Edit documents with external editors

Using a local helper application for external editors you may edit any document directly on the BSCW server. Such a helper application must be installed on your local computer. It is called by the browser for direct editing of a BSCW document, starts the local editor suitable for editing the document type and saves the result on the BSCW server during and after editing. Depending on the document type, the editor may be a word processor like Microsoft Word or OpenOffice Writer, a graphics editor or a spreadsheet program.

If you want to use this procedure, proceed as follows:

•      Installing the helper application for direct editing with external editors on your local computer.

•      Configuration of your personal BSCW settings so that the helper application launches the appropriate local editor for direct editing for specific document types.

•      Direct document editing with  Edit for the appropriately configured document types.

Installation of the auxiliary application for direct editing with external editors

BSCW supports as helper application the BSCW desktop extension based on the Zope External Editor Client. The BSCW desktop extension is available for Windows and Mac. After download and installation, the BSCW desktop extension is immediately ready for use. The common document types are already preconfigured.

•      Download the BSCW desktop extension from
         https://www.bscw.de/en/social/#externalEditor
for your platform.

•      Install the BSCW desktop extension on your local computer (on Windows, for example, by running the downloaded installer and following the instructions of the installation wizard).

If you use a special network connection (e.g. a proxy server), further configuration steps may be required. For details and references to further information please refer to https://www.bscw.de/en/social/#externalEditor on the BSCW website.

Configuration of the external editors in your BSCW settings

Select the document types that you want to edit directly in BSCW using locally available applications - the external editors.

•      Select  Settings in the top menu of the main menu and go to the 'File Handling' subsection of the 'General' tab of the action form.

•      Under External editor programs you select the document types that you want to edit with local (for BSCW external) editors via the BSCW desktop extension directly on your BSCW server, e.g. MS Office or OpenOffice files. If you check 'plain text file' for example, text files are not edited with the simple text editor integrated in BSCW, but via the BSCW desktop extension with your local text editor.

•      Confirm with [OK].

Direct editing via the helper application

Direct editing of BSCW documents via the BSCW desktop extension is done as follows.

•      Select  Edit in the context menu of a document for whose type an external editor has been configured.

•      Your browser will now ask you what to do with the working copy of the document (Open, Save or Cancel). Confirm that you want to open it with BSCW desktop extension. Some browsers allow you to suppress this dialog for the future by checking or unchecking a corresponding option.

•      After that, the editor corresponding to the document type is automatically started with the current document, the document itself is locked in BSCW.

•      After editing, save the document using the editor's "Save" operation and close the editor. After that, the BSCW desktop extension will ask you to confirm the completion of editing. Then the original document is replaced by the edited document or, in the case of documents under version control, a new version is created and the lock is removed.