Semantic Versioning (SemVer) is a very useful standard to name releases. For future releases, ownCloud will follow the principles of SemVer. The first one will be ownCloud Server 10.1.0, to be released soon.

This step is benefiting admins by clearly indicating the contents and upgrade procedures of new releases via version numbers. Practically, the versioning scheme will follow the Major.Minor.Patch (or Breaking.Feature.Fix) format.

• With a new patch version (e.g. 10.1.1) you can expect only small bug fixes and security updates. They should be trivial to install, don’t break anything, and should have only a very short downtime.
• The next minor version (which could be 10.2.0) will bring new features – but in a backwards-compatible way. All apps should continue working. API functionality is only expanded, not reduced.
• Only the next major version 11.0.0 will introduce big changes, maybe break APIs. Before upgrading, you should check whether all of your installed apps are already published for the major version.

Which Apps Are Compatible With SemVer?

We will soon release ownCloud Server 10.1.0. That means that some ownCloud apps don’t know that they are still compatible with ownCloud. In the app’s info.xml they are usually specified to work with ownCloud 10.0.

The apps have to be re-released to work with ownCloud 10 to work after the upgrade. The apps maintained by ownCloud will be re-released until the final ownCloud Server 10.1.0 release.

If you are a community app developer, please also make your app compatible with ownCloud Server 10.1, as Vincent described on Central.

And for ownCloud admins it’s important to check all of your community apps before the next upgrade. If a community app is not compatible with ownCloud 10.1, it will stop working afterwards.

The article We’re Switching to Semantic Versioning With ownCloud Server 10.1 was published on ownCloud.

As December crawls in, it’s always a rough transition from the beautiful autumn colors to the dark and gloomy winter days.

The transition is however made easier with a reminder of the upcoming holiday season, wine and cookies, family traditions, childhood memories and playing around in the snow or sun, no matter where one may be.

With this new holiday season already at our doorstep, make your cold, gloomy days sitting at your computer, a little bit brighter with ownCloud’s Xmas app.

ownCloud admins can install the xmas app on their server to make their ownCloud even more beautiful and holiday season ready.

Step 1: Search for the ‘Xmas’ app in the admin dashboard.

Step 2: Select the app and click install.

Step 3: Enjoy your holiday season background!

Transform your desktop into a beautiful snowing landscape, and rest well in the comfort that your favourite holidays are almost here!

View the xmas app at the Marketplace!

Did you try this out? We’d love to hear what you think, like, share and comment away!

Before you start dreaming about holidays again, learn how to deploy ownCloud in less than 3 minutes here!

The article The Holiday Season Just Got Brighter was published on ownCloud.

Who are you? Which other projects do you work on?

Hannah: Hi, I am Hannah. I studied computer science in Basel. In my second semester I joined the #kde-windows channel on Freenode IRC to complain about some issues I had with Amarok on Windows, I got involved in the KDE Windows project and its build tool KDE Emerge.

Dominik: Hey, my name is Dominik, or as most people call me, “Domme“. I’m a freelance software developer currently living in Bonn.

Hannah is the maintainer of KDE Craft, her wallpaper is almost as green as her GitHub commit history. Domme is working on the ownCloud Client, its build infrastructure, KDE, Craft, and other projects.

Thanks that you have time to answer my questions. How did you get to programming? Favorite programming languages?

Hannah: Some years passed and somehow I’ve become the maintainer of KDE Emerge, which is nowadays called Craft. In addition to my studies, KDE taught me how to program and I gained the ancient knowledge about C++ and Python.

Dominik: I got into programming after I had read a book about HTML when I was 11 years old and quickly got annoyed that the pages I could create were… static. I guess the first thing I realized – although I didn’t have a word for it – was that I needed templates and loops to end endless copy-pasta. So I learned PHP quickly after, and a bit of JavaScript. Does anyone still remember when DHTML was a commonly used term?

Today I focus mostly on JavaScript and C++ but there are a lot of fun languages like golang or python. I definitely want to play around with Rust one day…

Recently, you brought tremendous improvements to the build process of the ownCloud Client for Windows. What did you do?

Hannah: Until recently ownCloud for Windows was cross-compiled, recent changes suggested that moving to native builds would simplify the development process……

Dominik: I did the new .msi for installing the client on Windows to simplify large scale deployments. As Hannah already said, we used to cross-compile and cross-package the ownCloud Client from Linux to Windows.

The WixToolset I used to create the new installer does not work on Linux and so we had to pull in native Windows into our packaging pipeline. At that point I used last year’s ownCloud hackweek to play around with MSVC and Windows for Docker to create a complete native build and packaging pipeline. Maintaining the cross-toolchain had meant a lot of work for us before, especially with every new Qt version.

I knew Hannah from countless KDE events and because she contributed Windows patches to Tomahawk Player, which I’ve spent most of my time on for years. So switching to native MSVC builds was a great opportunity to finally try “Hannah’s Craft” again after some years, especially because it is – despite of its pure Windows roots – a cross-platform tool.

And I saw a long-term chance to simplify and unify the building processes for all our platforms.

So if I’m a developer and want to build my changes to the ownCloud Client – what do I have to do?

Hannah: This is possible with only a few steps:

1. First, setup Craft.
2. Install the owncloud blueprints craft –add-blueprint-repository https://github.com/owncloud/craft-blueprints-owncloud.git
3. Tell craft to build ownCloud from git with craft –set version master owncloud-client, and install ownCloud: craft owncloud-client
4. If you now want to get your changes in, switch to the owncloud clone: cd owncloud-client and apply your changes.
5. Now you can run craft –make owncloud-client to build with your changes.

Dominik: Those instructions are the same no matter if you are building on Windows, macOS or Linux.

Why is Craft a good solution for dependency management?

Hannah: Craft offers you the ability to manage your dependencies on Windows, Linux and Mac. You decide whether you speed things up by using the precompiled binary cache or, in case your a bit paranoid or you want to build a special configuration, like a full debug build, you can decide to build everything from source. Such a build from source can result in your private cache that can be hosted on your private infrastructure.

Craft has great support for running on a CI (continuous integration). In case your CI provider starts a new VM for each build, the precompiled binaries allow you fast CI builds.

Craft has built-in support for various installers. With a simple command you will get a full NSIS based installer, an appx package for the Windows Store, or a Mac dmg package, for your application. Support for AppImages is planned.

Craft is Open Source, it’s licensed under the BSD-2 license.

Why did you start working on Craft in the first place?

Hannah: KDE Emerge, now Craft, was started to enable us to provide all KDE software and the required 3rd party libraries in 2007. I only joined later, but I took over the development a few years ago. The tool matured. The former Windows and from-source-only build tool is now a cross platform packaging manager that enables quick CI builds.

Managing 3rd party dependencies on Windows was a hell. I’ve seen many projects with pre-built binaries in their git, with a huge cmake infrastructure to bootstrap the dependencies or even in-house tools similar to what Craft does.

During the Conference, I saw the two of you hacking around all the time. What was it about?

Hannah: While Craft supported Mac for some time now, we worked hard to improve the platforms support. We also made the fully relocatable binary cache available for Mac, which is a requirement to be able to run on a free to use CI.

In addition, we got a prototype of a Mac pkg packager and application signing.

Hannah, this was your first ownCloud Conference. How was it to meet other ownclouders on the conference?

Hannah: Besides Dominik I didn’t know anyone in advance, but that didn’t matter as the community welcomed me heartily. We instantly discussed software architecture, astrophysics and the meaning of life.

Thanks again for your work, and for answering my questions! See you, at the latest at next year’s ownCloud Conference!

Do you want to contribute to the ownCloud Client?

Join the development of ownCloud!

Did you like this interview? Share the post on social media or leave a comment below:

The article Interview: How KDE Craft Improves the ownCloud Client Build Process was published on ownCloud.

Last year was not only ownCloud’s most successful year to date in economic terms, but also brought numerous technical innovations that will have a decisive impact on the development of the largest open source file-sharing project worldwide in the coming years. Features such as a new modular user interface, the introduction of the long-awaited Virtual File System in the ownCloud Desktop Client and the upcoming Delta Sync technology were all developed in collaboration with the ownCloud community and are freely available, including the corresponding documentation. But also “smaller” new developments and features for enterprise use were repeatedly noticed by the media and were positively received in the market. In this article we want to take the end of the year as an opportunity to review all these small and large highlights.

