WebDAV (or "Web Folders")

Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning, or WebDAV, is a set of extensions to the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) that allows computer-users to edit and manage files collaboratively on remote World Wide Web servers. This feature has been introduced in Tiki5, using eZ Components's implementation of WebDAV, and latest switched to SabreDAV.

Purpose: permits a user to access the File Gallery (There is also WebDAV access to Wiki Pages) via a WebDAV client such as Nautilus from Gnome (GNU/Linux), Konqueror or Dolphin from KDE (GNU/Linux or MS Windows), or the Open As Webfolder Firefox plugin in MS Windows. This means also the ability to drag & drop files from your favorite file manager in your desktop computer directly to the WebDAV-powered file gallery in Tiki. Or re-arranging files in subfolders, etc. in the Tiki file galleries directly from your favourite file manager desktop application:

With WebDAV and Category Transitions, Tiki can be considered as a DMS. However: WebDAV is still considered an experimental feature!

1.1. Server requirements

You need DOMDocument. (php5-xmlrpc, php-xml-parser, php-pear, or similar;)

Fatal error: Class 'DOMDocument' not found in /var/www/html/lib/ezcomponents/Webdav/src/tools/xml.php on line 132

and DateTime

Fatal error: Class 'DateTime' not found in /var/www/html/lib/ezcomponents/Webdav/src/tools/date_time.php on line 22

I (sylvieg) thinks mod_dav must be activated on apache
For ubuntu:

a2enmod dav
a2enmod dav_fs
/etc/init.d/apache2 reload

1.2. Server Configuration

Go to "Admin > Features" and enable "File galleries" and "WebDAV".

Then you have to set perms on file galleries properly. The important
permissions are:

• for viewing
  • view_file_gallery
  • list_file_gallery

• for writing
  • upload_files
  • admin_file_galleries

If you want to allow file versioning in the file gallery, you have to change in (assuming your file gallery is ID number 1) tiki-list_file_gallery.php?edit_mode=1&galleryId=1 :

1.3. Client Configuration

You can see a quick overview of client configuration for each Operating System (O.S:) to access webdav in general, in this page:
http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/WebDAV#WebDAV_Clients

Specific details follow below for the specific usage tested with Tiki for serveral O.S.

1.4. Basic Usage

Once properly connected to a WebDAV folder, you can double click a file, edit (in your desktop software) and when you save, the file is saved to your Tiki directory.

If file versionning is activated in that file gallery ("Maximum number of archives for each file" set to something different than -1), a copy of each save is conserved.

Example:
You could have an .odt or .doc file in a file gallery. That user would be able to open that file from KWord or MS Office directly

Note: OpenOffice.org doesn't seem to work with any version of WebDAV - neither OOo 3.x, 2.x or 1.x, even if you select that OOo uses its own file dialogues, from "Tools > Options > General"

In this example we edited the file "Testing_webdav_from_office_apps.odt" from KWord:

and when we click in the tool icon on the left of each file, we can see the "Archives" section of the popup box, which indicates that this file has 3 prior versions in this Tiki WebDAV-powered file gallery. If you click on archives, you can access to the previous versions of that file, with the username of each editor, edit date, etc.

1.5. Usage through file managers

You need to write the URL with the appropriate syntax for the tiki file galleries in order to connect to the WebDAV folder.

Once connected, you can double click on the file name (or click with alternate mouse button and select the program of your choice).

Edit that file, and when you click on save, the file will be directly saved to the file gallery.

Special feature: Access any version

• If you activate versioning for the files in file gallery, you can access whichever version you like, the default is the last one.
• To access a precise version just add this part:
  
  Copy to clipboard

  ?version_number

  
  at the end of the file name...
  The different versions are not shown in the file listing in order to keep the user interface simpler.

1.5.1. Nautilus (GNOME - GNU/Linux)

Type in the location bar of nautilus something like:

dav://user@example.org/tiki-webdav.php/

where user is your username in Tiki (with enough global permissions or local on that file gallery; see above), and example.org is the base URL of your site online. You will be prompted you password, and then, you'll be able to see and browse your file galleries as folders, etc.
Drag and drop works, editing documents in WebDAV enabled applications (such as plain text files with gedit, etc.)

