How to Edit your documents with WebDAV

The default publication in Lenya 2.0 has limited support for creating and editing documents via webDAV. Below are the steps you can follow to use Dreamweaver or windows xp to edit your publication (which is based on the default pub).

Dreamweaver Setup

The steps below are for Dreamweaver MX 2004 but also works with Dreamweaver 4 (with upgrade).

  • Start up Lenya if it isn't running already, I will assume that it is running on localhost
  • Start Dreamweaver, click on the "Site" menu, and select "Manage Sites..."
  • Create a new site by clicking on the "New..." button and selecting "Site"
  • Name your site whatever you want, select a folder for the storage of local documents
  • Click on the "Remote Info" Category, and select an Access method of "WebDAV", click on the "Settings..." button
  • Fill in the text fields in the "WebDAV Connection" dialog box with the following and click "OK"
URL: http://localhost:8888/default/
Username: lenya
Password: levi
Email: lenya
  • Click "OK" again for the Site Definition dialog box and click "Done" for the Manage Sites dialog box
  • If you don't see your "files" window, click on the "Window" menu and select "Files"
  • Click on the button that looks like a plug and socket
  • You should be presented with a directory tree listing the documents in the default publication

Note: Documents are listed in the same structure that they are via the Lenya web interface. The structure does not map to the structure of the content directory where the document content resides on the server.

  • From this point, you should be able to Check Out, edit, and Check In a document.
  • If you want to unlock a document that you have checkedout but do not want to upload changes, there is an Undo Check Out option.
  • Assets should be listed in the directory with the name of the document they belong to
  • Refer to the Dreamweaver docs for help if you get lost, or give Axis a try if you run into problems

Windows XP Web Folder Setup

  • Goto "My Network Places", I can get to it though my start menu and I have a link to it on my desktop
  • Click on the Network Task "Add a network place", click "next" button on the friendly wizard dialog box
  • Select "Choose another network location" for a Service Provider and click on the "Next" button
  • Enter http://localhost:8888/default/ for the "Internet or network address:", click "Next"
  • Enter the username of lenya and the password of levi, click "OK"
  • Give your network place a name and click "Next"
  • You should get a thataboy message, make sure "Open this network place when I click Finish" is checked, and click "Finish"
  • You should see your authoring folder, open it to see your documents

Note: For some reason I can't open the documents directly, but I can drag and drop and I can "send to". I can open the documents from Open Office (or other apps) but can't directly save them.

  • You should be able to drag and drop new documents into your web folder

Using a Linux Client

First I tired konqueror as a client but it did not work. The second client I tried was cadaver: 

cadaver http://localhost:8888/default/webdav (command line)
Username: lenya
Password: levi

and it basically works.

Optional (if you do not like "vi") you can change the default editor:

dav:/default/webdav/> set editor emacs

Now let us edit the first file via webdav.

dav:/default/webdav/> edit tutorial_en.html

That means i could open, edit and save a document. Further it was not possible to save non valid xml. I did not test other CMS functionality as e.g. access control yet.

Known Problems / Things to fix

  • In order for the current webDAV interface to work, the client has to identify itself in the User-Agent header (the user-agent header needs to be selected as a webdav client in confpatch/selectors.xmap) and it needs to support http Basic Auth
  • Dreamweaver can't yet make new documents, for some reason it issues a MKCOL before putting a new document, MKCOL isn't handled yet.
  • Attempt to mount the default pub on the Mac (using mount_webdav) fails, I suspect that it doesn't like the disrespect Lenya has for the Depth header currently
    • AndreasHartmann: I could mount the pub using the "Connect to Server" feature of Finder, but wasn't able to save or copy files. Goliath (http://www.webdav.org/goliath/) showed the "authoring" folder, but then I got an "unknown connection error".
  • Assets can be retrieved via GET requests, but can't be PUT. Don't really know how to handle that.
  • While saving the document (cadaver) 2 revisons are created.

Recent Testing Results / Observations

Dreamweaver

  • With the recent patches it is now working again as described above in the Dreamweaver section.
  • Creating a new WebDAV site connected to localhost:3333/default displays the complete listing of files from the webdav folder
  • All of the files can be opened, edited, saved, and checked back in right from within Dreamweaver, with the changes appearing with a refresh of Lenya. Saving and Checking In can be combined into one step in the Site > Advanced settings tab.
  • Basic MKCOL method implemented, but still cannot create new files because of temporary directories that are created during new file process.

OpenOffice (Windows)

  • There is an option to toggle which Open/Save Dialogs are used, those from Windows or those from OpenOffice.
  • The Windows dialogs are used by default, to change go to Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > General and click the option for OpenOffice Open/Save dialogs.
  • If using the Windows dialogs and browsing to the files on an XP Web folder, the files will open as read-only. This is because OpenOffice is opening read-only temp files instead of the originals. Word 2003 also does this but avoids the read-only issue.
  • If using the OpenOffice dialogs, browsing to the XP Web folder is no longer an option.
  • However, you can type in (http://localhost:3333/default/webdav/tutorial_en.html) and the file will open as an editable file.
  • Dreamweaver has no read-only issues because it also has its own WebDAV implementation and bypasses XP Web folders.

XP Web Folders

  • As mentioned above they only permit read-only views of WebDAV files in OpenOffice.
  • A google search revealed that XP Web folders create temporary files and that this is the likely cause of the read-only issue. The linked page has a good overview of the WebDAV issues with Word as well.

NetDrive

  • Possible alternative to XP Web folders, mounts WebDAV, FTP, SFTP, etc. as a new drive letter.
  • Pluses: Free, No read-only issues with Word or OpenOffice, easy to find files in Windows Explorer since it shows as another drive
  • Minuses: Something else to install, would be better to have XP Web folders working for simplicity
  • Works as a good development option on Windows for now

Word 2003, OpenOffice Saving Errors

  • There are 2 issues with trying to save html documents with Word or OpenOffice
  • The files are opened as read-only (when using XP Web folders)
  • If you can get the files to open without the read-only restriction they still cannot be saved, because the html source gets transformed to invalid markup.
  • The second point was tested using NetDrive, which removed the read-only restriction.
  • Saving was successful if I took a clean version of the code and replaced the unclean version in the source view. Refreshing in Lenya showed the updated content.

FrontPage 2003

  • Functionality is a cross between Dreamweaver and Word.
  • Opens all files correctly without messing up the markup, and allows editing and saving with no errors.
  • Unfortunately the saved changes do not appear in Lenya when saving to the XP Web folder.
  • If changes are saved to NetDrive, then everything appears in Lenya as it should.
  • Also, a WebDAV site can be created, but errors are thrown when trying to check out files from the server to the site.
  • Haven't had as much time to test FrontPage, will update with more results.

OpenOffice (edit .odt)

  • opening an .odt works
  • saving an odt works

3/23 Update

OpenOffice (Windows) (edit .odt)

Word 2003 Update

  • Now working for opening, editing, and saving documents after applying patch for bug #39019.
  • Files are opened in XML view to preserve well-formedness.
  • Currently working on simple XHTML to WordML to XHTML stylesheets for a more Word-like experience.
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