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The Document Folders service
(dman) provides a powerful document storage and management system for
community members. To use dman you must first subscribe to the Document
Folders service. Once subscribed you will be able to create and browse
document folders, create new documents, view and modify existing documents
and search for documents. |
Document Folders
Index
Browsing Document FoldersThere are two ways of finding and accessing documents in dman. One method is to explicitly search for documents. However, by far the most common method is through navigating and browsing a folder hierarchy. Browsing document folders in dman is very similar to navigating file systems on a disk. Folders, like directories, will contain sub-folders (sub-directories) and documents (files). However, that is as far as the analogy goes. In dman documents are stored in a single document pool where a unique id identifies each document. A folder can contain references to documents within the pool. A folder hierarchy is therefore just a logical view of that document pool. It will contain references to some or all of the documents within the pool. Some documents may be referenced many times, but a document cannot be referenced more than once in any folder. Each subscriber has a home folder, and this provides an opportunity for users to build their own view of the document pool. The home folder of the 'dmanadmins' user acts as the root of a shared folder hierarchy that other dman subscribers can access (subject to permissions). Browsing through document folders is straightforward. For the folder that you are
currently viewing (the Current Folder Subfolders are listed with either the
The menu at the top of all dman templates provides an easy means of moving between your home folder, the shared root folder and the 'current' folder. If you are a member of more than one group that is subscribed to dman clicking on the login name will take you to the Change Login page where you will be able to change your current dman persona. Clicking on the link View categories will take you to a page where you can view, edit and create custom property definitions. Documents may be represented in different ways depending on the state of the document.
Ordinary documents are shown with different icons depending on their type, for
example: If a document is shown with an You can sort the list of documents in the same way that you can sort the folder list, but you can also sort documents on the custom properties that are defined. The sort options that you select can be remembered by the site, if you have selected this facility in your preferences. If the current folder is part of an image library, you can choose whether to have thumbnail images displayed (the default) or to have the the more detailed view that you see when you are in a non-image-library folder. You can switch easily between the two views by following the link to the right of the "View:" label, which will be either "Detail" if thumbnails are currently displayed, or "Thumbnail" if the non-image-library view is current. The thumbnail image provides a link to the full-size image. Selecting the Whilst browsing it is possible to register an interest in changes that may occur in
a folder by enabling notifications for it. You do this by selecting the
The folder browsing view may also contain links for other main dman functions, such as: Viewing DocumentsWhen you click on a document in the folder browser, the document will either be downloaded to your computer or displayed within a dman template depending on the MIME type of the document and how dman has been configured/customised. Note: How your browser treats documents that you download will depend on the MIME type of the document being retrieved and how your browser is configured to handle that type. For example, text and HTML files may be displayed within the browser, whereas word processor document may be saved to disk. For further information consult your browser's help documentation. Adding DocumentsThere are three ways of adding a new document to dman. You can upload a single file from your PC via your browser, type the contents of the document directly into the Create Document form, or upload a ZIP file containing many files that you wish to add as separate documents. In the first two cases the procedure for adding a new document is the same:
The Upload multiple documents/images page allows you to select a ZIP file on your computer and upload the file. Any folders and files within the ZIP file will be re-created as dman folders and documents with the same titles as the file and folder names. If you are uploading multiple images, dman will create thumbnail images for them automatically, but you can use the Modify image properties page to change any you think unsuitable (and to fill in any other properties, particularly the document comment field bearing in mind its use in searching for images as described above). When a new document has been created and added to dman, a link to that document is created in the current folder that you are browsing. Creating FoldersThis operation will create a new folder in the folder that you are currently browsing. In the Folder name field enter a name for the new folder. This name must not already be in use for another folder within the current folder and must not include any '/' or '+' characters. You can optionally write a short description of the new folder in the Summary field. If your site is configured to allow image folders anywhere in the folder hierarchy, the Folder type field provides a drop-down list from which you can select either 'Document folder' or 'Image folder'. You should normally select 'Image folder' if the new folder is to hold mainly or only images, since (among other things) this allows thumbnail