Full ownCloud team on this years ownCloud Conference in Nuremberg

January 2018: Bigger than ever before

Last year’s first success story was an economic one: In January, ownCloud GmbH was able to report that turnover had increased by more than 50% compared to the previous year. The German-speaking region saw a particularly strong upswing, with the volume of business growing by 100%. The main drivers for this were the increased demand for secure private cloud solutions, the improvement of software quality and the professionalization of support.

Click here for the full report

March 2018: New interface for more developer power

The first technical bang came just in time for the beginning of spring: With “Phoenix” ownCloud published a concept for a completely new frontend. In future, the interface will only contain HTML, JavaScript and CSS files and will be completely separated from the server. The new WebUI thus creates a more secure, clearer and easier to understand code structure. The modular structure creates a design pattern that can be used without any further adjustments to the CSS files.
The decision for the complete relaunch was mainly based on technical considerations. The ownCloud frontend has undergone continuous further development in recent years – both in terms of user experience and from a technical perspective. In this way, a large number of parallel JavaScript libraries, frameworks and components were created, which previously made the existing frontend increasingly complex and confusing.

Click here to read the whole post

April 2018: Finally Delta Sync!

For one month we were able to present a feature to the community that has been expected for a longer time than any other. With “Delta Sync”, ownCloud will in future be offering a technology that considerably accelerates the synchronization of updated files. Instead of a complete file, Delta Sync only uploads or downloads the corresponding modified parts when files are changed. This significantly reduces the volume of data to be transferred. The function, also known as “delta coding”, was developed by the ownCloud community and will be part of the next major version of ownCloud.

Click here to read the whole post.

June 2018: The desktop client got lighter

The ownCloud desktop client also underwent decisive further development last year: With the Virtual File System, it was given a feature that allows files and folders to be synchronized with the end device only when they are actually needed. Users thus require significantly less local storage space for their files and receive simplified usability and a further improved user experience of their ownCloud.

Click here for the detailed update.

July 2018: Summertime Happiness

Of course, not only were new features added throughout the year, the software as a whole underwent constant improvements. A special milestone was our “Summer Release”. With the release of version 10.0.9, over 25 million ownCloud users were given even more freedom to share their files securely and flexibly. The integration in S3 Object Storage enables administrators to operate ownCloud in storage systems that grow flexibly with their own requirements. The targeted adaptation of versions and deleted files has also significantly improved performance when saving and deleting in object storages. The “Password Policy” app also provided users with a useful tool for defining individual rules to protect their data. The ability to accept or reject pending shares of received files provides additional control and security. Other apps such as Activity or Gallery have also been revised.

Click here for the whole article

August 2018: A big step forward for Open Source

The fact that open source software does not have to hide in competition with large commercial providers was confirmed by the highest authority in the middle of the year when ownCloud was included for the first time in the market study “Magic Quadrant for Content Collaboration Platforms” of the industry-wide recognized Gartner Institute – as the only open source provider and one of two European providers.

Click here for the full report

August 2018: Community forever

The year 2018 also marked the start of the ownCloud Foundation, which was established together with seven founding members. The foundation’s most important task is to sustainably promote the community ecosystem around ownCloud in order to provide positive input for the future technological development of the best-known open source filesharing software. Through an open, manufacturer-independent organization, access is possible for anyone who wants to get involved in the project. The Foundation provides developers and users with a range of shared resources to increase the footprint of public, private and enterprise ownClouds and create a long-term, competitively distributed cloud platform.

Click here to read the full article

September 2018: Admins in focus

At the ownCloud Conference developers, users and administrators met in Nuremberg to exchange best practices, solutions and ideas about ownCloud. The release of ownCloud 10.0.10 also provided further insights into the future development of the project. In it, ownCloud focuses even more on meeting the latest file sharing requirements and improving configuration options. The support of PHP 7.2 provides administrators with significant performance improvements. In addition, the targeted adaptation of local users facilitates the secure creation of new user accounts. With the integration of the HTTP API for the search function, users will in future be able to search all content via their client without having to be available locally. In addition, native protection against brute force attacks and the option to exclude certain system groups from file sharing were added. Together with ownCloud 10.0.10, an improved Desktop Client (Ver. 2.5.0) containing the Virtual File System was also released.

Click here to read the whole update.

October 2018: Recognized as Number 1 again

Tobias Gerlinger (left) taking the award for the ownCloud team.

Even though we received a lot of feedback from the community and the media throughout the year, an award always remains something special . In October, ownCloud won first place in the “IT-Award”for the third time in a row. With this award, the expert audience honored ownCloud’s technological leadership, which is reflected in the guarantee of maximum security standards and at the same time a high degree of user-friendliness. Second place went to Nextcloud and Box.com came third. The IT Award is presented in 42 categories by the IT portals BigData Insider, CloudComputing Insider, DataCenter Insider, DevInsider, IP Insider, Security Insider and Storage Insider. The award ceremony took place on 11 October 2018 in the Steigenberger Hotel “Drei Mohren” in Augsburg.

Click here to read the whole message.

October 2018: ownCloud Enterprise for Everybody

Cloud storage as a service: ownCloud.online

With “ownCloud.online” at the end of the year, ownCloud presented a new SaaS cloud solution that combines the advantages of open source and secure hosting in German data centres with the user-friendliness of public cloud services. The software can be set up quickly and easily without IT knowledge and is therefore also suitable for companies and organisations without their own IT department. The solution is designed to meet the highest data protection requirements (e.g. DSGVO) in order to exchange highly sensitive personal data. Hosting takes place exclusively in fully certified German data centers and meets the highest security standards (including ISO 9001, ISO 27001).

Click here to read the entire article

November 2018: Milestone for Apple Users

iPhone and iPad users and developers also benefited this year. The new ownCloud iOS app announced in November comes with a completely redesigned architecture, significant security enhancements and many new features. Users benefit from greater freedom in processing their files and an enhanced user experience thanks to integration with the iOS Files app. The app also provides more options for managing TLS certificates. In addition, ownCloud presented a new SDK for iOS that focuses on security, data protection and performance.

Click here to read the full message.

What a year for ownCloud, for secure file sharing and for Open Source. Especially in reviewing the many highlights, we at ownCloud are very proud of our achievements to date, but even more grateful for one of the strongest communities, loyal partners and numerous other companions that have brought us to where we are today. Knowing that we have so much support, we can look to the future with more than confidence.

Especially in reviewing the many highlights, we at ownCloud are very proud of our achievements to date, but even more grateful for one of the strongest communities with many dedicated contributors and testers, loyal partners, customers and numerous other companions that have brought us to where we are today. Of course, we would also like to take this opportunity to thank our many employees, who are committed to improving our software every day with all their heart.

Thank you all for your loyal support! With that in mind we can look to the future with more than confidence.

The article ownCloud 2018: A Year of Setting the Course was published on ownCloud.

Recently the German computer magazin C’t posted an article about file sync solutions (“Unter eigener Regie”, C’t 23, 2018) with native sync clients. The article was pretty positive about the FOSS solution of… Nextcloud! I was wondering why they had not choosen ownCloud’s client as my feeling is that ownCloud is way more busy and innovative developing the desktop client for file synchronization together with community.

Code lines changed as of Nov. 10, 2018

That motivated me to do some investigation what the Nextcloud client actually consists of (at due date Nov. 10, 2018). I was looking into the NC desktop client git repoository grouped the numbers of commits of people that can be associated clearly to either the ownCloud- or Nextcloud project, or to “other communities” or machine commits. Since the number of commits could be misleading (maybe some commits are huge?) I did the same exercise with numbers of changed lines of code.

When looking on the changed lines, the first top six contributors to the Nextcloud desktop client are only active in the ownCloud project. Number seven is an “other community” contributor whos project the client was based on in the beginning. Number eight to eleven go to Nextcloud, with a low percentage figure.

# of commits to the Nextcloud Desktop repository as of Nov. 10, 2018

As a result, far more than 80% of the changed lines of the Nextcloud client is actually work that ownClouders did (not considering the machine commits). In the past, and also today. The number would be even higher if it considered all the commits that go into the NC repo with an NC author, but are actually ownCloud patches where the original author got lost on the way by merging them through a NC branch. It looks like the Nextcloud developers were actually adding less commits to their client than all “other community” developers so far.

No wonder, it is a fork, you might think, and that is of course true. However, to my taste these numbers are not reflecting a “constructive” fork driving things forward when we talk about sync technology.

That is all fine, and I am proud that the work we do in ownCloud is actually stimulating two projects, with different focus areas nowadays. On the other hand, I would appreciate if the users of the technology would take a closer look to understand who really innovates, drives things forward and also fixes the nasty bugs in the stack. As a matter of fairness, that should be acknowledged. That is the motivation that keeps free software contributors busy and communities proud.

