Loading...
 
Features / Usability

Features / Usability


Tiki and Webdav

posts: 22

I tried to search for webdav discussions in the forums but got lots of tiki pages that didn't explain anything - including the webdave help page that doesn't tell me what I need to know. My apologies if this is a repeat:

1) How do I connect to the new (5.0) webdav feature from Mac? I can't seem to find a URL that works. Mac doesn't like the URL with ".php" on the end that the help page offers. Also, the URL is supposed to appear in the file gallery view, but it doesn't.
2) How do I connect to the new (5.0) webdav feature from Windows 7? Windows 7 lets you mount a webdav drive. However like the Mac it won't accept the ".php" URL syntax.

I'm pulling my hair out on this. I know it should be simple... right?


posts: 4

Hi, I am enjoying Tiki very much. Thank you. The features are great. I am having some difficulty with features that don't work right - like the tiki html editor hspace. In general, it is a great system that I am glad to use and I am trying to learn how to be a developer of it as well, I don't see much of a way to use the system, except as a developer too. Unfortunately I also need to deliver a product to my clients in real time.

I am trying to understand what "Long Term Support" means. I am running 5.3 right now and cannot decide whether to upgrade to 6.1. Version 6.x is supposed to have, "Long Term Support." Does that mean if bugs are fixed in version 7 or 8 that the fix will be back-ported to version 6.x as well?

If I fix something in 5.3, will that be overwritten in 6.x with the old bug? Maybe so. I am trying to decide whether I should not try to fix something because it will be fixed in the next version, or just stay in one version and provide my own long term support.

This is a classic issue. What is the balance between, "Getting it done," and "Getting it right?" Both need to be present for things to work. I just need to know how the versions are going to be done with reference to "Long Term Support," and whether I should just expect to go to one version that has the features I need and spend a considerable amount of time working on that version and not upgrade. I think a number of people are just sitting on a version they trust - trust is an important part of all this.

Thanks for all your time and energy. And I hope to see several of you in Portland this summer. And I want to make contributions too.

posts: 4

Update: I did upgrade to 6.1 and it is much better for editing Web pages. I congratulate those who brought in the new Html editor. It is way better.

Thanks to you,


P.


posts: 1817 Catalan Countries

Hi Eric:

Thanks for your message and constructive comments. Really appreciated.

There were some missunderstandings , but in general, I agree with what you say. And believe me, many people in Tiki Community are aware of that, and doing our best.

a few specific comments:

  • Not many posts related to WebDav maybe because it's a new feature, and it was undocumented for a while...

And maybe also related to the fact that most users don't know why they need it for? Anyway...

  • Sorry for the "joke" about getting a different OS. I'm used to my univerity students telling me "Get a Mac" when something doesn't work with the computers with windows at one of the places where I teach. Forget it.

  • I'm afraid the coders of the webdav implementation in Tiki are not following this forum (nor any forums in tiki.org). That's the way things are, it seems. (but they are investing their time with their customers and in the Quality Team of Tiki, also, etc). You could easily reach them through the tikiwiki-devel list, of course, and maybe (I don't know for sure), through the tikiwiki-users list. You know, some people prefer email lists than forums, etc. (I don't know if this is their case, anyway)

  • Documentation: I agree. A few users have done as much as possible to fill in the gaps in the last years (I can tell you it was much worse), at least, as a reference or handbook.

If you look for something better for new users to go through a whole document, you can read the nice alternative project by another Tiki admin:
http://twbasics.keycontent.org

Well, I hope you can figure it out how to use tht webdav with your OS, whichever you use. I managed to use WebDav from GNU/Linux, Mac and Windows. At least, basic usage.

Good luck, and again, thanks for the time you invested to share back your comments and opinions.

cheers


posts: 22

Xavi and others - here's why I want webDAV.

In a business or any shared enterprise, people need to share files in order to work together. Sending them around by email simply raises the question as to which file is the current one. So sharing files on a LAN from a server was born. However, today, many people don't work in the same building as each other, and yesterday's LAN file-sharing protocols don't work. What is needed is a file-sharing protocol that is suited to today's cloud computing environments.

For example, Microsoft uses CIFS to share directories from a server to clients. However, if you try to use CIFS across a WAN, it doesn't work. It is so chatty, tranferring data in little chunks with acknowledgements back and forth, each being delayed by the latency of the WAN (wide-area-network), so it can often be 10x to 100x slower than using it on a LAN, even if the WAN throughput is good. Instead, what you want is a "chunky" protocol that sends the file in large chunks or all at once, just like HTTP sends a web page.