representations of the images to be be displayed when browsing the folder. Select the OK button to create the new folder or the Cancel button to cancel the operation. Selecting the Reset button will reset the content of the form to the way it was when it was first loaded. This usually results in the fields being emptied. Creating Image LibrariesThis operation will create a new image library in the folder that you are currently browsing. An image library is a specialised folder hierarchy in which images are held as specialised documents, and this operation creates the top-level folder in the hierarchy. You can create subfolders in the hierarchy in the same was as any other folders, as described under Creating Folders. If your site is configured to allow image folders anywhere in the folder hierarchy, image folders are not used and you will not be invited to create them. In the Folder name field enter a name for the new image library. This name must not already be in use for another folder within the current folder and must not include any '/' or '+' characters. You can optionally write a short description of the new image library in the Summary field. Select the OK button to create the new image library or the Cancel button to cancel the operation. Selecting the Reset button will reset the content of the form to the way it was when it was first loaded. This usually results in the fields being emptied. Note: You can only create an image library within a group or a user's home folder. As usual you must have Manage access for the home folder (or be its owner), and an image library must not already exist there, but even then, creating an image library will only be possible if your site has been configured to allow it. If in doubt, you should consult a site administrator. Deleting FoldersSelect the Delete button to delete the current folder, or the Cancel button to cancel the operation. If the folder you are planning to delete is not empty (and this site allows deletion of non-empty folders), you will see a message warning you of this. If you choose to delete the folder, all subfolders and document references (but not documents themselves) within the folder will also be deleted. If the folder you are planning to delete is not empty and this site does not allow deletion of non-empty folders, you will not normally reach this point. However, if another user has just added a folder or document to the folder you are trying to delete, this page will be displayed with a warning (and without a Delete button). Note 1: You cannot delete your home folder, the root or a folder that has been marked as 'system'. Note 2: If you are in doubt as to whether or not the site allows deletion of non-empty folders, you should ask the site administrator. Viewing and Modifying Folder PropertiesIf you have Read access for a folder you will also be able to view the folder's properties. If you have Manage access, or are the owner of the folder you will be able to modify some of these properties. The properties of a folder include:
To modify the folder make the changes that you want in the editable fields and then select the OK button, or select the Cancel button to cancel the operation. Selecting the Reset button will reset the content of the form to the way it was when it was first loaded. This usually results in the fields being emptied. If you have Manage access, or are the owner of the folder, a Delete button will be displayed provided either that the folder is empty or (if it is not empty) that the site allows deletion of non-empty folders. If you select the Delete button a further page will be displayed asking you to confirm the deletion. You will also see the Folder's Access Control List (ACL) displayed. This is a table containing a list of user and group names along with the type of permission that the users or members of the groups have for this folder. There are four types of permission:
Copying, Moving and PastingTo copy or move documents and folder trees between folders select the document(s) and folder(s) that you wish to copy or move. Then select the Copy or Move button (depending on which operation you are carrying out), or select the Cancel button to cancel the operation. The documents and folders that you have selected will be placed onto a clipboard. The clipboard will last as long as you are connected to dman. When browsing folders you will see the clipboard on the screen. In order to complete the copy or move operation, navigate to your desired destination folder and select the Paste button. New references to the selected documents will be created in that folder (the references in the source folder removed if the operation was a 'move') and the clipboard will disappear. Selected folder trees will be duplicated in the destination folder and the originals deleted if the operation was a move and you have Manage access to all of the folders in the selected tree. Note: When copying a document the document itself is not duplicated. The document reference in the folder is duplicated and a new reference is created in the destination folder. Both of these references point to the same document within the document pool. When a document is moved the document reference in the source folder is deleted. On the other hand when a folder is copied or moved the folder is duplicated. A new folder is created with the same name and comment but perhaps with different owner and date-created values. Deleting Documents, Document References and FoldersThis operation allows you to delete document references and folder hierarchies from the current folder. Deleting the references will not delete the document, only remove the reference to it from the current folder. The document will still be present in the document pool and you will be able to access it through searches or references in other folders. However