Re: [Zope] Using Zope for Document Collaboration
Thanks Loren - I installed both of them yesterday, which is what started me down this path. I *really* like DocumentLibrary. I didn't see anything in either product for actually editing the document from within the library though. (It's quite possible that I missed it - I'm just beginning to work with them) We will be using DocumentLibrary to archive past RFP's. Thank you Kaivo for some great tools! What I think I'm looking for really feels like a Zope app. I'm probably just not aware of the full capabilities of tools like cmf, ZWiki, DocumentLibrary/MSWordMunger, XML, etc. I'm sure it's in there somewhere ;-) Am I on the right path thinking that ZWiki will be the way to edit this text online (without using the Zope Management Interface?) We're trying to avoid the "download - edit - upload" process. I'll check the conversion output from MSWordMunger and let you know about your <h#> observation. Thanks for bringing that to my attention. Cheers, Mark Loren Stafford wrote:
Did you see these recently announced products:
http://www.zope.org/Members/Kaivo/DocumentLibrary
http://www.zope.org/Members/Kaivo/MSWordMunger
Another observation: Unless the client's Word files use Heading styles, most Word to HTML converters won't produce HTML with <hn> tags (where n is a digit). But maybe you have a smarter converter.
-- Loren
-----Original Message----- From: zope-admin@zope.org [mailto:zope-admin@zope.org]On Behalf Of Mark Langkau Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2001 10:32 To: zope@zope.org Subject: [Zope] Using Zope for Document Collaboration
Hi,
Forgive me if this isn't the correct list for this question. I need some design help - and suggestions of tools to use would be great. I'll take further discussions of "design" issues off line, and stick to specific Zope/tool questions here.
Quick Summary:
I need to take an incoming MS-Word file and break it up into sections, and post them on our Zope intranet for various employees to edit and contribute to. When completed, the sections need to be rolled back up into a single file that can be converted back to MS-Word. Users will not have access to the Zope Management Interface.
Mark Langkau wrote:
Thanks Loren -
I installed both of them yesterday, which is what started me down this path. I *really* like DocumentLibrary. I didn't see anything in either product for actually editing the document from within the library though. (It's quite possible that I missed it - I'm just beginning to work with them)
Yes, neither are really designed as collaborative tools like what you want.
We will be using DocumentLibrary to archive past RFP's. Thank you Kaivo for some great tools!
Glad you like it.
What I think I'm looking for really feels like a Zope app. I'm probably just not aware of the full capabilities of tools like cmf, ZWiki, DocumentLibrary/MSWordMunger, XML, etc. I'm sure it's in there somewhere ;-) Am I on the right path thinking that ZWiki will be the way to edit this text online (without using the Zope Management Interface?) We're trying to avoid the "download - edit - upload" process.
Wikis are collaborative, but very light on content formatting, heavier on the inter-document links. It would be a challenge (though not impossible) to make a single document from a Wiki.
I'll check the conversion output from MSWordMunger and let you know about your <h#> observation. Thanks for bringing that to my attention.
The munger should convert the heading styles. If you edit the wvZope.xml file in the product, you can make it output code for any styles you please. It will convert other formatting as well to the standard tags (bold, italic, underline, superscript, etc.). You could even make it generate XML from a Word document if you like. Making a word document back out of the HTML/XML/DTML objects would probably be challenging. I think wvWare is beginning to support this however.
Cheers, Mark
I think the complexity of this project depends on the sophistication of your users (do they know HTML/XML, do they need a WYSIWYG editor, or is structured text good enough?) and what capabilities you want in Zope to collaborate on these docs. Perhaps there is a better network file system based solution already in existence? -- | Casey Duncan | Kaivo, Inc. | cduncan@kaivo.com `------------------>
Casey Duncan wrote:
Mark Langkau wrote:
Thanks Loren -
I installed both of them yesterday, which is what started me down this path. I *really* like DocumentLibrary. I didn't see anything in either product for actually editing the document from within the library though. (It's quite possible that I missed it - I'm just beginning to work with them)
Yes, neither are really designed as collaborative tools like what you want.
However, what they ARE designed to do, really match several other needs we have. Thanks again.
Wikis are collaborative, but very light on content formatting, heavier on the inter-document links. It would be a challenge (though not impossible) to make a single document from a Wiki.
I can see now where that (single document) would be a problem.
Making a word document back out of the HTML/XML/DTML objects would probably be challenging. I think wvWare is beginning to support this however.
I think letting Word open a single resulting URL and saving it locally for final formatting would be good enough for our needs. Something like "rfp.our-site.net/rfp/rfp-for-client-twelve.html" where the person doing the final formatting would grab it, save it as a Word doc, and fix it up locally on their PC.
I think the complexity of this project depends on the sophistication of your users (do they know HTML/XML, do they need a WYSIWYG editor, or is structured text good enough?) and what capabilities you want in Zope to collaborate on these docs.
The users will be fairly unsophisticated. They would not know HTML/XML - structured text would be good enough. They will know how to use a web browser and fill out web forms and text boxes, but not much beyond that. The important contribution from them will be the actual content they provide. Formatting would not be important.
Perhaps there is a better network file system based solution already in existence?
-- | Casey Duncan | Kaivo, Inc. | cduncan@kaivo.com `------------------>
There is probably a very simple way to accomplish the end-goal, but I'm thinking in too many directions and making this more complex than it needs to be. Cheers, Mark
There's a recent thread "Versioned Documents" on zope-CMF@zope.org that you may be interested in as well. CMF and collaborative documentation would seem to go well together. -- Loren
participants (3)
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Casey Duncan -
Loren Stafford -
Mark Langkau