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List:       koffice-devel
Subject:    Re: Collaborative Editing in Koffice
From:       Boudewijn Rempt <boud () valdyas ! org>
Date:       2010-04-22 7:27:45
Message-ID: 201004220927.45487.boud () valdyas ! org
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On Thursday 22 April 2010, Ajay Pratap Singh Pundhir wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I am Ajay Pratap Singh. I am M.Tech student at IIIT Bangalore, INDIA. I
> wants to add collaborative editing feature in Koffice. I have done some
> background study on what is collaborative editing and what are the
> challenges. I need your feedback and suggestions in designing architecture
> for that. Following are the details:

Pierre Stirnweiss and Cyrille Berger probably have put the most thought in 
this, since the former is implementing change tracking and the latter mentored 
a collaborative editing gsoc project (which unfortunately failed). But I'll 
give my input anyway:

> 
> *Use Case Targeted:*
>           Real Time collaborative editing among two or more users of
> koffice. For starting I am targeting Kword now which later can be
>           extended to other applications of koffice.
> *
> Network Connectivity:*
>            As the first step I am Targeting peer to peer network connection
> over TCP client server architecture. One client who will initiate the
>            session will act as server  ( publisher) and rest all clients
> will work as subscriber.
>            Later we can go with XMPP.

I'd go with xmpp directly. Also: check Abiword, sobby and so on. It's alway 
good to be aware of existing solutions and protocols, even if you don't want 
to use them (for instance, because in Abiword's case it's very app-specific). 
Referring to existing implementations makes it easier to be aware of pitfalls.

> 
> *How It will work:*
>           1. First the session initiator will start collaborative session
> and open a document for editing.
>           2. He will be asked to setup password for protection of that
> document.
>           3. Later clients can join session.
>           4. For that he will enter IP address and port number of the
> server.
>           5. While joining session, clients will get list of all the users
> present in that session and list of shared documents.
>           6. Client can request for opening a document. For that he has to
> enter the password for that document.
>           7. After authentication file will be transferred to the client.
> and server will start sending updates to that client.
>           8. All the changes done by clients will be first informed the
> server, who will publish these changes in the session so that all clients
> will
>               get update notification.
> 
> Kindly send me your valuable feedback and suggestions.

I think the most important part isn't the setting up of the session: that is 
mostly a solve problem, but your protocol. That's where Pierre probably has 
much clearer ideas than me.

-- 
Boudewijn Rempt | http://www.valdyas.org
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