you also have the option to actually delete documents for which you have Manage access. Selected folder hierarchies will be deleted as long as you have Manage access for all the folders in the tree. Document references in subfolders will be deleted but the documents will not be. (Your site administrator may have configured the Document Folders service to prevent deletion of non-empty folders. If this is the case, then only those folders which are currently empty will be included in the list for you to select.) To perform the delete select the documents and folders that you wish to delete from the list presented to you, select your delete options and then select the Delete button, or select the Cancel button to cancel the operation. After selecting the Delete button you will see a confirmation form. This will present you with a list of the documents whose references will be deleted and also a list of documents and folders that will be deleted (often a subset of the previous list). To carry out the delete operation select the OK button, or select the Cancel button to cancel it. Viewing and Modifying Document PropertiesIf you have Read access for a document you will be able to view the document's properties, and the properties of its versions. If you have Manage access, or are the owner of the document, or are the originator of the document (that is, the person who created or uploaded its original version) and have Amend or Upload access to it, you will be able to modify some of these properties. The properties of a document include:
You can also view (and modify) some of the properties of the latest version of the documents. These include:
To modify the document properties, make the changes that you want in the editable fields and then select the Apply button or select the Cancel button to cancel the operation. The Reset button will reset the content of the form to when it was first loaded. This usually results in the fields being emptied. You can also mark the document for deletion by selecting the Delete button. If an image doesn't have a thumbnail image associated it or if you wish to replace the existing thumbnail for whatever reason, you should tick the 'Change thumbnail' checkbox on the Modify image properties page and then either select the Browse button alongside the "Upload thumbnail image" field and select a file from your PC or leave this field blank if you wish dman to create a thumbnail image automatically. If you have Amend or Manage access, or you have Upload access and are the originator of the document (that is, you are created or uploaded its original version), you will also be able to lock the document and unlock it (as long as you are currently holding the lock). For more information see the section on locking documents. You will also see the document's Access Control List (ACL) displayed. This is a table containing a list of user and group names along with the type of permission that the users or members of the groups have for this document. There are four types of permission:
The document properties view may also contain links for other dman document functions, such as: Deleting DocumentsSelect the Delete button to mark the current document as ready for deletion or select the Cancel button to cancel the operation. This operation will delete the document and all of the versions belonging to it. Checking Out Documents (Locking)Locking a document prevents other dman users from modifying a document. While a document is locked only the user who holds the lock can add new versions or modify the document's properties. This allows a user to work on developing a new version of a document (for example) knowing that nobody else can modify the document at the same time. To lock a document, enter a short note describing why the document has been locked in the comment field and then select the OK button. Selecting the Cancel button will cancel the operation. In order to add a new version to a document you must perform a checkout. Checking out a document will lock the document as well as giving you options for obtaining/editing the document. Depending on the MIME type of the document, check-out options include:
Documents that have been locked are displayed with the
Once you have finished working on a document you should unlock it. A Check-In operation provides the option to unlock the document for you. Checking In VersionsIn order to check in a new document version you must hold the lock on the document either by checking-out the document or by manually locking it from the document properties page. Adding new versions to documents is a similar procedure to creating new documents. The main difference is that you do not need to enter a document name or comment, just the version label and comment. Again you can add a new version by uploading a file using Check-in (upload) or by using Check-in (create) and writing the file yourself in the Create Version form. If you choose the latter method, and the MIME type of the current version of the document is text-based (html or plain text) the content of the most recent version is placed in the text box for you to change. To add a new version:
The new version will become the 'current' version for the document. Version HistoryThis allows you to view information about all of the versions of a particular document. It also allows you to download or view a specific version of a document rather than just the latest version. The information that can be displayed about document versions includes:
SearchingSearching allows you to search for a document by document properties, such as title, or by document content. (When indexing images, the comment field is taken as the content, and thus becomes the principal search field.) In order to search the document store the additional Teamware Pl@za Search product must be installed on the site.