This is why WebDAV was developed from HTTP - it's an enhancement to HTTP that supports file sharing and file versioning, both of which are needed by people who collaborate.

In our company, everyone is working remotely. So when we saw the file sharing capabilities of TikiWiki, were we excited. Especially the security model that allows different groups to work together in privacy. However, the TikiWiki interface is aimed at casual use rather than the intensive use people make of the file systems built into their operating systems. So for us, we wanted to directly talk to TikiWiki from our operating systems so we could use our file managers and applications to send and retrieve shared files while still taking advantage of TikiWiki's security administration features, and integrated user interface for article maintenance.

I still don't have it working, though.


posts: 1817 Catalan Countries

Thanks for your explanations. I knew (most of) that, but for sure, your explanations are going to be useful for anybody else looking in tiki forums for "webdav".

Thanks, and report back if you succeed using it.
Did it work for you with a simple example from Mac applications like the test I did when writing current documentation for WebDav?

posts: 22

Xavi,
No it did not work with the Mac. The mac complains that there is no server at that URL. My guess is that the URL is not acceptable to MacOS. I tried to mount a WebDAV folder on my QNAP Turbo NAS storage appliance, which uses Apache as its WebDAV server, and it mounted flawlessly on the Mac, so I know it's an issue with the URL or perhaps a permissions issue.


posts: 6 France

Hi,

I am the guilty one for the WebDav implementation, thanx Xavi for forwarding this thread to the mailing list so I am aware of it.

WebDav was tested with Linux and Win XP during development and with MAC OS for documentation by Xavi. And we have no big problem with these OSs.

If for Win7 and MAC OS versions newer than the one we have access to, the .php extension is the pb, you can try to do a rewrite rule in your server configuration.

Like rewriting /webdav/ to tiki-webdav.php

As I don't know which Web server you use I cannot help you more, but feel free to ask me any question you have. This way we may be able to improve the documentation on WebDAV implementation in Tiki and allow other users to have a better experience.

posts: 1817 Catalan Countries

Hi Sept, Eric, Marc, Jörn, Gary and other followers of this thread!

Well, I've tested myself today, and there are other issues.

(1) the example in the documentation shows the connection to the demo server:
demo.tikiwiki.org/5x/tiki-webdav.php/

but this site seems to be no longer available
Instead, there is just:
demo.tiki.org/6x/tiki-webdav.php/

So, you'd better try in your own tiki installation, provided that you enable webdav feature first, ensure that you have some file gallery, you are logged in as admin or user with enough global perms or loval on that file gallery, etc.

--------
For tiki developers: keep reading, please:

I tried with user admin on:
demo.tiki.org/6x/tiki-webdav.php/

and I managed to copy & paste files on a test file gallery that I created (using Nautilus/Gnome from GNU/Linux in my case), but files seems to be corrupted somehow: tiki is unable to produce thumbnails for them (in the file gallery), and I'm unable to open those png files again from the webdav folder (only from my local version before copy & paste).

I also tried (just in case) to switch from storing files in db to directories (files/ folder, which is in theory created and with good perms already), in the same demo.tiki.org server. Byut no change. I copy & pasted new png files, and no way.


In addition, I tried something similar in some other demo server, from the ones listed here:
http://info.tiki.org/Get%2BTiki#Try_Before_You_Install

And this one using 5.3 failed for me for some other reason:
http://demo.opensourcecms.com/tiki/
Admin Username: admin
Admin Password: demo123

It's reset every few minutes, so that you'd better ensure to log in as admin, and enable Webdav, and ensure there is a file gallery, etc.

I did that, connected with Gnome/Nautilus, copy & pasted those couple of small png files (which are ok in my localhost), and they were stored there as file type "httpd/unix-directory", which is not recognized as image, of course, not by tiki not by file managers.
See attached one example of those png images thast I uploaded for the tests.

Any hints?

posts: 22

Sept, thank you for the background. However, once again, I have to come back to how this project is run - or, not run. In the Joomla project they sell T-shirts, get corporate contributions, get grants, and finally just ask for what they need whether it's money or other things. There's even a "donate" button on their website. I've donated many times out of the sheer gratefulness for everything.

The result is that Joomla's core team can travel to conferences, get more donations, pay for tools they need, etc.

And now I read that Tiki WebDAV wasn't tested on Win 7 because you were missing a $99 Windows license and a $65 VMWare license to run it in? Why didn't you ask for it? Surely one of the many users that supposedly use Tiki would have paid for it. I would have paid for it if it was obvious that the software was being tested and it was necessary for doing the testing.

Instead, what I'm seeing is there is no comprehensive test plan. This is where the no-organization "religion" of tiki breaks down. You can't test software without a test plan! The result is what Xavi just found, which is that very little about WebDAV seems to be working from the viewpoint of a casual user.

