WebDAV option for lock/read-only access on open

[pmackey]

It would be nice for the WebDAV interface to support an option for locking or opening a file as read-only. Currently any file is locked on open via WebDAV which causes author collisions.

[adrian]

Hello,

Thank you for the feedback.

I have logged your request to our issue tracking tool and it will be analyzed and if found appropriate, it will be implemented in a future version of Oxygen.

Meanwhile, if the WebDAV locking bothers you, you can disable it in:
Options > Preferences > HTTP(S)/(S)FTP/Proxy Configuration, WebDAV, Lock WebDAV files on open.

Regards,
Adrian

[pmackey]

Thanks Adrian. I realized I should have been more specific since there is the global lock option. I'll give a use case example to illustrate:
-Several authors are collaborating on DITA topics in the same map.
-Each author wants to keep the common map open in the DITA maps manager for easy access to the topics via double-click
-Each author wants to lock and edit a single topic in the map
-One author wants to lock and edit the map
-Each author wants to browse other topics in the map for reference by double clicking in the DITA maps manager window

The safe setting for global locking (lock all files) causes the first person to open the file to obtain the lock even if they are just browsing the file for reference. Having to use the global option to selectively decide when to lock vs not lock isn't an efficient solution.

It would be ideal if opening a map or topic had separate actions for opening read-only or request lock.
One possible implementation (all assume WebDAV file paths):
-Double-clicking a file in either the project window or DITA maps manager window opens the file as read-only (unless the global lock option is set)
-A separate button is used to request a lock when opening files (e.g. select the file in the DITA maps manager window and press an 'Open With Lock' button instead of double-clicking. This button could be greyed out when the global lock option is set)
-It would also be nice to break out the global lock options separately for maps vs topics

Hopefully this is more descriptive of the use case we would like to optimize. Thanks.

[adrian]

Thank you for clarifying.
I have mentioned your use case and added your comments to the feature request.

Currently the DITA Maps Manager is not aware of the repository type for the resources it provides access to. Having connection specific actions in the DITA Maps Manager (e.g. 'Lock' or 'Open and Lock' for WebDAV) is something we will consider in the long term.

Regards,
Adrian

[stdu]

Hi Adrian,

we have a similar problem with the global option "Lock WebDAV files on open" - for a few files we would deactivate this option. Does exist the possibility to build (with java) a workaround for a few certain files? I.e. to deactivate (overide) this option for http://user:pw@example.com/certain/files.xml?

Thx,
Stefan

[Radu]

Hi Stefan,

We do not have the API for this.
Could you elaborate a bit on your usecase? Where are you opening that remote file, in the DITA Maps Manager?

Regards,
Radu

[stdu]

Hi Radu,

we have a similar situation not with DITA Maps but with three XML files (with a customized schema), which serve as a central index for places, persons and books mentioned in our TEI files (the TEI files represent the majority of the database). The users access the eXist-Database only via WebDAV - the rest interface is deactivated - to avoid write conflicts on the TEI-Files. But for the three index-files it would be great to distingiush between write access (with lock on files open) and read only access (no lock), because the user want mostly only to control the relation between the TEI files and the index (for this feature we're using the amazing Oxygen CSS extension "link").

Regards,
Stefan

[Radu]

Hi Stefan,

I think we can trick Oxygen into not locking certain files.

Do you have experience implementing Oxygen plugins?

http://www.oxygenxml.com/oxygen_sdk.htm ... er_Plugins

I think this can be done by implementing an Open Redirect plugin and a Custom Protocol plugin.

The Open Redirect plugin will receive events before the URL is opened. If the URL is for the index files, you could ask the user if he wants to lock or not.
If the user does not want to lock, you would create an URL with a different protocol pointing to the same resource, for example:

[url]custom://user:pw@example.com/certain/files.xml?[/url]

Then comes the role of the Custom Protocol which would intercept the "custom" protocol and just delegate to an HTTP url connection all methods.
In this way Oxygen would not know that the opened resource is HTTP and thus would not lock it.

Or implementing a Workspace Access plugin you could provide your own view to users. The users would open the index files specifically in that view (maybe they could have a special tree-like structure to choose indices faster).

Regards,
Radu