This article was published on Dragotin's Blog: https://dragotin.wordpress.com/2018/12/23/eighty-percent-owncloud/

The article Eighty Percent ownCloud was published on ownCloud.

Today you can learn how to share a Libreoffice document with a friend, so you can both edit it at the same time with Collabora. Your friend does not need an ownCloud account for this, you can directly start editing.

Teamwork brought humanity forward, and sharing makes everyone richer. So the next time you need to write a party invitation, a presentation about your project, or a blog post about Open Source Software – share a link and let others contribute!

Step 0: Let the Admin Install Collabora

Disclaimer: Collaborative editing only works with the Collabora integration for ownCloud – ask your admin to install it. It’s free software and easy to setup – easiest via docker or with the appliance. To integrate it with ownCloud, admins need to install the Collabora integration app.

Step 0: the ownCloud admin installs Collabora and integrates it with ownCloud.

Step 1: Upload a Document

First, you need to upload a document to ownCloud of course, or create a new one in the ownCloud web interface. Make sure you can open it in the browser.

Step 1: upload a document to ownCloud.

Step 2: Share the Folder With the Document

You can now let other people collaborate with you. Just create a public link to the folder, where the document is saved. Then share it with your friend. They don’t need an ownCloud account.

Step 2: share the folder with the document with a friend.

Step 3: Collaborate!

If you shared a folder with a document, your friend can open it in the browser and directly edit the document.

Step 3: collaborate on the document, in real-time and together.

This makes collaboration easy and efficient. Try it out today!

Was this a useful hint? Share it on Social Media, or ask your questions in the comments!

The article Edit a Document With Collabora – Directly From a Public Link! was published on ownCloud.

http://www.owncloud.org

Wer ownCloud verwendet hat sich sicherlich auch schon über einen sicheren Messenger Gedanken gemacht und ist dabei bei Threema gelandet, einem sehr fortgeschrittenen, vor allem sicheren Messenger Programm. Es ist sicher eine sehr gute Wahl gegenüber Anbietern mit zweifelhafter Privacy-Strategie wie WhatsApp.

Seit einigen Wochen bietet Threema ein weiteres interessantes Feature mit dem Namen Threema Safe an, das ein automatisches Backup der wichtigen persönlichen ID, die den User in Threema kennzeichnet, und anderer Threema-Daten durchführt. Es kann so eingerichtet werden, dass die Backupdaten verschlüsselt auf der eigenen ownCloud gespeichert werden. Wie das eingerichtet werden kann, wird hier beschrieben.

Ordner zur Speicherung

Als erstes loggt man sich per Web-Browser ein und legt in ownCloud einen Folder an, in dem man das Backup speichern möchte, zb. mit dem Namen threemaBackup. Um ihn für das Backup von Threema vorzubereiten, wechselt man dort hinein und legt einen Folder mit dem Namen backups an. Das ist wichtig, denn wenn der nicht vorhanden ist, funktioniert das Backup nicht, ohne dass eine sinnvolle Fehlermeldung von Threema ausgegeben wird.

Als nächstes wird eine config-Datei angelegt, die von Threema gelesen wird. Dazu wird im Verzeichnis threemaBackup eine Textdatei mit dem Namen config angelegt, die folgenden Inhalt hat:

{
"maxBackupBytes": 524288,
"retentionDays": 180
}

Achtung, alle Klammern, Anführungszeichen und Doppelpunkte sind wichtig!

Public Share

Als nächsten Schritt erzeugt man einen passwortgeschützten sog. Public Share auf das obere Verzeichnis mit dem Namen threemaBackup.

Ein solcher Share sollte für Threema Safe verwendet werden, denn das hat einen entscheidenden Vorteil: Der Zugriff auf ownCloud soll natürlich per Passwort geschützt sein, das Threema naturgemäss zum Zugriff braucht. Es muss also dauerhaft auf dem Handy, auf dem Threema installiert ist, gespeichert werden.

Dafür sollte besser nicht der normale Account des ownCloud Users verwendet werden, denn im Falle eines Verlustes wäre ein Zugriff auf alle Daten des Users in der ownCloud möglich.

Der Public Link mit Passwort hingegen beschränkt den Zugriff im Falle eines Unglücks nur auf das einzelne threemaBackup Verzeichnis, der auch nur verwendet werden kann, wenn gleichzeitig der leicht cryptische Verzeichnisname des public Link bekannt ist.

Öffentlichen Link anlegen

Zum Anlegen des Public Share wird im Browser der Ordner threemaBackup selektiert und auf das Teilen-Symbol (1) geklickt. Daraufhin wird auf Öffentliche Links (2) geklickt und dann Öffentlichen Link erstellen (3).

Liste der Public Shares

Der darauf erscheinende Dialog wird ausgefüllt mit einem sinnvollen Passwort und den Zugriffsrechten für Upload und auch Download („Herunterladen / Ansehen / Hochladen“), da Threema ja das config-File lesen muss.

Nach Klicken auf Ok erscheint der Name des neuen Link in einer Liste, und daneben befindet sich unter anderem ein Symbol, das den Link in die Zwischenablage kopiert.

Wenn dieser betätigt wird, erhält man in die Zwischenablage einen Link der Form

https://myowncloudserver.net/index.php/s/uFvHQ4GVjuUv5xd

Den kann man im Browser verwenden, und nach Eingabe des Passwortes Daten hochladen, die dann wie gewünscht im Verzeichnis threemaBackup auf der ownCloud erscheinen.

Leider ist der Link in dieser Form nicht für Threema geeignet, da man dort das Passwort nicht interaktiv eingeben kann.

Dieser Link kann in die folgende Form umgeschrieben werden:

https://uFvHQ4GVjuUv5xd:foobar4711@myowncloudserver.net/public.php/webdav

Damit ist er verwendbar in Threema. Es wird der public-Link-Identifier uFvHQ4GVjuUv5xd als Username verwendet und das Passwort, das für den Link verwendet wurde, folgt dem Namen nach einem Doppelpunkt, beides vor dem ‚@servername‘. Wichtig ist noch, dass nach der Domain anstatt des vorherigen index.php der Zugriff über public.php/webdav in das gesharte Verzeichnis erfolgt.

Threema Konfiguration

Der Link (natürlich aus eigener ID, Passwort und Domain zusammengesetzt) wird in die Threema-Konfigurationsmaske eingetragen. Die erreicht man in Threema im Menüpunkt<i>Meine Backups</i>. Dort wird rechts oben Threema Safe eingeschaltet, worauf das Passwort, mit dem die Backups verschlüsselt werden, eingegeben werden muss. Dieses Passwort darf nicht mit dem, das oben besprochen wurde, verwechselt werden. Jedoch muss es gut gemerkt werden, um das Backup später wieder entschlüsseln zu können.

Jetzt muss auf Experten-Einstellungen geklickt werden, um den Threema-Standardserver abzuwählen und den eigenen ownCloud Server anzugeben.

Mit dem Server Testen Button kann geprüft werden, ob alles funktioniert. Wenn ja, wird Threema von nun an die Backups auf die eigene Cloud speichern. Man kann die Backup Files auf der ownCloud im gesharten Verzeichnis sehen.

Wenn es Schwierigkeiten gibt, liegt es bestimmt nur an einem Schreibfehler in der URL, die Eingabe von der Share-ID und einem sicheren Passwort ist zugegebenerweise etwas mühsam auf der Handytastatur.

Viel Erfolg!

This article was published on Mach den Büro-Tag frei(er) mit freier Software: https://tagfrei.wordpress.com/2019/01/03/threema-safe-und-owncloud/

The article Threema Safe und ownCloud was published on ownCloud.

In ownCloud, you can share files to collaborate. Next to other useful extensions, OnlyOffice is a very convenient tool when it comes to editing documents. It is basically Word/LibreOffice in a browser tab.

Others can contribute to your documents to, even at the same time. They don’t even need an ownCloud account, you just have to give them a public link to share a document with them.

Step 0: Let the Admin Install OnlyOffice

Disclaimer: Editing documents in ownCloud only works with the OnlyOffice integration for ownCloud – your admin can install it. It’s free software – they can set it up easily, e.g. via docker or with the appliance. To integrate it with ownCloud, they need to install the OnlyOffice integration app.

Step 0: After installing OnlyOffice itself, admins can integrate it via the ownCloud Marketplace.

