Round trip editing of binary documents stored on a server

Question

Hi all,

I'm looking to build some functionality for a content management system for the editing of files stored on the server.

I'd like to provide users the ability to easily download files locally to their computer, open the file for editing, and save it back to the server. The process should be as seamless as possible.

Here's the steps today:

1. Click the link to download the file (say a PSD) in a web browser
2. Save it to disk
3. Find the file, open it for editing in Photoshop
4. Make changes, save the file
5. Go back to the browser,navigate to the file that was downloaded.
6. Click "replace file"
7. Find the file, upload it back to the server.

Here's what I want:

1. Click the link to open the PSD file
2. File is downloaded, Photoshop launches
3. Make changes, save the file
4. File is uploaded back to server, replacing the original file

Those who have used Sharepoint know that this works (using WebDAV) but only with the Office applications (PPT, DOC, XLS). I'd like it to work with all file types.

This will take some kind of software to be installed locally - perhaps a separatly installed application with a mime type registered, a signed java applet, or a firefox extension.

This seems like a problem that should have been solved. Has anyone seen this done before?

Answer 1

Windows client OS has a WebDAV redirector and has had for a long time, so a) you shouldnt need a client piece and b) it's not specific to Office files.

The fun bit is the server end, implementing a WebDAV server.

WebDAV isnt supported on client OSs like Vista (IIS5.1 has support, 6.0 doesnt), only on Servers (2K3, 2K8...)

There is goo/examples/frameworks (cant recall which from when I researched it) available for implementing a WebDAV server, but it requires a server OS [so I had to discount it as the host in my case could potentially have been Vista/7, not server/XP).

Answer 2

The site WebDAV Resources includes a link to at least one open-source server implementation. I haven't used this software, I'm just citing the reference.

It appears that Apache has deprecated or dropped support for server-side WebDAV since the Jakarta Slide project has been retired.