Re: open office collaboration

[email protected] wrote:
> Here's my 2 cents:
> - OOo doesn't store versions, it stores changes; this somewhat
>   supports collaboration, but it's best for sequential, not
>   parallel work

This also matches the current OGo storage. Checkout a document, edit, 
check in. Next guy. We hope to resolve this when we Subversion is ready 
and can be used as a backend.

> - the body of an OOo document is text (XML) but it's format
>   is optimised for reduced storage, not for efficient
>   versioning (as in a CVS/RCS or SCCS versioned file); it
>   might be best to actually store complete revisions in the
>   zipped (.sx*) format

Well, I don't know how the .sx* formats track changes, but it would be 
quite nice if those could be separated out at the server side (you save 
a file which contains changes and it is split up in server side versions).
Also the reverse, download a file with versions applied as changes.

> - OOo can compare different, even unrelated, documents

Cool.

> Given these points, I believe the main requirements for OOo are:
> - store the source URI in the document (useful for offline
>   editing)

Yes, sounds useful.

> - facilitate the user to to compare different revisions of a
>   document by providing an additional 'compare
>   version' menu item *when the original URI of a document
>   is a WebDAV server*.

WebDAV itself isn't a versioned protocol, you need the deltav extensions 
which are not really supported by a lot of servers.

> - OOo already supports WebDAV access, but it also needs an
>   improved "file open" UI to support navigation and version
>   selection (there was an earlier thread about WebDAV on the
>   groupware.openoffice.org mailing lists, see

Yes, it would be nice to have custom file open dialogs.

>> It will be used primarily by non-technical people, and thus DocBook and
>> tex, even html, is *way* to complicated.

Structured text is very simple an easy, IMHO. Anyway, may still be too 
difficult for non-techies.

regards,
   Helge

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