[opencms-dev] External editing

[Tom Howe]

There isn't specifically a need for a local CMS repository, although for
some things it would certainly help (ie where several documents are
required in combination to perform an editing task (DTD/XSLT/XML). 

But generally, the idea is that the user downloads the document to be
edited, a lightweight desktop application catches the download, opens
the file in the local editing application and posts it back once the
file has changed.

This process is simply an alternative to the one occuring already when
the browser based editor presents a file for editing and then saves it.
Nothing more than that.

The situation where more than one file is required to perform an editing
task is a little harder to manage I guess. I suppose there would need to
be a way of downloading a package of files or project and then having
them all monitored for changes.

 Tom

-----Original Message-----
From: opencms-dev-admin at opencms.org
[mailto:opencms-dev-admin at opencms.org] On Behalf Of M Butcher
Sent: 02 July 2004 18:25
To: opencms-dev at opencms.org
Subject: Re: [opencms-dev] External editing


Oh, I see... the client part would function more like the TortoiseSVN 
client (Windows client for Subversion) -- it's main job would be to 
synchronize between a remote and a local CMS repository.

That would introduce a fairly complex set of requirements... primarily, 
the CMS would have to handle things more like a version control system. 
I wouldn't see that as impossible, but definitely difficult. 
Essentially, it would pose the same problem that the current 
synchronize-to-disk function is having. Hmm... that's a lot to think 
about. ;-)

Matt

Tom Howe wrote:
> I wouldn't waste time writing a client editor! The bitflux one,
although 
> clever is pretty awful compared with anything available on the
desktop. 
> Some of the browser based ones like eWebEditPro are ok, but still not
as 
> good as a decent desktop one. I used to use Teamsite at a previous 
> workplace and the fact that you could use familiar desktop
applications to 
> edit the content made the most sense. Dreamweaver for html, notepad
for 
> text, photoshop for images etc. Now we have decent authoring tools
like 
> XMLSPY available for XML editing it would make sense to use them for 
> content management too. The Zope plugin I mention does the job of 
> triggering the relevent application and sending the contents back to
the 
> CMS engine. All that needs to be done is catch the posting of that 
> content, save it to the right place and unlock the file. That way,
content 
> management developers can stop wasting time developing editing tools
and 
> get on with building better interfaces for managing workflow and 
> deployment. 
> 
> On Fri, 2 Jul 2004, M Butcher wrote:
> 
> 
>>Tom,
>>
>>I evaluated creating a module to do this using the SOAP XML protocol.
It 
>>can be done... it's just a lot of work (mainly in implementing the 
>>client). I didn't want to do it myself.
>>
>>In the simplest case, SOAP functions would have to exist for checking 
>>permissions, (un)locking, getting the resource, and posting the edited

>>resource. Really, that's not too bad.
>>
>>I also looked at creating a XUL application (Mozilla-specific client 
>>application) which would use Mozilla's composer to do the editing. It 
>>would use the SOAP interface to communicate to the server. This part 
>>would have been pretty difficult, though. Maybe a Python or Java
client 
>>would be easier.
>>
>>If enough people are interested, maybe we should try to target a
module 
>>for 6.0. I'm fairly familiar with the OpenCms internals, and would be 
>>excited to work on the communication layer, but implementing the
client 
>>editor interface sends chills up my spine. ;-)
>>
>>Matt
>>
>>Tom Howe wrote:
>>
>>>As a follow up to a post I made regarding external editing, I
discovered 
>>>that Zope have an external editor application that does just this. It
uses 
>>>a faily standard HTTP post to send the changed data back and webdav
for 
>>>file locking. Might be worth implementing as part of opencms..
>>>
>>>URL is 
>>>http://www.zope.org/Members/Caseman/ExternalEditor
>>>
>>>Tom
>>>
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> 
> 
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