Since I first posted, I have been carefully watching what people say works and trying it.

Mac: tried it, no-go. Then again, I'm still not sure what URL to use because the documentation presents so many different ones.

Windows 7: I think the posters have convinced me that it's not fully functional with respect to WebDAV. I still have more time on the microsoft site to try to figure it out, but I decided to use BitKinex. I couldn't get it to work. Again, probably using the wrong URL, or maybe not understanding BitKinex. A step-by-step set of instructions to produce known-good results would solve this problem - if BitKinex actually can access WebDAV successsfully, which Xavi seems to have thrown into doubt.

Firefox with plugin: Aside from the fact that Trail Mix is annoying and takes up screen real-estate, I couldn't get that one to work either. Again, not sure if I had the right URL since there is no documentation on how to get it other than to "ask my administrator."

So, can I safely assume that WebDAV is actually not a released feature? I'm torn because of my company's investment in content we put into TikiWiki, but our need for functioning groupware that includes file sharing will probably cause us to dump our Wiki content out and find another system that can do both without burdening users with a separate system for each of their groupware needs.

posts: 6 France

Well,

As for the question of which URL to use, because it is not clear, may I point to the admin panel where you activated the feature the says:
"use tiki-webdav.php as the URI of the webDAV repository"

So tiki-webdav.php is the URL your looking for and it is right where you activate the feature, so no one can miss it ;)

For the lack of testing in Seven, the feature was develop before Seven was released, and by the time the organisation paying me for the job was only using Win XP and I use Linux as dev platform. So it is not that I don't have money to spend for Vista or Seven, I have no need to.

If you want me to look at the issues you have with WebDAV on Tiki, I'd be pleased to to so. For me it was not obvious that Windows Seven and Vista have a sub standard implementation of WebDAV ;) And the organization paying me for WebDAV was not at the time interested in testing it with Vista or Seven or MAC.

And honnestly having it working with Win xp (as webfolder, with MS office, with openoffice.org, with IE and with Firefox) and several WebDAV stack in Linux (Openoffice.org, Firefox, cadaver, konqueror and others like fuse webdav) had made me confident that it will work with other implementations...

For me it is not clear what your pb is, you wanted help, but start yelling at everyone that it is unacceptable to have pb and that you cannot find help in the documentation...

If I were you I would have started by describing the pb, I don't know the system on which Tiki is installed, I don't know the version, I don't know the error message, I don't know what you have in the access log of the server, I don't know how you have setup Tiki, how did you configure WebDAV, How do you access it, where the procedure fail (before password validation ?, after ?) etc.

So If you want help from the forum start by providing us with all the above info, how you setup you webdav, how you are accessing it etc. So we can help you efficiently...

But as I said earlier MS implementation of WebDAV is a mess, and pb can arise from that, and for this I am powerless... put at least we have hint from different people who have collected info and patch for MS...


posts: 7

Hello Eric,

As WebDAV could be an interesting thing for me and my company as well, I spent a little time today investigating the stuff. I use Windows 7 and Windows Vista Clients which behave different from Windows XP.

I added a rewrite rule to my .htaccess reading your first post before sept posted on this thread. It did not change the behaviour of Windows in any way and when I looked at the access log of my server, I found out that Windows was not even trying to connect to the server. So the conclusion for me was that the problem does not lie in Tiki but in Windows which objects to the URL or whatever.

I solved the problem for Windows by
a) using the Firefox Plugin mentioned on the help page
b) using the freeware BitKinex Software

Even though it would be nice to have the folder as network drive in my Windows Explorer, I found a working solution in 30 or so minutes while waiting for some other programs to finish.

I can't help you with the MAC, as I only have 2 MacII in my museum and they don't have a web browser on them.

Concerning your point of view of "free software": "Free" means that you don't have to pay for the stuff which is already there. But it does not mean that the support for it must be free and the features it provides fit your needs.

Maybe we should not about the price of the software but about the value it can create for your company/customer. If there is a commercial product out there, you pay amount X to generate a revenue from your customer or solve your problem which costs you money. So, if I solve a problem for you using tiki or any other "free" software, I'll charge you for my knowledge/time. And as long as the amount is smaller than the amount X you would pay for another project, it's a win/win situation and you pay gladly and don't object that this feature/function goes back to the community where others can now use it for free.

At the moment, I have to work to make my living and therefore the time I can devote to programming / documenting tiki is limited by my family, my work and my hobbies. And its up to me, what I do in the time. This is not a hospital where someone assigns me a job, but it's a project where I am "free" to work on the parts I like. And that is exactly the reason, why I (as a developer/IT consultant) also spend some of my "free" time for tiki.