Modifying Document and Folder Access Control ListsBy creating and modifying the Access Control List (ACL) of a document or folder you can control which Pl@za users and groups can access the document or folder and the kinds of operation that they are permitted to perform on them. To modify the permission of an existing access control select a new permission from the drop-down list for that entry. To learn more about the different types of permission and how they affect access to folders click here. To learn how different types of permission affect access to documents click here. To remove one or more access controls from the ACL select the 'Selected' checkbox for the entries that you wish to delete and then select the Delete button. To add a new access control to the ACL select the New access control button. Any changes that you make to the ACL will not be saved until you select the OK button. Alternatively, to cancel your changes, select the Cancel button. Note: When modifying the ACL of a folder or document be careful about granting other users and groups Manage access. Manage access will allow a user complete control over a document or a folder allowing them to edit the properties and even delete the document or folder. For a group, Manage access will give this control to all of the members of that group. Adding a new access control to an Access Control List (ACL)You can apply permissions to two special groups, the Plaza group and the Public group. The Plaza group represents all registered Plaza users whether they are subscribed to dman or not. The Public group represents all public visitors to the web site. You can also enter the id of one or more Phoenix groups and/or a Phoenix users. Select the permission for the user or group and select OK to add the new access control to the ACL, or select Cancel to return to the Modify ACL page.
You cannot add a user or group if they are already in the ACL for a particular object. You must alter their permission from the Modify ACL page. To learn more about the different types of permission and how they affect access to folders click here. To learn how different types of permission affect access to documents click here. Remember that the new access control will not be committed until you select OK on the Modify ACL page. Changing your home folderThis operation allows you to control which folder acts as your home folder. You can select your own home folder if you have subscribed to the Document Folders service as an individual user, or you can select the home folder of any group which you belong to which has been subscribed to the Document Folders service. To change your home folder, select a user or group uid from the list of login accounts and select the OK button. If you wish to make this your default home folder, select the 'Make this your default login' checkbox. Dman User PreferencesThis allows you to change your login password. To change the password enter your current password in the 'Old password' field, enter a new password in the 'New password' field and then type the new password again in the 'Confirm password' field. Then select the OK button to change the password. Categories and Custom PropertiesIf you are a subscriber to dman or the manager of a group that is subscribed to dman you have the ability to define extra properties for a document. Documents have a number of fixed properties such as title, comment and the date created. You can add to these by defining custom properties that can store additional information about the document. Related custom properties can be grouped together into 'categories'. When a new document is created you can choose from the list of categories and then set values for the custom properties in the categories for your document. Dman has the idea of global and user custom properties. Global categories are defined by an administrator and can be added to all documents created in dman by any user. User custom properties are defined by individual subscribers and only apply to documents owned by that subscriber. This does allow groups to create specific categories of interest to that group for example. Optionally, custom properties can also be indexed by the Pl@za search engine and made searchable. The View categories page allows you to view the details of the categories that you have defined. It also provides links to the pages that allow you to define new categories, delete categories or modify existing categories. Creating a new CategoryThis operation allows you to create a new category. Once a category has been created you can define custom properties for the category. Enter the Name of the category and optionally enter a Description for the category. By default the category and its custom properties will be indexed and made available in searches. If you do not want the category to be indexed then deselect the 'Index this category' checkbox. Note: If the category is not set to be indexed then none of the custom properties in the category will be indexed even if their index flag is set. Select the OK button to create the new category definition or select the Cancel button to cancel the operation. Selecting the Reset button will reset the content of the form to the way it was when it was first loaded. This usually results in the fields being emptied. Deleting categoriesThis option allows you delete a category definition and all of the custom properties associated with the category. When you delete a category, the custom property definitions are deleted but any documents that are a member of the category will still keep their custom property values for the category. These values can still be seen, however they cannot be edited or searched on. Owners of the documents may delete them if they wish. To perform the deletion, select the categories that you wish to delete from the list presented to you and then select the Delete button, or select the Cancel button to cancel the operation. Viewing and Modifying CategoriesThe View category page displays information about the currently selected category definition and the custom properties that are defined within it. If you have the ability to define categories you will have the option of editing the category and custom property attributes. The attributes of a category are:
