Page MenuHomePhorge
Create Task
Maniphest T67

Real-time Collaborative Document Editing
Open, NormalPublic
Actions

Description

Provide real-time document editing capabilities similar to what Etherpad or WebODF does. This means that several people can edit the same document at the same time and all changes are visible by all participants in near real-time.

It should be possible to save different revisions of the document as well as assigning colours to text contributed by the different participants.

Rationale:
Tools like Etherpad and Google Docs have shown the value that real-time collaborative editing has brought to people. Being able to invite others to edit a document together is turning more and more into something people expect from their collaboration solution. The full value however is only realized when we support full ODF editing opposed to simple (rich) text editing.

Plan:
This will be accomplished using WebODF.

WebODF comes with an editor called Wodo, which runs entirely on the client-side for single-user editing of ODT documents. Editing spreadsheets and presentations is not yet possible.

For a useful collaborative editing solution that utilizes WebODF, there needs to be written a complete web application that:

Probably Milestone #1

  1. Provides a server to let connected clients exchange edit changesets in real-time -- T505
  2. Persists the complete edit history and frequent snapshots of live documents to disk -- T505, T506
  3. Provides a server to convert documents between various formats for Export as... and possibly also Import -- T507

Probably Milestone #2

  1. Accepts user authentication through a pluggable system (LDAP via to be used for Kolab integration)
  2. Allows authorization based on groups/invites/blessings/ACL-type.

Probably Milestone #3

  1. Allows uploading/importing documents through various techniques (WebDAV/Chwala for Kolab)
    • List of documents in/next to Wodo, double-click to edit automagically,
    • ...

Some work towards this has already been done previously in the form of KoType, which is a prototype. The parts of KoType that deal with exchanging operations amongst clients are the most important, and would be borrowed for this project.

Details

Ticket Type
Epic

Related Objects
Search...

StatusAssignedTask
 OpenNoneT67 Real-time Collaborative Document Editing
 ResolvedmachniakT483 API for querying Access Control on Files and Folders
 ResolvedAdityabT505 Server for Collaborative Text Editing
 ResolvedAdityabT506 PhantomJS for Snapshot creation
 ResolvedAdityabT575 Create a base webapp with user accounts and admin UI
 ResolvedAdityabT576 Allow persisting documents
 ResolvedAdityabT577 Add collaborative editing view
 ResolvedAdityabT582 Investigate breakage of WebODF in Chrome 44 Beta and Canary.
 ResolvedAdityabT583 General polish
 ResolvedAdityabT507 Conversion of Documents using LibreOffice
 ResolvedvanmeeuwenT508 Clone ownCloud format-filter-server in to Phabricator
 ResolvedvanmeeuwenT509 Clone repository for/from Manticore
 ResolvedAdityabT510 LDAP authentication and authorization plugin for Manticore
 ResolvedvanmeeuwenT511 Clone ldapjs repository
 ResolvedAdityabT666 Understand LDAP and create subtasks
 ResolvedAdityabT717 Find sensible default configuration that will work with Kolab
 OpenvincentT569 UX Design for Collaborative Document Editing
 ResolvedAdityabT585 Document upload for anything not *.odt fails without feedback.
 ResolvedAdityabT586 .odt document upload does not refresh list of documents
 ResolvedAdityabT587 List of documents empty upon login
 InvalidAdityabT588 Copies of document with the same name are indistinguishable
 ResolvedAdityabT589 Default (text-)document template with nice styles
 ResolvedAdityabT590 Fonts for document editing
 WontfixvanmeeuwenT591 Allow an administrator to upload fonts
 ResolvedAdityabT592 Add a table of documents in Manticore in the main page
 InvalidAdityabT593 Research what items could be used from a table to distinguish sessions(?)
 WontfixAdityabT623 Pagination in multi-page document
 ResolvedAdityabT700 Investigate various methods for pagination
 ResolvedAdityabT624 WebDAV backend for Manticore
 ResolvedAdityabT654 Plan subtasks and learn more about how to do WebDAV integration
 ResolvedAdityabT659 Add WebDAV auth strategy for Manticore
 ResolvedAdityabT660 Create an abstraction layer for the Document collection, allowing different storage backends
 ResolvedAdityabT683 Handle session invalidation of live documents when syncing with WebDAV
 ResolvedAdityabT661 Figure out a way to handle different types of access control restrictions
 OpenAdityabT699 Investigate and fix memory consumption/performance of PhantomJS
Restricted Maniphest Task
 ResolvedmachniakT722 Enabling Manticore in the Kolab configuration
ResolvedmachniakT723 Using Chwala multi-backend storage engine(s) architecture
 ResolvedAdityabT804 Design and Create Chwala storage driver in Manticore
 WontfixAdityabT817 Gracefully handle GET and PUT errors from Chwala
 ResolvedAdityabT822 Expose iframe API events for collaborator activity
ResolvedmachniakT724 Open collaborative session from Roundcube Files
 ResolvedmachniakT725 Joining a collaborative editing session
 ResolvedmachniakT726 Invite a user to join a collaborative editing session
 ResolvedmachniakT727 Seeing active collaborative editing session
 ResolvedmachniakT728 Listing active collaborative editing sessions
 ResolvedmachniakT729 Autocompletion when inviting to a collaborative editing session
 ResolvedmachniakT757 Editing a read-only document
Restricted Maniphest Task
Restricted Maniphest Task
Restricted Maniphest Task
Restricted Maniphest Task
Restricted Maniphest Task
Restricted Maniphest Task
Restricted Maniphest Task
Restricted Maniphest Task
Restricted Maniphest Task
Restricted Maniphest Task