Step 1: Upload a Document

First, upload a document to ownCloud, or create a new one in the ownCloud web interface. Make sure you can open it in the browser.

Step 1: upload a document to ownCloud.

Step 2: Share the Folder With the Document

Now you can share it with others: just create a public link to the folder where the document is saved. Then give the sharing link to a others. They don’t need an ownCloud account.

Step 2: share the folder with the document with others.

Step 3: Collaborate!

If you shared a folder with a document, others can open it in the browser and directly edit the document. Many people can edit the document at the same time, in their own browser.

Step 3: collaborate on the document, in real-time and together.

Today, collaboration is easy and efficient. Try it out!

Was this a useful hint? Share it on Social Media, or ask your questions in the comments!

The article Use OnlyOffice to Edit a Document Together – Directly From a Public Link! was published on ownCloud.

Community contributor Klaas Freitag, who played a key role in the development of the Sync Client, did some research and examined the proportion of ownCloud developers in other community solutions such as the Nextcloud Client.

An examination of the commits pushed to Github provides a revealing insight. If you sort the commits according to which project the authors are assigned to – both in terms of the number of commits and the number of changed lines – you get a clear picture.

More than 80 percent of the code base comes from ownCloud developers.

Number of commits to the Nextcloud Desktop repository as of Nov. 10, 2018

“I am proud that the work we do in ownCloud is actually stimulating two projects”, Klaas writes in his blog. For him, the ownCloud community is one that generates innovations, pushes things forward and fixes many “nasty” bugs every day.

Klaas’ research, once again, reminds us that our focus on improving stability, reliability and security has led to a product that not only benefits enterprises but the entire Open Source ecosystem that surrounds us. We are honored to be a contributor towards this ecosystem, and continuously strive towards creating the best Open Source platform for digital collaboration worldwide.

For Klaas Freitag’s full research, read his blog.

The article Insight: How an Entire Ecosystem Benefits From the ownCloud Community was published on ownCloud.

Since Phoenix was announced in March 2018, little new information has surfaced. We mostly worked in silence. Now Phoenix is far enough that you can start extending it with apps – time to show what you can do with the new frontend with a simple example app.

We already built a small Markdown Editor and a simple PDF Viewer for Phoenix. The PDF Viewer extension is a good example to show what a Phoenix app needs and how you can use the framework.

Get Started With Developing!

Intrigued? Grab a cup of coffee and sit down. Developing a small app for Phoenix is not hard if you know the basics of JavaScript – you can pick up VueJS along the way, if you don’t know it already (for those who don’t, see here why Vue.js is awesome)

Since the last announcement, we had a small change in the libraries we use – we dropped UIkit in favor of Vuetify. Vuetify offers enhanced functionality through VueJS-based components, a great advantage over UIkit.

This change means that right now, Phoenix looks less “ready” than the mock-up during the announcement – we mainly built the architecture under the hood since then. Soon we can start to design Vuetify components for the new look. Having easy user flows and an understandable interface is the top priority.

You can try out the current state of Phoenix and the two apps at phoenix.owncloud.com (username: demo, passphrase: demo), our preview instance. It always shows the most recent development progress.

1. How to Load a Phoenix App?

Phoenix has a json config file to configure the list of apps which are to be loaded. For testing, enter your app manually, later the Market app will handle this

A Phoenix app is basically a webpack bundle living in the folder /apps/${appname}. Phoenix is loading the json config within it’s bootstrap process and loads all of these bundles.

2. Bootstrapping an App

The App Info Structure

A Phoenix extension exposes all its capabilities and properties via an app info structure – though not the info.xml you maybe already know from ownCloud extension development, which is for Marketplace information. In the PDF Viewer app, it looks like this:

const appInfo = {
  name: 'PDF Viewer',
  id: 'pdf-viewer',
  icon: 'ocft icon-application-pdf',
  isFileEditor: true,
  extensions: [{
    extension: 'pdf'
  }
]}

You can use those items for your app like this:

• name: the human readable and also translated name of the application. currently unused
• id: the technical identifier which matches up with the app folder name and the name of the webpack bundle
• icon: this is the icon of the application. currently unused
• isFileEditor: if this is true this app will appear in the file open dialog
• extensions: the file extensions your app will offer to open

The UI schema for opening a file with the PDF Viewer

Registering Routes for the App

In addition to the app info structure there is a routes structure which registers frontend routes to the central Phoenix router:

const routes = [{
  path: `/pdf-viewer`,
  component: PdfViewer,
  name: 'pdf-viewer'
}]

The routes follow the structure of the vue-router. You can use these routes to call the application and display your user interface.

There are more settings, but let’s keep this simple and focus on how to implement a viewer application like the PDF viewer:

3. What Happens When an App Opens a File?

A file sync & share solution wants to interact with files, of course. Your app will want to do it, too. So here a small summary how your code can handle files:

When a user opens a file, they see a dialog with all apps which are able to handle the file, e.g. the PDF Viewer if it’s a pdf. The Phoenix files app then navigates to a URL which is to be named just like the app id.

So in case of your PDF Viewer example the route was named pdf-viewer. The route loads the vue component PdfViewer, which loads the file content with the mounted method of the component. Here you can insert your logic.

The file which is supposed to be opened in the viewer is stored in the central vuex store – this is currently a bit cryptic and is likely subject of change as we move on.

The PDF Viewer app opens the document in a browser tab

4. How to Load File Content in an App?

We are developing a JavaScript client to interact with ownCloud, js-owncloud-client, which was started in 2017 as a Google Summer of Code project. The client is available to all phoenix components via this.$client.

To get the URL for downloading the file, we use a method of the client: const url = this.$client.files.getFileUrl(this.filePath)

As time of writing, js-owncloud-client is not yet transformed to the fetch API. For now, the fetch operations are implemented in the PdfViewer component itself. In future versions of Phoenix and the js-owncloud-client, this will no longer be necessary.

5. Bonus: Display Notifications

Apps usually want to display notifications to the user in case of error, warning or longer running operations ….. a simple helper can be used to show such notifications: The showNotifications method is implemented as getter on the vuex store:

 error (error) {
  this.showNotification({
    title: this.$gettext('PDF could not be loaded ....'),
    desc: error,
    type: 'error'
  })
}

You can use mapGetters to make it available – call it anywhere in the component. You can use the three items for the following:

6. How to Build This Stuff Together?

We use webpack to compile all necessary assets together into one bundle. The webpack config is rather simple – again, the PDF Viewer can be used as example for how a webpack.common.js could look like.

Questions? Get in Touch With Us!

Phoenix is under active development and will be subject to changes. There will be a lot of work on new Vuetify components to make Phoenix look better, for example.

If you want to develop your own app for Phoenix, make your ownCloud app compatible with Phoenix, or want to join the development of Phoenix itself, join our RocketChat channel. This is the best place to ask a quick question:

Join #phoenix on talk.owncloud.com!

Did you like this article? Share it with others or leave a comment below:

The article How to Write an ownCloud App with the New ownCloud Vue.js Frontend Phoenix was published on ownCloud.

Open Source development is about interaction, feedback, and collaboration. You can not only read the source code, change it, contribute – it goes beyond that. Important about Open Source is the social connection to the developers.

Because there are things developers do not know. Especially user experience is something you know better – and if you tell us (e.g. on Central), we know which parts need to be polished.

Now there is a new client release, and you took part. You gave feedback, the developers used that to experiment with the client, and improved it further and further. With this release comes a small portion:

Hiding the Settings Window

Until last version, when you downloaded a virtual file, the settings window appeared to show the progress. We thought this was a convenient way to show a progress bar – but some of you found that it gets in the way of the workflow.

So from now on it isn’t shown while the client downloads a virtual file – don’t worry, the download will still happen. Is this the right solution? Let us know in the comments if you have other ideas!

The settings window does not appear anymore when opening a virtual file.

Upgrade to Get the Newest Fixes!

Apart from that, there are mainly bug fixes, especially for MacOS clients. Thanks to the community for helping debugging, sending crash logs, etc.! This was very helpful to track down the bugs and fixing it for everyone.

We are also further hardening the Virtual File System feature, it got some minor improvements. For details, read the full changelog.

If you have had issues with 2.5.1, upgrading is a good idea. Stay tuned for 2.6.0 with new improvements!

Get the ownCloud Client 2.5.2!

Do you like this update? Share this announcement on social media or leave a comment below:

The article Desktop Client 2.5.2 Release – Thanks for Your Feedback! was published on ownCloud.

ownCloud is a quite complex – yet very versatile – software. It can be hard to unlock its full potential, and to adjust it to the user’s needs – configuration is what ultimately counts, so that everyone can use it as they want.