You are right, that the documentation is far from perfect, but instead of complaining, you might start contributing and improving things. For example, you could document the steps/error messages you get here.

posts: 6 France

Hi,


Checking WebDAV for Vista and Seven and found a few info.

For Vista you need a patch to correct some bug in the WebDAV implementation IN vista:

« Software Update for Web Folders (KB907306) »

which can be downloaded here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=17C36612-632E-4C04-9382-987622ED1D64&displaylang=en

For Seven it seems to be a known problem, the solution so far in my readings are as you did use the freeware ))BitKinex(( Software...

Still looking for a solution for Seven... But I don't have access to any Seven enable computer :-(

posts: 6 France

Ok in case someone is interested in WebDAV for Windows 7, here is my first results...

First, it is not Tiki's fault, has the package we use for WebDAV sticks strictly to the RFC, but some strange client side issues.

I see at least two know bugs that will prevent the connection to Tiki WebDAV:


More info on:

  1. http://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/webdav-redirector-list.html
  2. http://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/webfolder-client-list.html


Of course as I don't have access to windows 7 or windows Vista or MAC OS, I cannot test/fix Tiki WebDAV on these systems, but at least for Windows the WebDAV implementations is not RFC compliant at best...


posts: 22

I think you missed the part where I wrote, "nobody in business expects anything to be free, they just like good value." On point of fact, I have tried to contact some consultants near my time zone and none have replied. Not a good sign!

As I mentioned above, Windows 7 connects its filesystem to my QNAP Turbo NAS which uses Apache to serve WebDAV, just fine. So does my Mac. So this is clearly a TikiWIki problem/noncompliance issue.

I tried bitkinex. Using the URL https://myserver/wiki/tiki-webdav.php I got a 500-internal server error.

I'm fine with you balancing work, family, hobbies, and Tiki development. However, the project as a whole cannot let individuals with your mindset control what it delivers. This is a management problem: how do you herd cats to get predictable results? The fact remains that if you expect anyone to use this system, it has to be predictably useful, and leaving the documentation or reliability up to people who don't make it their first priority won't achieve that.

My advice to you is that you don't confuse your hobbies and things that people depend on you for. Everyone will be happier.

As a user - which is clearly what I am - I complain when something isn't usable. Telling me to write documentation when I don't know what I'm doing is the same mistake as you writing code when you don't have the time to support it.

posts: 7

Now we're getting a bit closer, You say that you have a server error. If you'd have a look at the log file of the server (access_log and error_log with apache, don't know the names for IIS), this might help solve the problems.

If you as a "user" fail to understand the error messages, you might even post the log lines and find someone to help you fixing the problem.

From my experience, 90% of the users problems are U2S errors (which is our internal short code for a user not being qualified enough and complaining about the tools instead of his lack of knowledge/abilities)

So, if I get the whole thread right, Tiki implements Webdav according to RFC (says sept) and it works on Linux (and for me on my test and productive servers with Bitkinex and the firefox plugin). The operating system (you paid for) does not adhere to the RFC. You come here complaining and telling me what to do for our (free) project instead of asking the company which sold you a broken product (see the links sept posted) to fix this product for you.

Maybe we should just give you the answer Microsoft would give you in this case and do nothing and you would be more happy with that.


posts: 4656 Japan
I'm fine with you balancing work, family, hobbies, and Tiki development. However, the project as a whole cannot let individuals with your mindset control what it delivers. This is a management problem: how do you herd cats to get predictable results?


The situation, for all volunteer projects, is that "that mindset" is a given that must be accepted and worked with. These aren't corporations in which management can dictate how tasks are completed and goals achieved.

Even more than other open-source software projects, Tiki is all about "the wiki way," and encourages participation to the extent that each contributor can provide. This sometimes results in work that needs to be removed, it also gets some great things that probably wouldn't have happened with a more restrictive development model.

The fact remains that if you expect anyone to use this system, it has to be predictably useful, and leaving the documentation or reliability up to people who don't make it their first priority won't achieve that.


Well, it's their first priority when they're doing it, but they're busy people who also have other things to do. wink

To get a balance between organic contribution on the developer side and a predictable, usable experience on the user side, one thing we do is mark features as "experimental" and so on, so the code can get into the project and be tested and improved, while providing the disclaimer to users to use it with caution or expect some glitches for the time being.

My advice to you is that you don't confuse your hobbies and things that people depend on you for. Everyone will be happier.