Event Timeline

grote created this task.Apr 27 2015, 6:39 AM
grote raised the priority of this task from to 60.
grote updated the task description. (Show Details)
grote added projects: Architecture & Design, Quality Assurance, Product Owners.
grote changed Ticket Type from Task to Epic.
grote subscribed.
grote moved this task from Incoming to In Triage on the Product Owners board.Apr 27 2015, 6:49 AM
vanmeeuwen subscribed.Jun 15 2015, 4:04 PM

@grote,

would we require including the ability to invite people to edit documents they do not have the appropriate (IMAP-level) write access to?

grote added a comment.Jun 15 2015, 4:07 PM

would we require including the ability to invite people to edit documents they do not have the appropriate (IMAP-level) write access to?

Although, this would of course be nice to have, this is not a hard requirement for a first milestone. All other collaboration features require local accounts, so can this one for the time being.

Adityab updated the task description. (Show Details)Jun 18 2015, 10:55 AM
Adityab updated the task description. (Show Details)
vanmeeuwen updated the task description. (Show Details)Jun 18 2015, 11:18 AM
vanmeeuwen updated the task description. (Show Details)Jun 18 2015, 11:40 AM
meier closed subtask T509: Clone repository for/from Manticore as Resolved.Jun 18 2015, 12:08 PM
vanmeeuwen closed subtask T508: Clone ownCloud format-filter-server in to Phabricator as Resolved.Jun 18 2015, 12:14 PM
grote moved this task from In Triage to In Sprint on the Product Owners board.Jun 18 2015, 12:35 PM
vanmeeuwen renamed this task from Real-time Collaborative Text Editing to Real-time Collaborative Document Editing.Jun 26 2015, 2:02 PM
vanmeeuwen added subtasks: T586: .odt document upload does not refresh list of documents, T587: List of documents empty upon login.Jul 3 2015, 12:57 PM
vanmeeuwen added a comment.Jul 3 2015, 2:38 PM
In T67#5815, @grote wrote:

would we require including the ability to invite people to edit documents they do not have the appropriate (IMAP-level) write access to?

All other collaboration features require local accounts, so can this one for the time being.

This is not necessarily the problem space; I might want to invite you to edit with me a document that resides in my Files folder, without giving you read/write or even read-only access to my Files folder. The fact that for now at least you require a local account was implied.

vanmeeuwen closed subtask T588: Copies of document with the same name are indistinguishable as Invalid.Jul 3 2015, 3:34 PM
vanmeeuwen closed subtask T587: List of documents empty upon login as Resolved.Jul 15 2015, 2:24 PM
vanmeeuwen closed subtask T586: .odt document upload does not refresh list of documents as Resolved.
vanmeeuwen closed subtask T585: Document upload for anything not *.odt fails without feedback. as Resolved.
Adityab closed subtask T592: Add a table of documents in Manticore in the main page as Resolved.Jul 15 2015, 4:17 PM
Adityab closed subtask T590: Fonts for document editing as Resolved.Jul 21 2015, 1:05 AM
Adityab closed subtask T589: Default (text-)document template with nice styles as Resolved.
Adityab closed subtask T505: Server for Collaborative Text Editing as Resolved.Aug 17 2015, 4:09 PM
Adityab closed subtask T624: WebDAV backend for Manticore as Resolved.Aug 19 2015, 1:29 AM
Adityab closed subtask T510: LDAP authentication and authorization plugin for Manticore as Resolved.Aug 21 2015, 6:56 PM
vanmeeuwen added a subtask: Restricted Maniphest Task.Sep 8 2015, 8:37 AM
hcderaad subscribed.Sep 12 2015, 5:58 PM
Adityab closed subtask T507: Conversion of Documents using LibreOffice as Resolved.Sep 13 2015, 11:01 PM
machniak closed subtask T483: API for querying Access Control on Files and Folders as Resolved.Nov 5 2015, 1:43 PM
vanmeeuwen removed a project: Architecture & Design.Dec 8 2015, 9:23 AM
vanmeeuwen added a project: Architecture & Design.Dec 8 2015, 12:23 PM

There's quite some items that may fall out of the actual implementation of just the collaborative editing server and client components not being as feature-complete as a full desktop client, with priorities to be established on a case-by-case basis.

Examples include numbered and unnumbered lists, tables, images, and so forth.

vanmeeuwen moved this task from Backlog to Construction on the Architecture & Design board.Feb 5 2016, 3:42 PM
pasik subscribed.Nov 25 2017, 2:38 PM
vanmeeuwen closed subtask Restricted Maniphest Task as Wontfix.Mar 22 2019, 11:55 AM
vanmeeuwen closed subtask T591: Allow an administrator to upload fonts as Wontfix.
vanmeeuwen closed subtask T623: Pagination in multi-page document as Wontfix.
vanmeeuwen lowered the priority of this task from 60 to Normal.Mar 28 2019, 8:13 AM