In case of concurrent editing, the latest user willing to save a modified file concurrently will see a message like:

1.5.2. Konqueror or Dolphin (KDE - GNU/Linux & MS Windows)

Can be used in conjunction with Konqueror as browser, Dolphin as file manager, Kate as simple text editor, KWord as an Office application for advanced text edition, etc.

Similar to the description in Nautilus/Gnome above but using this type of syntax for the URL instead, to be typed in the location bar: of nautilus something like:

webdav://example.org/tiki-webdav.php/

You will be prompted for your password, and then, you'll be able to see and browse your file galleries as folders, etc.
Drag and drop works, editing documents in WebDAV enabled applications (such as plain text files with gedit, etc.)

In this case, you can edit Office documents (.odt, .doc, ...) with KWord from KOffice (tested with KWord 2.1.0 and KDE 4.4.2 on GNU/Linux)

KDE can also be installed on other operating systems. It has been proven to work on MS Windows, where some of the same applications as in GNU/Linux can be used for accessing files and folders on WebDAV-powered tiki file galleries (Dolphin, Kate, ...):

1.5.3. Cyberduck

"Open source FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, Cloud Files, Google Docs & Amazon S3 Browser for Mac & Windows"
http://cyberduck.ch/

An example of how to configure for Tiki WebDAV

1.5.4. Finder (Mac OSX)

Mac OSX has the ability to connect to WebDAV folders, through "Finder > Go > Connect to server"

For instance url: http://demo.tiki.org/9x/tiki-webdav.php and the user/password that can reads files, wiki page

Once connected, files can be edited with WebDAV compatible applications, such as TextEdit (Add other applications if you know them)

1.5.5. Windows 7 web folders

Windows 7 has support for WebDAV, also called web folders. The setup is rather easy:

1. Click on Computer => Map network drive
2. Add your site under folder. Here is an example for WebDAV+SSL:
   Copy to clipboard

   https://example.org/tiki-webdav.php/File galleries/

3. Enter your username/password
4. Done!

However: It's very easy for this described procedure to fail (for various reasons):

• For WebDAV+SSL: Make sure the server has a valid certificate!
• If you don't use SSL: For security reasons Windows 7 doesn't provide support for Basic Authentication, only for Digest Authentication. There is one possible workaround that might help (it requires changing the registry though):
  1. Open regedit (e.g. type regedit in the Start menu under Search programs and files)
  2. In the editor go to the following place:
     Copy to clipboard

     Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\WebClient\Parameters

  3. Double click BasicAuthLevel and change its value from 1 (default) to 2
• WebDAV+LDAP might give some issues. First try to see if WebDAV access with a normal (Tiki based) user works...
• There might also be an issue with permissions: Try to see if WebDAV works with a user that has permissions for tiki_p_admin_file_galleries.

It is not always possible to edit files directly. E.g. Word doesn't seem to be able to save a file directly to a mapped web folder...

1.5.6. NetDrive (MS Windows)

NetDrive (from Novell) doesn't always (ever?) seem to work properly together with Tiki-Wiki's WebDAV. It might be possible to establish a connection without any errors but no content is shown(??). Here is an example configuration for WebDAV + SSL:

1. Site name: YourBookmarkName
2. Server Type: WebDAV
3. Click on Advanced:
   1. Choose UTF-8 as Encoding
   2. Choose Use HTTPS
4. Site IP or URL:
   Copy to clipboard

   https://example.org/tiki-webdav.php

5. Port: 443
6. Drive: YourDriveLetter
7. Disable Connect as Anonymous
8. Enter your username and password under Account

1.5.7. Webdrive (MS Windows and MacOSX)

Webdrive is a commercial client with support for WebDAV. It offers a free trial version for 20 days. There is one very serious issue with this client however (check below). To connect to Tiki-Wiki do the following (example for WebDAV+SSL):

1. Right click Sites and add a new bookmark for a site. Then click on it.
2. Server type: WebDAV
3. Drive: YourDriveLetter
4. Site Address/url:
   Copy to clipboard

   https://example.org/tiki-webdav.php

5. Disable Anonymous/Public Logon
6. Enter your username and password under Username and Password
7. Recommended: Unless performance is essential choose Multi-user instead of Single User under Properties => Cache => Options. Or make sure that files are validated using the Server modified time...