Because of that, the documentation which explains how it works is critical! Sharing the knowledge the Open Source way is enabling everybody to use it. If only our support gurus know how to solve the problem, what does it help?

Sharing is Not a One-Way-Street

Even our oldest contributors don’t know everything. And Matthew, our documentation lead, can’t write all the documentation on his own. So we’d love you to contribute what you know.

Not sure if you’re the right kind of person? Well, everybody knows something:

• People who work with ownCloud every day.
• Admins who rarely have to touch it, but then find one rare problem no one else ever encountered.
• Inexperienced ownClouders who can’t find what they are looking for, so ask others to document it.

If you are in one of those three groups, you are the perfect fit for contributing, and we would love to have your input.

Come Join In

As of today, the documentation has 172 contributors, and 305 people ever opened an issue. This is awesome! However, ownCloud is constantly evolving, as new features are developed all the time.

Consequently, the documentation has to be kept up to date. You can help to keep up by sharing what you know and keep everyone informed.

The next one who closes a documentation issue is 1337!

Contributing to the Documentation Is Easy!

If you’re keen to share what you know, read this short how-to to find out how you can contribute:

Read how to get started

Additionally, Matthew recently created a short series of YouTube videos, which step you through how to get started. You don’t need to be a developer, and you don’t need special software for this. You only need a web browser!

Get started with the introductory video:

Did you like this blog post? Share it on social media or leave a comment below:

The article Something Missing in the ownCloud Documentation? Then Contribute! was published on ownCloud.

In der neuen Version 2.5 des privacyIDEA ownCloud Plugins kann der Administrator nun entscheiden, in welchem Fall er von den Benutzern eine Zwei-Faktor-Authentifizierung verlangt und wann nicht.

Dies kann der Administrator von der IP-Adresse des anfragenden Clients abhängig machen. So kann er bspw. erzwingen, dass Zugriffe aus dem Internet mit einem zweiten Faktor geschützt sind, während für Zugriffe von Clients aus dem internen Netzwerk der zweite Faktor nicht abgeprüft wird.

Das privacyIDEA ownCloud Plugin ist ab sofort über den ownCloud Marketplace verfügbar und kann direkt aus ownCloud heraus installiert werden.

Diesen Sonntag wird Cornelius Kölbel auf der FOSDEM in Brüssel einen Vortrag über Zwei-Faktor-Authentifizierung an ownCloud mittels privacyIDEA halten.

Der Beitrag Flexible Zwei-Faktor-Authentifizierung an ownCloud erschien zuerst auf NetKnights – IT-Sicherheit ~ Zwei-Faktor-Authentisierung ~ Verschlüsselung.

This article was published on NetKnights – IT-Sicherheit ~ Zwei-Faktor-Authentisierung ~ Verschlüsselung: https://netknights.it/flexible-zwei-faktor-authentifizierung-an-owncloud/

The article Flexible Zwei-Faktor-Authentifizierung an ownCloud was published on ownCloud.

ownCloud is not only a file sync & share solution, it is an effective way to work together. Today’s release includes many new collaboration features, such as Microsoft Office Online Integration, File Locking, and new options for file tagging.

ownCloud, a Collaboration Solution

The 21st century brought us many new ways of teamwork. The Internet allows us to express our thoughts in ways we never thought possible before. It created the information sector, and forever changed the way we exchange world views, work, or communicate how we want to live together.

There are many solutions out there to share our ideas and creativity for productive uses. ownCloud combines the best approaches to improve the usability and security of collaborative work. With this release, the following new features make it more convenient to work together:

Microsoft Office Online Integration

A big step forward is the integration of Microsoft Office Online Server, an on-premises collaboration tool for editing documents online, through the Web Application Open Platform Interface (WOPI).

It offers collaborative online editing capabilities for Office documents delivering great compatibility with Microsoft Office file formats. The user interface is very similar to what users know from the desktop version of Microsoft Office.

So without having to get familiar with a new user interface, users can directly become productive as the integration provides the same user experience you have with Microsoft products, with the additional benefit of storing the files securely in ownCloud.

Open a Microsoft Office document directly in the web browser.

You can edit documents in ownCloud with Microsoft Office Online Server.

To use the integration, you need a Microsoft Office Online Server and the WOPI ownCloud app, to connect it to ownCloud. ownCloud Server 10.1 is required for compatibility with the WOPI app.

In addition to Open Source solutions like Collabora Online and OnlyOffice, this integration makes ownCloud a versatile solution for collaborative content creation. Anyone can choose which tools fit their needs best.

File Locking

File Locking aims to avoid file conflicts. When several users make concurrent changes to the same file using different editors (or editing sessions), file conflicts can happen easily. File locking provides exclusive access to one user (or one editing session) and prevents changes from others.

ownCloud Server 10.1 introduces the WebDAV HTTP API for File Locking. The new version also adds user interface elements to recognize locked files as well as to unlock them for the unlikely case when a lock doesn’t get removed cleanly.

Locking files is currently available via the API and is mainly used by the Microsoft Office Online Integration. More specifically, users can see when a file is locked (lock icon in files view).

While it is locked, others can join editing collaboratively, e.g. with Microsoft Office Online. Still, users can’t overwrite it by editing it with other tools.

Users can see locked files in the ownCloud web interface.

Speaking about the future this feature sets the foundation for platform-wide file locking support. In a first step users will be able to manually lock files for a certain amount of time using the clients or the web interface.

Automatically locking locally used files can also be realized at some point. For users this will be beneficial as they can edit files with other tools, e.g. on their desktop, while ownCloud will take care to avoid conflicts.

Static Tags

With Collaborative Tags you can sort and filter your files. They are also a nice tool for administrators to link files with defined policies for security, compliance or workflows (File Firewall, Document Classification or Workflows).

In addition to the existing tag scopes, version 10.1 comes with a new scope for Collaborative Tags called “Static Tags”. Administrators can supply such a tag to empower certain groups of users to apply policies to files.

As such, every user will be able to see these tags assigned to files. But only users in specified groups have the permission to assign or unassign them.

To ensure certain data in shared spaces may only be used internally, administrators create a tag for “internal” data. They can then give a group the rights to classify certain files which contain, say, confidential information.

A Document Classification policy linked with the tag then prevents external sharing of tagged files. This is only one simple example. you can use Static Tags for versatile use cases with different ownCloud features.

Federation: Compliance With Future OCM 1.0 Specification

The open standard OpenCloudMesh (OCM) is an integral part of ownCloud. It enables different cloud platforms to work together seamlessly. Sharing data is not only possible between users of one ownCloud server. User can also share across ownCloud servers and even with users on other OCM-enabled platforms.

With this release, ownCloud is compliant with the future OpenCloudMesh 1.0 specification. The update to the new specification cleans up the interface and brings more stability. With this it sets the foundation for future feature improvements in cloud federation.

Semantic Versioning

The switch to Semantic Versioning is another step that makes the lives of ownCloud administrators easier.

Starting with ownCloud Server 10.1.0, the version number of a new release clearly indicates the contents and upgrade procedures of new releases via version numbers.

Upgrade Process Respects Major App Versions

In line with the new versioning scheme, a minor server upgrade will not automatically install new major versions of ownCloud apps. This way, you don’t accidentally install an app with breaking changes before you had the chance to test it.

Additionally, the Market App now includes a version picker to enable administrators to choose which version of an app they want to install or upgrade to.

So What Are You Waiting for? Ah, Right.

This all sounds juicy. But before you upgrade to the new version, you should read the upgrade best practices in the documentation.

Are all of your apps already compatible with ownCloud 10.1? All of the apps maintained by ownCloud itself will work, but some community apps may not be compatible with ownCloud 10.1 yet. You can read more in the SemVer blogpost.

For more information, take a look at the release notes and the changelog.

Upgrade your ownCloud to 10.1.0!

What do you think about these improvements? Share this post on social media or leave a comment below:

The article ownCloud Server 10.1 Release – A Big Step Forward in Digital Collaboration was published on ownCloud.

Cambridge, United Kingdom, February 14, 2018 – Collabora Productivity, the driving force behind bringing LibreOffice to the cloud, is excited to announce a new, major release of our enterprise product Collabora Online 4.0. This release includes a fresh look, mobile improvements, improved interoperability, new dialogs and functionality as well as a raft of bug fixes and polish.

At the same time as our release we are updating the Collabora Online Development Edition (CODE) for home users, and to make it easy for everyone to try this out and get involved with integrating it into their systems. For more information please visit CODE’s page.