Many talented people are available to contribute their worthwhile efforts only as a "hobby", and this is something that should be encouraged, not discouraged. There are a lot of happy Tiki users that are enjoying software created in large part by volunteers outside of their regular work. The Tiki model has been pretty successful so far (just hit the eight-year mark).

As a user - which is clearly what I am - I complain when something isn't usable. Telling me to write documentation when I don't know what I'm doing is the same mistake as you writing code when you don't have the time to support it.


I don't think you were asked to write documentation other than to report your error messages, etc. And about the idea that the code isn't supported, these forums aren't the only (or necessarily the best, for some issues) place for that. There's also the IRC channel and developer mailing list.

-- Gary


posts: 22

If you have BitKinex working, you have solved half the problems we have with WebDAV (since half our users are Mac users, and there's no info on getting Mac to work.) On the other hand, Xavi's recent testing says that you may be happy with far less functionality and reliability than we expect from WebDAV. But in the meantime, how about sharing how you got BitKinex to work?

I have BitKinex up and running, but it won't access the WebDAV folders. The BitKinex log (which should be cuttable and pastable but isn't) simply shows that the connection is closed. It negotiates SSH successfully, reports the Apache version, and then sayhs Location: wiki, Content-Length:0, COnnection: close. No error. My guess is that again the URL is wrong. Can you tell me what URL you use and how you enter it into BitKinex?

By the way both Mac and BitKinex access an Apache-based local WebDAV service in a Qnap Turbo-NAS successfully, so it really is a Tiki related issue.

posts: 1817 Catalan Countries

Hi again:

Yesterday evening I did another test at home, this time booting the laptop I have there with Mac OSX Snow Leopard.

And using "Finder" to connect to a webdav server, I managed to connect to the demo site (6x), equivalent to the 5.x described in the documentation that can be found in WebDAV

so using
demo.tikiwiki.org/6x/tiki-webdav.php/

or the equivalent but shorter:
demo.tiki.org/6x/tiki-webdav.php/
user: admin

(I don't remember if the trailing slash is needed, try with or without, if you have problems with the other)

WebDAV should reply asking you the password for that user "admin".
I'm not usre of the admin password of that demo site can be posted in some public forums (sorry, it's not in my server, so you'd better ask that passowrd on Irc, and you'll be given that pass in a private message, but not here)

Once there, I could browser the folders in finder from that tiki webdav file gallery tree.
But then, the same problem as I reported yesterday using GNU/Linux: files are there with some size, but they can't be opened by the corresponding Mac applications (which looks to me some issue with current Tiki 6 beta code)

posts: 1817 Catalan Countries

FYI
Marc has just (had?) enabled 5x in demo.t.o (thanks Marc!)

However, I've just tried, and get the same error: I can upload a file from GNOME/Nautilus, but I can't see that file from Tiki file gallery or from Nautilus itself.

:-/

So , something might be broken in current releases of 5.x regarding WebDAV under some scenarios that were known to work in the recent past?


posts: 22

Xavi gave me logins to the 5x and 6x sites.
I haven't tested 6x. Please remember that I'm trying to use the system for a business so I won't be likely to install 6x on my production system. I'll try to test it later.

I was able to connect via the Mac to the 5x login on demo.tiki.org/5x that Xavi gave me. I was able to browse, upload, and download. It was "hella" slow, however.

On a lark, I went into Windows and tried to use BitKinex. I could do the same things (browse, upload, download) but it was lightning fast.

I could NOT get IE to work very well. It kept telling me that it couldn't log in... then after the third error it let me in to browse the folder. Then I tried to open the file from inside IE and it let me open it into Word, but I couldn't save it back. I tried to mount the WebDAV folder as a drive, but Windows told me it was invalid.

So there is something getting in the way of Mac access to this server that makes it seem slow.


Page: 2/3  [Next]

Upcoming Events

1)  18 Apr 2024 14:00 GMT-0000
Tiki Roundtable Meeting
2)  16 May 2024 14:00 GMT-0000
Tiki Roundtable Meeting
3)  20 Jun 2024 14:00 GMT-0000
Tiki Roundtable Meeting
4)  18 Jul 2024 14:00 GMT-0000
Tiki Roundtable Meeting
5)  15 Aug 2024 14:00 GMT-0000
Tiki Roundtable Meeting
6)  19 Sep 2024 14:00 GMT-0000
Tiki Roundtable Meeting
7) 
Tiki birthday
8)  17 Oct 2024 14:00 GMT-0000
Tiki Roundtable Meeting
9)  21 Nov 2024 14:00 GMT-0000
Tiki Roundtable Meeting
10)  19 Dec 2024 14:00 GMT-0000
Tiki Roundtable Meeting