1. Collaborative Editing on ODF Documents
Many Users, One Doc
Collaborative Editing on ODF Documents
Jos van den Oever

2. Collaboration scenarios
One author, many readers
Many authors software, alternating editing sessions
Many authors, working on one document at the same time
WebODF

3. WebODF A JavaScript/HTML5 library that makes it easy to:
• Add ODF support to your (mobile) application
• Add ODF support to your website on your server
compiled into one file: webodf.js
(66k gzipped)

4. The Web: faster and standard abiding
HTML, CSS, JavaScript, SVG, RDF

5. HTML and ODF are similar
XML
CSS
PNG,JPEG,
SVG
JavaScript
XML
ODF Styles
PNG,JPEG,
SVG
ZIP
HTML
ODF

6. One author, many readers
Demo with LibreOffice and Viewer.js

7. WebODF: no conversion, just ODF.

8. Collaboration scenarios WebODF feature areas
One author, many readers
viewerjs.org
Many authors software, alternating editing sessions
WebODF editor
Many authors, working on one document at the same time
WebODF collaborative editing
WebODF

9. Demo
• Exchange an ODF file between
LibreOffice
WebODF

10. The ZIP contains:
content.xml, styles.xml, settings.xml, meta.xml

11. Advantages of WebODF Free Software Only one JavaScript file
The DOM is available
Can be embedded in websites and applications
Code is JavaScript with static type checks and many unit tests

12. Collaborative editing
Users that are far apart can work together in real-time on the same document

13. Many users, one doc ⟷
James
Brenda ⤡ ⤢
Alice

14. Many users, one doc ⟷
James
Brenda ⤡ ⤢
Alice

15. Pioneers in the browser
• Launched in November 2008
• Bought by Google in 2009 and open sourced

16. Etherpad

17. Etherpad

18. Collaborative Editing Pilot
• Feature parity with Etherpad
• ODF as the file format
• WebODF as viewing and editing component
Future:
Collaborative editing standardized in ODF

19. Implementation ⤢ ⤡ ⇄ • Each edit action is an operation
• Operations are sent to the central node
• Central node can be a server or participant
• Web Socket, GET/PUT, minimal server logic ⤢ ⤡ ⇄

20. Collaborative editing

21. Demo
be gentle

22. Summary • For digital freedom, we need standardized file formats
• KDE participates in standards
• Calligra and WebODF implement ODF
• Collaborative editing is next