What has changed?

This release includes a fresh look – with improved toolbar colors and layout, mobile improvements – with support for Retina and HiDPI screens along with easier shape editing, as well as improved interoperability provided by upgrading the underlying document rendering core to Collabora Office 6.0. In addition, we introduce support for Vereign’s blockchain-powered platform which provides Collabora clients with an authentic identity management solution as well as bringing more of the rich dialogs of our core engine to users.

Refreshed Toolbar icons and layout

Toolbars have been refreshed to integrate the Colibre icon theme (thanks to Andreas Kainz) and lighter coloring, which significantly improves the look of 4.0. Compare before and after.

In addition, a new icon to hide the menu bar is now present. It further simplifies the UI.

More space Add document type icon More formatting options

The document file name – which you can click-to-rename – has been tucked into the menu more neatly. Further, a ‘click-able’ modification time – which when clicked launches the revision history – has been added.

While Collabora Online can be used as a software component integrated into a variety of products, these improvements to the visual design have been developed in close partnership with Nextcloud.

Integrating with Vereign

Vereign is a Swiss open source company building a blockchain based self-sovereign identity and personal data store. It can be hardened to Swiss banking standards. They are currently running a beta program to add authentic communication to e-mail, starting with Gmail and Roundcube. Collabora has partnered with Vereign to also provide authentic documents bearing the qualified electronic signature of your hardened self-sovereign identity.

The document_signing_url configuration key in loolwsd.xml will be pre-set to app.vereign.com for future CODE releases, as/when the API is stable. However Collabora Office users will need to enable this integration explicitly if they want it. If you are already signed up with the Vereign beta program, to send authentic email with your Gmail account, your self-sovereign identity and its passports will be immediately usable for signing documents in CODE 4.0.

Use the File → Sign document menu option to activate the ‘Vereign Toolbar’ to log into this service.

For the users who are accustomed to using the Vereign app, we have created a QR code dialogue so as to speed up their log-in process.

And after using the identity to sign the document with a qualified electronic signature according to the EU and the Swiss laws, you should see:

Vereign also supports storing – and later publishing – copies of signed documents to provide you with an independent, user owned archive of your interactions. This archive is blockchain secured, as is the audit trail of all your identity interactions.

Vereign is currently gathering interested parties for Proof of Concept (PoC) deployments next year and partners with potential use cases are encouraged to contact Vereign directly.

Improved shape editing

To make shape editing much more pleasant, and more helpful for touch users we have enlarged the size of the selection handles and made them circular. We have also added a more convenient and familiar rotation control to avoid needing to use the shape dialogue to rotate objects.

We have also added a more convenient and familiar rotation control to avoid needing to use the shape dialogue to rotate objects.
Rotation control added to shape dialogues.

When shapes are being re-sized or re-positioned, instead of just showing a rectangular profile of where the object will end up, we show a semi-transparent re-sizing preview of the new shape in its position at the new size:

Re-sizing preview:

In addition to make shape insertion easier we added a palette of all the built-in custom shapes allowing easy insertion of new shapes into the document.

Mobile device improvements

Mobile device support has improved significantly in this release in a number of critical areas. Time to first document load is improved – though it has always been possible to load, layout and calculate large and complex documents on the server – avoiding complexity and battery life impact on a small mobile device.

We have introduced a simple, stripped down viewing mode at first, to make it easier to view documents in an uncluttered way.
Stripped down viewing mode:

Toolbars are easier to use, can auto-hide, and scroll to allow a wider selection of commonly used functionality. The menus are also far easier to scroll and interact with deeper menu hierarchies.

Pinch to zoom, pan, and other multi-touch behaviors are also improved, along with the ability to zoom and pan into different areas of complex dialogues allowing the full rich functionality of the desktop designed dialogues that are larger than a mobile screen to be used conveniently.

Zooming and panning into different areas of complex dialogues:

Improvements to the special character dialog making it easier to use favorite characters in 4.0 are also visible here.

Retina / HiDPI display improvement

Version 4.0 now can take advantage of the browser’s native higher DPI to render at the display’s real resolution, getting crisp pixel rendering, for example at 200% zoom:

This has a significant effect across all components, and particularly Calc which now has a 200% zoom option.

Before and After:

 

By avoiding the browser needing to do a local scaling, we get much crisper text, and conditional formatting, as well as using your display to best effect.

We also moved to using scalable vector Colibre icons for dialogues, and rendering these at a higher resolution when needed too.

Writer improvements

Rich section properties

This feature provides users with the possibility to configure the attributes of sections of a Collabora Online Writer text document. For instance, a user can restrict editing to specific parts by locking certain sections of the text with a password in order to protect sections, perhaps legally sensitive, of a text from being changed.

Inserting a multi-level Table of Contents

Users can now insert powerful Tables of Contents (TOC) and customize them to their preference. Adding a TOC to your documents easily provides an overview of a longer text based on the headings you have used helping readers to navigate through multiple pages easily and quickly. Use “Ctrl+Click Function” to jump to a heading or sub-heading in a document.

Calc improvements

Page styling

Calc uses page styles to specify the layout of how we print pages, including line arrangement, line styles, background colour, paper format, margins, layout setting, headers, footers, and shadowing styles. These are applied via page styles you can re-use for other sheets.

Impress improvements

In Impress, every slide is based on a slide master. Masters also exist for notes, and handouts. Every type of master has predefined areas for date, header, footer, and slide numbers whose styles can be customized. When editing online, to provide quick information about your contents, you need to be able to create, edit, and customize the Header and Footer as well as Bullets and Numbering features. Here’s some descriptions and screenshots of the dialogues.

Header and footer

This feature allows you to create a header and footer for your slides, notes and handouts, without having to editing the Masters themselves.

Bullets and numbering

This allows rich customization of the position, type and size of bullets and numbering to create the ideal lists. All the changes can be made using the Bullets and Numbering dialog box, which can be accessed through the Format menu.

Miscellaneous Online improvements

• Security and document jail creation performance – particularly on stackable file-systems – has been significantly improved by removing all of the Collabora Office code from the document jails.
• Improved Thumbnailing API via accelerated convert-to implementation, allowing easier file browsing.
• Translations have been expanded, thanks to the enthusiastic LibreOffice teams to include reasonable localizations to thirty-seven popular languages.

Improvements from Collabora Office 6.0

Collabora Online re-uses the same underlying core document rendering and interoperability engine based on LibreOffice provided by Collabora Office 6.0. Collabora Online 4.0 upgrades us to the new 6.0 version – which includes many improvements from the wider LibreOffice community, such as:

• many improvements across Visio, MS Publisher, Keynote, Pages & Numbers filters (thanks to the Document Liberation Project)
  

• Much improved EMF+ rendering (thanks to Bartosz Kosiorek)
• Spreadsheet loading and calculation performance improvements
• Substantially improved EMF+ (OLE object) preview rendering
• Improved table styles & border rendering
• Improved interoperability – with many improvements to OpenXML (DOCX, XLSX, PPTX) support, support for new attributes, and wins for legacy SmartArt shapes without DrawingML fallback.

For more details, and credits around Collabora Office 6.0 please see https://www.collaboraoffice.com/collabora-office-6-0/

Getting Collabora Online 4.0

Collabora Online is suitable for large scale deployment, comes with an SLA, Long Term Support with signed security updates as well as a rich product management interaction helping to direct our development priorities.

Enterprises interested in using Collabora Online can check out our home page for more information on partner integrations and online demos. For tailored solutions, contact sales@collaboraoffice.com.

Hosting and Cloud businesses that wish to add Collabora Online to their product portfolio can become a partner by filling in the partner form or contacting sales@collaboraoffice.com.

Collabora Online is only one part of a larger Enteprise File Sync & Share, Groupware, or Hosting solution. Collabora is excited to go to market with a long list of Partners each of which has an integration.

Online demo

You can get an online demo of Collabora Online and try it out yourself right now!

For more information:

• Communications and Marketing: marketing@collaboraoffice.com
• Sales: sales@collaboraoffice.com

About Collabora Productivity:

Collabora Productivity is the driving force behind putting LibreOffice in the Cloud, providing a range of products and consulting to enterprise and government. Powered by the largest team of certified LibreOffice engineers in the world, it is a leading contributor to the LibreOffice codebase and community. Collabora Office for Desktop and Collabora Online provide a business-hardened office suite with long-term, multi-platform support. Collabora Productivity is a division of Collabora, the global software consultancy dedicated to providing the benefits of Open Source to the commercial world, specializing in mobile, automotive and consumer electronics industries. For more information, visit www.collaboraoffice.com or follow @CollaboraOffice on Twitter.

