This add-on allow editing office documents directly in eXo Platform using ONLYOFFICE™ Documents Server. Thanks to the introduced menu items, in action bar of Documents explorer, users of eXo Platform can switch to editor in file preview of any supportable office document. As for now, the add-on offers support of following formats:
- Office Open XML (Microsoft Office 2007 and later):
- Word (.docx)
- Excel (.xlsx)
- PowerPoint (.pptx)
- Open Document Format (OpenOffice and LibreOffice):
- Text (.odt)
- Spreadsheet (.ods)
- Presentation (.odp)
The Document Server should be installed on reachable network. ONLYOFFICE™ offers native installers for Windows and Linux, they also have Docker installation which will be described below in details.
A demo video where we edit Word document in eXo Platform using ONLYOFFICE editor:
Since add-on installed, it adds two menu items in Document explorer action bar: "Edit In Onlyoffice" and "Close Onlyoffice". These menu items available in file preview mode (need open a file in the explorer) and also work for large files when preview not possible.
After user will choose to open an editor for current file, it will be loaded instead of file preview. As Onlyoffice requires some time to download the document content to its Document Server and then prepare an UI, users will need wait for seconds before starting to work. Large files may require more time for loading (e.g. spreadsheets with lot of cells).
When users start to edit a document it's important to understand how Onlyoffice editor works. All modifications will go to a temporal storage in the Documents Server and only after all editors will be closed, in about 10 seconds, the file will be updated in eXo Platform. Thus, while document is open in the editor, all users opened it see actual state, but if look at the preview in eXo it will show a state before the editing session start. To finish editing the document, user closes the editor by menu "Close Onlyoffice".
When several users edit the same document, it is required to make extra operations to get synced with others. In single user mode all editings will be applied immediately to the document temporal storage. But when multiple users open the document and someone edits it, the edited part of the document will be locked for others until this user save the document explicitly using Save menu. After document saved current user will see also changes of others (in other paragraph, table cell etc). But others, in order to see remote modifications, will need also to click Save button in their editors, even if they haven't changed anything. Onlyoffice shows a popover on the Save button by default when document changed by others, it lets user to see need of such synchronization.
ONLYOFFICE™ Document Server can be installed in Docker container from ready image with pre-configured defaults. While this add-on has no constraints on how the Onlyoffice installed, Docker way is a simplest and strightforward way to add Document Office to you infra, for both development or production. Document Server is an Open Source Software, thus if you'll need to customize it, it's always possible to get the sources and make your Docker image.
When you have installed Docker, you need a single command to start the Document Server on-premise:
sudo docker run -i -t -d -p 80:80 onlyoffice/documentserver
The Document Server needs only port 80 by default, but you also can run in on HTTPS. Follow its guides for more detailed setup.
To check you have running Document Server successfuly, open a page on its address http://DOCUMENT_SERVER_HOST/OnlineEditorsExample/, it will show you simple demo page where you can upload a document, or use their sample, and try to edit online in your browser. After you'll see it works well, you are ready to install the add-on in eXo Platform.
After you successfuly installed ONLYOFFICE™ Document Server, you need install Onlyoffice add-on to eXo Platform server. It should be Platform version 4.3 or higher.
If you want use released binaries from eXo Catalog, simple run command in root of the server:
> ./addon install exo-onlyoffice
When building from sources, then go to /packaging/target folder of the project and extract exo-onlyoffice-packaging.zip to a root of your server. You also may setup local add-ons catalog for eXo Addon manager if plan development with frequent installations, and then use this archive as a local package.
Onlyoffice add-on need to know an adress of your Document Server and eXo Platform server, and it's also required to point a protocol scheme to use (http or https). Add following lines to your exo.properties.
For Platform 4.4 and higher:
onlyoffice.documentserver.host=YOUR_DOCUMENT_SERVER_HOST
onlyoffice.documentserver.schema=http
For Platform 4.3 also need point your server public host and schema:
onlyoffice.server.host=YOUR_EXO_SERVER_HOST
onlyoffice.server.schema=http
Where YOUR_DOCUMENT_SERVER_HOST is an IP or host name of Document Server and YOUR_EXO_SERVER_HOST host ip or name (with port if not 80 or 443) of your eXo Platform server.
ONLYOFFICE™ Document Server standalone doesn't offer a user authorization or such integration with external identities. As a result it's required to place it in secure network and for production it will be mandatory to run via HTTPS or even use strong SSL security.
As it's not possible to provide user authorization between eXo and Onlyoffice servers, but need allow the Document Server access documents in eXo Platform, this addon implements document flow based on single session random idetifier for a file. Each new editor session uses a new ID for the same file. It doesn't let to guess a concrete file ID to download its content, but if someone will get current session ID it would be possible to grab the content.
To minimize security flaws, in addition to HTTPS, the add-on restricts an access to document content and state RESTful services by allowing requesting them only by configired document server host. The Document Server host set in exo.properties as onlyoffice.documentserver.host will be used to check client requests. Requests from other hosts will be rejected with 401 response.
Indeed, in some cases, it may be required to allow requests from any client host (e.g. for development or in case of proxy/NAT settings), then you can disable such restriction by setting following property to false value:
onlyoffice.documentserver.accessOnly=false
Allowing access from any host, if no other security protection implemented, strongly not recommended as mentioned RESTful end-points can be accessed by anyone (doesn't check eXo credentials to allow the Document Server work with them).
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