App_Engine_SDK_for_Python

4. As of this writing the code for the Hangout Extension and also the ROS software is all located on a google code site called 'Telenp'. The url for the google code site is: https://code.google.com/p/telenp/ . Instructions for using 'git' is beyond the scope of this document, but the code is stored in a git repository and you will need to use git to download it. The repository is divided into two sections, one called 'awesometelenp' -- which is the hangout extension -- and one called 'turtlebot_tele_presence' -- which is the ROS package. When you download the software you get both at once. I recommend that people create a folder in their home directory called 'workspace' and then download the telenp code into that folder. Then the hangout code could be found at '~/workspace/telenp/awesometelenp/' and the ROS code could be found at '~/workspace/telenp/turtlebot_tele_presence/' .

5. At '~/workspace/telenp/awesometelenp/' there is a file called 'app.yaml'. On line 2 is the spot for you to put your unique app engine instance name. Replace the word 'awesometelenp' with your name. Save and close the file. In the actual html and java code of the project, replace the word 'awesometelenp' with your name. It is used in several image names and url's. A simple find/replace operation in your favorite text editor should work. The four files you should be concerned with are called 'app.js' , 'app-map.js' , 'app.html' , and 'app-map.html' .

6. After completing step 3 above you should be able to upload the App Engine app to the App Engine instance. Open a terminal and perform the command '

$ cd ~/workspace/telenp/awesometelenp

$ appcfg.py update .

(Notice the period after the word 'update'). This will update your instance. You can also perform the commands from another directory, as is outlined in the google site at this address: https://developers.google.com/appengine/docs/python/tools/uploadinganapp#Python_Uploading_the_app

7. This document assumes that you are using the developers version of the Hangouts Extension. Using this setup, if you go to your app engine dashboard at: https://appengine.google.com/ and click on the link representing your app engine instance, you will be taken to a page that has 'Permissions' as one of the many links on the left side of the page. Here you can edit the email addresses that are used to access your project. These email addresses will be able to access the Hangout Extension in the developer section of your Google Hangouts. You must have at least two addresses in your list, one for the controller computer, and one for the turtlebot computer.

8. Log in to Google as one of the email addresses that you set up in part 7. Open Google Plus and start a hangout. Invite the users from the list. You need to invite the user that is attached to the Turtlebot computer. Open the hangout extension that you've renamed by hovering over the left side of the screen and choosing 'Add Apps' from the bar that appears. Choose 'Developers' and then choose yours from the list presented. Do this on the turtlebot computer too.

9. Here we describe the last part of the installation of the Hangout Extension. We assume that you have also installed the ROS operating system and the tele-presence software developed for this project. Log in to Google as one of the email addresses from section 7 using Google Chrome as your web browser. You must have the Hangout Plugin installed. See the link above for installing the plugin: https://www.google.com/tools/dlpage/hangoutplugin . Go to the Google Plus page. Start a hangout and invite others to join you. You must invite someone from the list you made in section 7 to join you. One of these emails should be on the turtlebot computer attached to the turtlebot itself. At this point you should start the ROS software on the turtlebot computer by typing 'roslaunch tele_presence app_manager.launch' in a terminal. Finally, with the ROS software running on the turtlebot and the hangout extensions running on both the turtlebot computer and the controlling computer, the last step of the setup can be performed. Click the 'Turtlebot Node' checkbox on the screen on the turtlebot computer. Go to the controller computer and click on the 'Controller Node' checkbox. Now you should be able to direct the Turtlebot using the arrow buttons on the controller computer's screen.