[xwiki-devs] [Proposal] Improvements to the Office Importer Application

Hi devs, based on feedback from our system administrator & project managers, I'd like to suggest the following improvements to the Office Importer application (those improveents were initially suggested in 2 JIRA issues): * Administration - XAOFFICE-13 * - Ability to set the server path in xwiki.cfg or xwiki.properties (already done) - Ability to overwrite the server path in a field on .../xwiki/bin/admin/XWiki/XWikiPreferences?editor=globaladmin&section=XWiki.OfficeImporterAdmin - Provide an option to set the OOo server to start automatically when XWiki gets started - Ability to define this setting in xwiki.cfg or xwiki.properties - Ability to overwrite this setting on .../xwiki/bin/admin/XWiki/XWikiPreferences?editor=globaladmin&section=XWiki.OfficeImporterAdmin Ideally, we should also allow *remote access to the OOo server*, so that the same OOo server can be used by more than 1 wiki and be located on another machine. Asiri tells me that this is not possible with the current version of JOD converter. However this feature is going to be oft requested. *Is there any other way to make it work?* *User Experience - XAOFFICE-14* Right now, the link to the Office Importer is located in the action bar, under the "Actions" menu. The action bar is meant to let users interact with the current page (context actions), thus the "Import Office Document" link shouldn't be located there. - Move the "Import Office Document" link from the action bar to the Quick Links panel and rename it to "Office Import". - That's what we do with current default applications (Blog) and what we used to do with the Photo album and the calendar. Since the Office Import is a default application as well, I don't see why it should be trated differently. Additionally, it would make it easier for admins to remove the link if needed, by editing the panel (right now the link cannot be removed from the interface, which is annoying if the admin doesn't want to setup an OOo server and rather hide the feature). On the XWiki/OfficeImporter page, the import feature is displayed even if the OOo server is not currently running. Only after the user first tries to import a file is the "Open Office Server not available" message displayed. - If the OOo server isn't running when the user accesses the XWiki/OfficeImporter page, a message should be displayed saying that: - "You cannot import an Office document since the conversion server has not been started. Please ask an administrator to get it started." - If the current user is an admin, the message should read: - "You cannot import an Office document since the conversion server has not been started. You can start the OpenOffice server and manage it from this page (link to the OOo server administration page)." On the XWiki/OfficeImporer page, the user is expected to know the name of the space he will import the file into. This is not very user friendly. - Provide a select box displaying a list of spaces before the input field. If no space is selected (select box left empty), the value in the input field is used. If the input field is empty as well, a warning asking the user to choose a space is returned. - Change the text to read: "Please select a space: [space select box] or create a new one [create space input field]" If the user tries to import an Office Document on a page that already exists, an error message is dislayed but no "next step" is suggested. - Ideally, when the user types the name of the page he wants to create, a live JS validator should tell him whether the page already exists or not - If the JS solution isn't possible: the message should be improved to read: - "The target document Main.WebHome already exists. Please try again (link to the XWiki/OfficeImporter page) and choose another page name." The XWiki/OfficeImporter page offers little explanations as to its purpose and how it works. - An additional line should be added at the top, between the title and the import field, reading: - "This page allows you to import Office Documents into your wiki. It will turn the Office document you uploaded into a wiki page." - "Document" should be renamed to "Select a document to import" next to the input field I'm aware there's a lot of data in here, I'll create a separate thread to discuss a specific point if one of them turns out to be controversial. Thanks for your feedback, Guillaume -- Guillaume Lerouge Product Manager - XWiki Skype ID : wikibc http://guillaumelerouge.com/