Description

• • Overview
  • UI
  • Architecture
  • Roadmap
    • First version
    • Future versions

Overview

The objective of the Word Add-in is to make use of our users basic infrastructure(usually MS Office) and bring it towards online collaboration. The add-in is also a way to encourage new users to use the wiki, by uploading their documents to the server.

• This is now a XWiki.org project. More info at xoffice.xwiki.org

UI

One of the advantages of using an Add-in is that we can create a custom user interface and add functionality to the host application(Word, Excel, Outlook, etc).

This is how the Word Add-in currently looks like:

Most of the buttons have no functionality implemented yet. This is what we have at our disposal:

• classic menus
• tabs + ribbon UI for Office 2007
• toolboxes for Office 2003
• TaskPanes(the one you see on the right, with the TreeView)
• we can popup any custom made window from .NET

The first version will handle document upload and conversion to wiki page so we'll have a more simple UI.

Architecture

• The add-in runs under a .NET Framework runtime an is build using the VSTO package (Visual  Studio Tools for Office). A part of the .NET code is marked as being COM visible so that it can enable Windows messaging with the Office applications.
• At the moment the communication between .NET and the XWiki server is made via HTTP calls, using a wrapped WebClient.
• This WebClient will be embedded into a separate assembly generated by a distinct .NET project. This makes it easy to be reused in different Add-ins and other type of clients.

Here's a picture of the architecture that will be implemented:

We are still considering several options for the server part:

• Use a component to provide a wide range of services.
  • PROs:
    • Very powerfull and flexible.
    • Allows us to integrate any XWiki module/functionality like: Wang's Office Importer and html cleaner, Vincent's syntax rendering, Asisri's WebDAV etc.
  • CONs:
    • Longer development time. 
    • Hard to install on the server until the component becomes a part of the platform.
• Use wiki pages that will be shipped in a XAR.
  • PROs:
    • Very easy to install on the server => More users will test it;
    • Easy use of the XWiki API for page creation/retrieving, attachment and object saving;
  • CONs:
    • Not so flexible when needed to use other XWiki components
    • Does not allow us to use the work that is already done in Office Importer and WebDAV.
• The Add-in just provides a simple UI and writes the content to WebDAV
  • PROs:
    • We use a lot of great work Asiri has done
  • CONs:
    • Additional steps for the end user to install WebDAV
    • Not as flexible as using services
• Develop our current XML-RPC services and use the client to call them
  • CONs: the existent .NET APIs that handle XML-RPC are not so good

We are currently going with the XAR approach, so the installation process will imply:

• the admin will import the XAR to the server
• users will have a Windows installer to setup the Add-in

Roadmap

First version

• Users will be able to create a new wiki page from Office(Word works as an WYSIWYG using WebView to directly create HTML)
• Users can upload a local document to the wiki, as an attachment
• Users can export a local file as a wiki page.

Future versions

• Enable wiki page editing inside Word
• Enhance the collaboration over Charts, Excel Sheets and other advanced content features