Also displayed are any custom properties that have been defined inside the category. The attributes of a custom property are:
To modify the category make the changes that you want in the editable fields and then select the OK button or select the Cancel button to cancel the operation. The Reset button will reset the content of the form to when it was first loaded. This usually results in the fields being emptied. Creating a Custom PropertyThis allows you to add a new custom property definition to the currently selected category. The custom property attributes that you must provide are:
Select the OK button to create the new custom property definition or select the Cancel button to cancel the operation. Selecting the Reset button will reset the content of the form to the way it was when it was first loaded. This usually results in the fields being emptied. Deleting Custom PropertiesThis allows you to delete one or more custom property definitions from the current category. If any document has these custom properties then the values will still be accessible, however they cannot be modified or searched on. To perform the deletion, select the custom properties that you wish to delete from the list presented to you and then select the Delete button, or select the Cancel button to cancel the operation. Viewing and Modifying Document Custom PropertiesIf you have Read access to a document will be able to view the document's custom properties. If you have Manage access to the document then you will be able to modify the values of the custom properties. The list of properties available depends on what categories the document is a member of and the custom properties that are defined in each category. The custom properties are listed by category and displayed with the property name and the property value for the current document. To modify the document's custom properties make any changes in the form and then select the OK button to apply the changes or the Cancel button to cancel the changes. If you have Manage access to the document then the View Custom Properties page also contains links to other custom properties operations including: For more information about categories and custom properties see View categories. Adding Custom Properties to DocumentsThis operation allows you to add custom property values to the current document. Select the list of categories, either global or user, from the two lists and select the OK button to continue or the Cancel button to cancel. For each selected category you will be able to provide values for the custom properties. Enter your values on the form and select the OK button to save the custom properties with the document or the Cancel button to cancel the operation. For more information about categories and custom properties see View categories. Deleting Document Custom PropertiesIf you have Manage access to a document then this operation allows you to delete custom properties from the document. The list shown contains the categories that this document contains custom properties for. Select one or more categories to delete the custom properties associated with the categories. To perform the delete select the document's categories that you wish to delete from the list presented to you and then select the Delete button, or the Cancel button to cancel the operation. For more information about categories and custom properties see View categories. |
)
you will be shown a list of subfolders and documents within that folder. 
icon (for a non-image-library folder) or the 
icon (for an image library folder), together with
the folder's Name and the folder's Summary if it exists. 
) 
icon next to the folder.
and
to switch between
ascending and descending order. 
or (for an image)
. Also shown are the
document's title and comment. 
icon,
it means that the document is locked. You can download and view information about
the document but you will not be able to make any changes to it (unless you hold the lock).
The default image thumbnail is
displayed if for some reason a thumbnail is not available for a particular full-size image.
If you have Manage access for the image (or are its owner), you can either upload
your own thumbnail image or ask dman to create one automatically. 
The default document thumbnail is
displayed to represent any non-image document which has been uploaded (or copied or moved)
to an image library folder. 
icon, which then changes its
appearance to 
.
Having done so, when you as a user are informed of what has changed on the site, you will
be told of any change that has occurred in those folders of interest and the date/time the
change occurred. Currently, changes you can be notified on are the creation/modification
of documents and the creation of sub-folders.
You can disable notifications again for a folder by selecting its
icon, which then changes its
appearance to 
.