The post Collabora Online 4.0 released appeared first on Collabora Productivity.

This article was published on Collabora Productivity: https://www.collaboraoffice.com/press-releases/collabora-online-4-0/

The article Collabora Online 4.0 released was published on ownCloud.

The beta program makes it easier to fix bugs and crashes. If you have a beta version installed, you have access to error logs – so if you encounter problems, you can send us the logs, and we will find the bug. This way, we can make sure that the bugs are fixed in the final release.

With the new Beta, Testpilots can get a quick glance at new features. You can take a look at the newly designed side bar, the new sort view, fresh icons… check it out!

You can now select all files or inverse the selection in the uploading view.

Shashvat also included sorting options when sharing files from other apps with the ownCloud Android app.

Another contribution by Shashvat  is an interesting improvement regarding notifications and file deletions. When we deleted multiple files in previous versions, multiple notifications appeared. But now, we are showing just one:

Show only one delete notification when deleting multiple files

Check whether all of these features work for you! If something is wrong, please tell the developers, so they can fix it before the release.

How to get logs of the ownCloud app for bug reports

Join the Testpilots!

Join the Android app beta program!

What do you think of our beta program? Do you like it? Are there things we could improve? Let us know!

The article Be the First to Test New Android Features – Become an ownCloud Beta Tester in Just 2 Steps! was published on ownCloud.

We are often asked why ownCloud is putting so much energy into the Open Source ecosystem. Well, ownCloud is neither a company which also does Open Source, nor an Open Source project which also does business.

Instead, both parts are mutually beneficial. The Open Source ecosystem provides a high quality codebase, and the experience with large enterprise deployments contributes to the ecosystem. It is not a contradiction, it is a symbiosis.

Only Dead Fish Swim Upstream? Where ownClouders Contribute

The developers who work at ownCloud use a lot of Open Source software every day, and of course they contribute if something needs to be done. A good example is SabreDAV – after Evert Pot left the project, Thomas Müller, Chief Architect at ownCloud, took over maintainership.

Another example is the Drone project. The DevOps expertise of a large project like ownCloud is very useful for an Open Source continuous delivery platform.

Thomas Boerger and Patrick Jahns not only developed the Hetzner Cloud integration for the Drone autoscaler and several other features. Thomas is also the owner of the community Drone plugins organization and maintainer for Drone.

This way, ownCloud pays the maintainer, and everyone, e.g. non-commercial Open Source projects, can use the software and be sure that it works and bugs get fixed.

The teams of AARNet, CERN and ownCloud hands on at work at the CS3 conference in Rome.

New Client Features Improve Other Projects

During the development of the ownCloud clients, ownClouders contribute a lot of features to upstream. Sometimes Qt has to be improved, when the Desktop team wants to do something new with the client. In another case, the work on Delta Sync led to some improvements to the libcsync and zsync libraries.

Sometimes these features evolve into a more close collaboration over time which benefit both projects significantly:

At the ownCloud Conference 2018, we invited Hannah von Reth from KDE Craft to work with Dominik Schmidt on MacOS support for Craft. They also made it possible to build the ownCloud Desktop Client with Craft. Read the interview about it!

Hannah is the maintainer of KDE Craft. Domme is working on the ownCloud Client and many other things.

And when the team around the ownCloud Android app wanted to get a better WebDAV library, they could build on the expertise of the Bitfire team and their dav4jvm library.

The ownClouders contributed properties, as well as move and copy WebDAV operations, to adjust it to their needs – and so both projects evolved into better software.

Stick Together And Contribute!

ownCloud has a business model which funds the development – but most Open Source projects aren’t as lucky. They live from contributions and long-term maintenance efforts. There are never enough people who do this important work.

But you can contribute, too. If you can’t code, then maybe you can do cool designs or write documentation – or work closely with developers on bug reports, to get it fixed for everyone.

It is important that we stick together to keep this ecosystem healthy. One way is to contribute to ownCloud, but other projects may need more support. In any case, the ways to do this are always similar. See you at the issue tracker!

Learn how to contribute!

Where do you contribute? Leave a comment below or share this on social media!

The article How ownCloud Contributes to the Open Source Ecosystem was published on ownCloud.

For this release, most changes come from the community. The ownCloud team is busy refactoring the app, and working on architecture changes – so this time, we have mainly usability improvements.

Two contributors especially proved their competence: Shashvat Kedia, who developed some UI improvements, and Hannes Achleitner, who is working on the code structure.

Usability Improvements by Shashvat Kedia

If you are part of the beta testers, you probably know some of this already: Shashvat contributed many usability features to this version. A big change are two more options for selection:

After he already implemented Select all and Select inverse in the files view, he now added them to the uploads view, too. This makes it far easier to upload many files at once, a feature many asked for.

You can now select all files or inverse the selection in the uploading view.

Shashvat also included sorting options when sharing files from other apps with the ownCloud Android app – in complex folder hierarchies, this makes it easier to find the right location to upload a file.

He also has done some more polishing on the UI: when you deleted multiple files in previous versions, multiple notifications appeared. But now, we are showing just one:

Show only one delete notification when deleting multiple files

To conclude Shashvat’s contributions with this last small feature: when you log in, the login button will only appear when you start typing your credentials. This is smoother and avoids an error message when you accidentally click on a login button too early.

Other Visible Changes

Apart from Shashvat’s contributions, the new release changes some more details. One example: if you want to share a file, but 2 users have the same display name, then you can in the future see their user id or E-Mail address in the autocompletion dialog.

Different users can have the same display name – only the E-Mail address or user id can tell them apart.

This is what the new autocompletion looks like in the Android app.

Another small feature is a warning message, which appears when you first install the app – it asks you to properly configure a camera upload folder, so if you take a photo, they are automatically uploaded after up to 15 minutes.

Support For Android 9 And Twilight

Another very useful development for many users is support for Android 9. Hannes Achleitner, who is working with the team to improve the architecture, took care for the compability – so if you use Android 9, get our app and try it out!

Another notice regarding supported versions: with 2.10.0 we drop support for the oc_jb_workaround. This means, the app will only work from Android 4.4 upwards, instead of Android 4.0. So if you still use Android 4, you shouldn’t upgrade the ownCloud app – or better, upgrade your OS.

Last but not least, with the new version you can use ownCloud with light filtering apps like Twilight – if you want to use such an app, turn on the option “Allow touches when the view is obscured by another visible window.”

Beware though – allow this only if you trust those apps. This is disabled by default for security reasons – apps could trick you into performing actions by showing you a different view. As many users asked for this, we made it possible – but use it at your own risk.

Outlook – Kotlin, Architecture Improvements and Testing

Soon, there will be deep architecture improvements, which make it easier to contribute and write new features. They make it possible to use Kotlin for faster and easier development. You will not need as much know-how as Shashvat or Hannes to dive into the code.

Also there is a lot of work to improve testing. It makes it easier to write tests and helps to find crashes before they happen out there. Stay tuned!

For now, you can get the new version:

Get the app now on the Google Playstore!

Get the app now on F-Droid!

Make sure to update now, to benefit of the enhanced security, better overall stability and reliable workflows.

What do you think of this release? Share this post on social media or leave a comment below:

The article ownCloud Android 2.10.0 Release – Thanks to the Community! was published on ownCloud.

Usually, security comes with a price. Most tools which can protect your online security, like javascript blockers or GPG, get in the way of your tasks. Password managers are an exception.

A password manager is one of the few tools which both protect you and make your life easier. You only need to remember one passphrase to decrypt your vault – then you can copy-paste all other passwords from there.

No reason to keep weird username/passphrase combinations in mind. No reason for 4 different passwords, of which one contains a * and two $$ characters, but another doesn’t, because the platform forbid it. No reason to type out all those passwords ever again.

Why Put Your Passwords in the Cloud?

One problem with password managers is that they usually stay on one device. This is more secure, but inconvenient – you may need your bank credentials on your phone one day, e.g. during vacations.

If only you had an ownCloud account to synchronize your passwords between all your devices, just as you are used to with your files. Fortunately, this is possible.

Don’t be fooled – not all hackers wear a black hoodie or a mask. At least not all the time.

If you store your passwords in the cloud, you have to worry about who owns the server, of course. Here comes the ownCloud bonus: in contrast to other cloud storage providers, with ownCloud you know which admin you trust with protecting your passphrases.