Remark: When editing or replacing files (e.g. using Word or drag and drop) WebDrive seems to add the files as a new file each time (probably deleting the old one first). I.e. the file id is changed after each edit. This means that all references from Wiki pages to this files have to be redone after each edit. This makes WebDrive essentally useless together with Tiki-Wiki... 😑

1.5.8. BitKinex

BitKinex is a freeware-client for Windows XP/Vista/7 and available under http://www.bitkinex.com/ .

Most of the setting are the defaults or obvious except:

If you run in trouble with other clients, give BitKinex a try!

1.5.9. Android WebDAV File Manager

There a many apps that claim that can manage webdav-powered servers. Tiki requires that the webdav app is able to manage folders with spaces, for instance ("File Galleries"), and not alol seem to do it. WebDAV File Manager is a small free application that works outof the box nicely with Tiki webdav powered File Galleries.

See:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.ddo.shigadroid.webdavfilemanager

1.6. Usage through web browsers

You need to log in as usual to your tiki site, and go to the WebDAV file gallery to see the links to open that file as in a WebDAV folder.

1.6.1. Internet Explorer (MS Windows)

1. Go with your web browser to tiki-webdav.php. You will see the link Open Tiki WebDAV as WebFolder .
   
   You have this type of link also if you click on the context menu in that file gallery ("Open in WebDAV"; see screenshot above), It works ok with OpenOffice.org 2.x, KOffice and IE/MS Office, for instance.
   For OpenOffice.org 3.x the file is open in read-only mode (known issue of eZ Components).
2. IE displays the following message:
   
3. Click OK. The login window appears.
   
4. Enter your username and password and click OK.

1.6.2. Firefox with extensions (MS Windows)

1.6.2.1. Trail-Mix extension

Trail-Mix extension allows to:

• Organize Files in a Firefox explorer
• Drag & drop to WebDAV servers, among others.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/13359

Instructions on how to set it up:

1. Open the Show menu and select "Online Files"
   (Click the cute little squirrel on the right.)
2. Click the "WebDAV Server" toolbar button in the sidebar
3. Enter the name you want to use for the server
4. Enter the "DAV" URL, check the list above or ask your admin.
5. Click ok - the top-most site directory will be displayed

Some servers redirect to login pages, and that can cause setup issues. If you get an error saying "Redirected", you may have to login first on a single-sign-on web page, but once you set it up it should work. Some servers may require https: instead of http: to use a secure SSL connection.

Also, you can set the DAV URL to any folder on the server, and only folders contained will be displayed.

More information at:
http://www.trail-mix.com/wordpress/2009/07/using-online-files-withyour-document-server/

The documentation didn't say anything that it was specific to MS Windows, but it has been proven to work under MS Windows, and not, under GNU/Linux, so far.

1.6.2.2. Other extensions

Note: Some users reported that the Firefox extension "Open as WebDAV extension" (for MS Windows) allowed them to connect to Tiki WebDAV file galleries (using Win XP). Other users failed to reproduce that with Firefox 3.5 and 3.6 on Win XP SP2). Therefore, some more information is needed on how to use that extension or its requirements to work properly

Open As Webfolder 0.25 extension for firefox on Windows.

Related:
Microsoft Software Update for Web Folders (KB907306)

1.7. Note about Apache with PHP as fcgi or cgi

In Tiki6 an authentication problem has been identified with Apache when PHP is used in FCGI or CGI mode.

If Apache is calling PHP in CGI mode, authentication HTTP Headers are not set.
In this case, you have to add the following lines inside your Apache VirtualHost config :

RewriteEngine on
   RewriteCond %{HTTP:Authorization} ^(.*)
   RewriteRule ^(.*) - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%1]

1.8. WebDAV access to Wiki Pages

Added in Tiki7. Please see WebDAV access to Wiki Pages

• KWord: http://www.koffice.org/kword/
• KDE on Windows: http://windows.kde.org/
• Nautilus: http://www.gnome.org/projects/nautilus/

• Webfolder
• Web folders