Forum OpenACS Development: Re: Reactivating oacs-dav with file-storage?

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Posted by Iuri Sampaio on
Hi Frank,

It seems you got similar issues that I got when I tried to install the latest version available OACS-5.9.

Then, I ran an earlier version (i.e. OpenACS 5.4.1 ) and the errors were gone. Of course, you will have to fix some bug, but at least I got a better scenario from there.

Also, I don't know all the issues are the same, but i advise to give it a shot. It worked to me.

Hope it helps,

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Posted by Antonio Pisano on
Some efforts will be put in the future by the community to give OpenACS a new xotcl based webDAV implementation. Such code is already in use and just needs some refactoring, but a clear delivery date I am not able to give at the moment.

In the meantime everybody is more than welcome to have a look at the previous oacs-dav implementation. We know it could need some reworking and that its current state is unclear, but is there for every brave spirit.

One thing I would not suggest is to just stay with an outdated version of the platform just to achieve webdav functionality. Seems like some regression happened, but could not take too much work to solve it on a current instance. I may give a hand in case, but I would at least need some log output for a starter.

Ciao

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Posted by Antonio Pisano on
Just to update the folks out there: we managed to fix a few minor issue in the new xotcl implementation and tested some clients.

To our current knowledge, these seem to be OK:
- CyberDuck: https://cyberduck.io/ (open source)
- WinSCP: https://winscp.net (open source)
- davfs: http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/davfs2 (open source)
- gvfs through Nautilus or other Gtk-based file managers: https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/gvfs (open source)
- Total Commander for Android: https://www.ghisler.com/android.htm

Native Windows webdav client is not working, at least for the Windows 7 version. The foreseen amount of work to fix this appears unfeasible at the moment.

Native MacOS client (tested the "El Capitan" version) is partially working, meaning that basic functionality is there with some glitches that sometimes prejudicate user experience. This, togheter with some serious scalability issues, moves much forward the time for an acceptable support (at least from us).

I didn't have the chance to test any mobile Mac device.

Resuming, it could be possible to give some decent webdav support to a fairly broad number of OSes, but one should not expect universal functionality in every case and with every client. Also, one should carefully evaluate the impact of the introduction of such a feature on a busy system, as the mindless copy-paste of a big folder by a user could hammer the system with many big requests.

The initial release will probably limit by a parameter the range of clients we intend to support to whatever degree. One may tweak it at his/her own risk, but then should be prepared to report bugs alongside a working patch! 😊