With most password managers, and definitely with the two tools I’m showing today, you don’t even have to worry about that. The password vaults are encrypted with your master passphrase, so the admin can’t access them.

There are several password managers out there – the tools with the best integration into ownCloud are KeePassXC and Passman.

KeePassXC – All Your Passwords in One File

KeePassXC stores all of your passphrases in one file, the password database. It’s easy: you just download KeePassXC from the official website or the packages for your distribution, install it, and create a database.

The best way is to use the ownCloud desktop client. Then you can save it in your synchronization folder, so it stays in sync with your other devices.

If you want to access it on mobile, you have to install the ownCloud Android or iOS app, and a KeePass app like KeePassDroid. Then you can import the KeePass database from the ownCloud directory.

Add a Passphrase to Your KeePass Store

Pick a strong, long passphrase which you can definitely remember. This XKCD comic is very good advice on how to create strong passwords, which are easy to remember. Then you can start to save your passwords:

Create a new password entry in KeePassXC.

Built-in Password Generator

When you need a new passphrase though, you better use the built-in password generator. It creates random passwords, which are nearly impossible to guess. This is what it looks like in KeePassXC:

Use the built-in password generator of KeePassXC to generate a password.

Export Your Credentials to Other Password Managers

KeePassXC is a great tool to start, and has almost all features you need. If you miss something and find another password manager which supports it, you can still export all your passwords to a .csv file and import it somewhere else.

You can export you passwords from KeePass into a csv file.

For example into Passman, the second password manager I want to introduce:

Passman – a Password Manager Integrated Into ownCloud

If you don’t have admin rights and can’t install KeePassXC on your computer, then Passman might be the solution for you. It is an ownCloud app, the ownCloud admin installs it to the server.

Then it works in the browser – you can open it via the app tray in ownCloud. The first step is, as with KeePassXC, to create a password vault. Choose a strong passphrase:

You can create a Passman vault directly in the web interface.

Add Passwords to Passman

Then you can add passphrases to the password manager. It really works similar as KeePassXC, just the interface looks slightly different:

When you add a passphrase to Passman, you can also link a username and a login URL to it, even notes and tags.

Of course a password generator is included in Passman, too. You can generate really secure passwords with one button. No one will ever be able to guess them (except quantum computers, maybe).

In the settings you can find some options how those passwords should look like. The default option (12 chars) is a bit short – you should pick something above 30. You will only copy-paste them anyway:

You can specify how many different kinds of special characters will be in your generated passwords.

Optional: Import Your Credentials From Other Password Managers

Passman also has an import & export function – this makes migrating from something like KeePassXC a lot easier. It supports many different password managers. If you exported your KeePassXC passwords to a .csv file, you can import them like this:

In the settings, you can choose to import passwords from many different password managers.

You can also use the export and import feature to make backups from your passphrases – this way you can be sure you have a backup on your PC when the ownCloud goes down, or when you are offline. You can also import it into several other password managers.

This backup will be unencrypted though – if you don’t want to trust your admin with all of your passwords, you should not sync the backup to your ownCloud. Why would you? The passwords are already there, encrypted and secure.

What Is the Best Solution? What Is Most Secure? Pick Yourself!

There is no solution which fits everyone’s requirements – do you have admin rights at your work computer? Does your admin refuse to install the Passman app? Do you have an ownCloud mobile app? Do you use a Linux flavor where KeePassXC doesn’t run?

Try them out and choose the solution which fits for you. ownCloud is about customizability – you should be able to adjust it to your needs. If you find another tool which works better, tell us. But for now, you can try one of those:

Install KeePassXC on your computer!

Install Passman to your ownCloud!

Do you have other password managers to recommend? Leave a comment!

And feel free to show this post to your family & friends, if their bad passwords don’t let you sleep at night.

The article All Your Passwords, Everywhere – With a Secure Password Manager in ownCloud was published on ownCloud.

“The most recent data breach?”, you may ask, “what was it – oh, this article is from 2019, lol.”

But let’s be honest, even if you read this article in 2021, there will always be a most recent data breach. The struggle for more secure IT infrastructure is an uphill battle, and it is hard to stay up-to-date.

Our readers’ feedback to my recent article about password managers showed that there is a lot of interest in security. So this blogpost aims to help you leverage ownCloud’s security features. One of those is Two-Factor Authentication.

Two-Factor Authentication: What’s it About?

A second factor is very useful to protect your account against password theft. If your password gets cracked or found because you reused it in a powned service, a second authentication factor will protect you against hackers.

With Two-Factor Authentication, you have a second factor that proves that you are you. It could be a hardware token or an app on your phone – this proves that you not only can memorize the password (the first factor), but also have your mobile phone with you (the second factor).

There are many possible tokens for Two-Factor Authentication. You can even use your phone as second factor.

In practice: first you open your browser and login with your username and password. Then you get asked for your second factor, e.g. a TOTP app. You open the app on your phone, and a time-based one-time password (TOTP) shows. Finally, you enter it – and you’re logged in.

If an attacker wants to hack your account, they would have to do the same. So stealing your password isn’t enough anymore – they also need to steal your phone. This is way harder, and your account is more secure.

Setup Two-Factor Authentication for ownCloud – Step by Step

How to enable Two-Factor Authentication? You don’t need special tech skills. You need ownCloud admin privileges – but you can also just ask your admin to install the necessary ownCloud Server Apps. Okay, let’s get started:

Setup OAuth2 on the Server

You don’t need OAuth2 to use Two-Factor Authentication in your browser – but if you want to use the Android app, the iOS app, or the Desktop client, you will need to install OAuth2 on the ownCloud Server.

If you don’t have admin privileges, contact your admin to do it. Show them this blogpost – it’s only one click in the Market app. You need this app to get OAuth2 working for all users.

You can install the OAuth2 app to ownCloud in the Market app.

OAuth2 has even more useful security features – it provides tokens for each single device. Your client doesn’t need to know your password. And if your device gets stolen, you can disable the OAuth2 token in the web interface. This way, your data stays safe.

You can read this blogpost to learn about all its advantages and how it works in detail. Note that after the installation, all clients of all users will sooner or later have to reauthenticate.

With OAuth2, an app is authorized by token exchanges in the background.

Setup Your Second Authentication Factor

There are three Server apps for Multi-Factor Authentication in ownCloud: OpenOTP, PrivacyIDEA, and TOTP. They all offer different advantages. For simplicity, we will look at the TOTP app in this article.

First, install the TOTP app to the server, or ask your admin to do it. It’s another one-click installation that doesn’t require further configuration by the admin – but each user has to set it up for themselves.

You can install the Two-Factor Authentication app to ownCloud in the Market app.

To enable it for your account, you need a second factor. With the Open Source app FreeOTP you can use your Android or iOS phone. Install FreeOTP via GooglePlay, F-Droid, or the Apple Appstore.

Now login to your ownCloud account in the browser. For the next steps, be careful that you don’t log out again before you’re sure that it works. You don’t want to get locked out of your account accidentally, right?

To get started, go to Personal Security Settings. Click on the “Activate TOTP” checkbox – a QR code appears.

Scan the QR code with FreeOTP to enable your phone as second factor.

Scan the QR Code with the FreeOTP app. Then you can generate an authentication code with FreeOTP and enter it into the web interface. When you click “Verify”, you enable Two-Factor Authentication for your account.

Generate a one-time password with FreeOTP and verify it in the web interface.

Login to Your Account With the Android App

Now we can try out whether it works. Open the ownCloud Android app. Add a new account, and enter the server URL:

Add a new account and enter the server URL.

Now a small browser opens. It shows the login page of the web interface, where you can enter you username and password:

Login with username and password, as you are used to. The second factor comes afterwards.

After that, you are asked for a TOTP token: generate a one-time password with FreeOTP and enter it into the form. It should consist of six numbers.

Now you can generate a one-time password with the FreeOTP app and enter it into the web interface.

Then click on authorize – an OAuth2 token is generated for your app. Your phone will be logged in permanently – or at least until you revoke the OAuth2 token.

Click on “Authorize” to grant access to your app.

Try it out!

Let me know if this guide works out for you, and give the other Two-Factor Authentication options a try.

Especially PrivacyIDEA is really versatile and useful for large organizations, it even offers Multi-Factor Authentication with more than two factors. I just didn’t use it in the example because it requires an extra server.

What do you think about these security features? Leave a comment below or share this post on social media!

The article How to Use Two-Factor Authentication With the ownCloud Desktop Client or Mobile Apps was published on ownCloud.