Question

Before I attempt to program the following function myself, I wonder if something already exists.

What I would like to do is click an edit link on my website for a given document, and have that document launch in the native editor on my local machine (via a temporary file mechanism).

When I save the document in the native editor, the document is HTTP PUT back to the website. This can be accomplished by watching the file for writes, or watching the editor process for exit.

This way I can more easily edit documents on the web (instead of going through the download / edit / upload cycle).

My design would work as follows:

1. Register .webedit files on the local machine.
2. When a .webedit file is downloaded, launch webedit.exe with the file.
3. The file contains a URL (http://server/document) which is checked against a security database to ensure we’re only opening allowed URLs.
4. The URL is downloaded to a temporary location.
5. The temporary file is launched in the native editor.
6. The file is watched for changes, and uploaded (HTTP PUT) on change detection (or when the editor is closed, if it’s not a single-instance multiple-document editor).

Lots of FTP / SCP GUIs have this type of functionality, but I have not been able to find it for the web in general, or a shared library that allows you to plug in to this function.

Has anyone seen a program that does this?

Answer 1

SharePoint works like this.

It’s great for managing shared documents in corporate environments.

Users can even checkout/checkin documents & the features are very extensible..you can customize pretty much anything if you know how.

Edit:

Since you’re on Linux..i’ve heard that Alfreco is a great alternative.
I’ve never used it, but I know a couple organizations using it instead of SharePoint.

It integrates with Microsoft Office as well.

Also, it will definitely be cheaper.