What is required for FM 9.0 to support WebDAV-enabled server functionality?

Report · Jun 14, 2010

I've read the FM 9.0 Help about WebDAV (Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning) but when I asked some of our IT folks about it, no one knew the answer or even what WebDAV is.

We tried using a WSS server for some of our FM 7.2 files but it was not a successful experiment, as some of our files disappeared. We've just begun using a MOSS server, although to me it seems that is probably more friendly to Microsoft Office docs than to Adobe products. After the problems on the WSS server, we reverted to our previous version-control method using VSS -- however, with FM 9.0 having check-in/check-out options, I'm hopeful we can yet use a SharePoint server and HTTP protocol to access and maintain version control of our FM files.

I posted a question about FM on SharePoint last year and response seemed to indicate others had experienced problems using SharePoint for version control of FM files (someone told me to think in terms of "SharePain", which made me smile through my tears). With FM 9.0, have things improved? Am I mixing apples and oranges by using SharePoint and WebDAV in the same sentence? How can I find out if our SharePoint servers are (or can be) "Web-DAV enabled"?

As always, your expertise is greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

Gay

Report · Jun 14, 2010

I've been researching WebDAV all day and understand it *slightly* better. At this point, it appears that we can avoid SharePoint entirely and instead use a Web-DAV-enabled Workgroup server as the repository for our .FM files. I think all we need to do is install and enable WebDAV on a server and then use HTTP to access the files and maintain version control. Hope I'm not oversimplying out of wish-fulfillment...

If anyone else has the same problem, contact me off-list and I'll provide the solution when we actually put it into effect (hopefully soon! 😉)

~~Gay

Report · Jun 14, 2010

Gay,

Have you seen the Adobe TechComm blogs on FM and a CMS on a WedDAV enabled server?

See:

http://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm/2009/04/how_to_integrate_framemaker_9_with_a_webdav_based_cms.html

http://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm/2008/05/framemaker_webdav_enhancements_for_cms_integration.html

http://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm/2009/04/editing_xml_files_on_the_webdav_server_using_browser_plugin.html

http://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm/2009/12/framemaker_9_and_documentum_cms.html

Might give you some more background from the FM end of things.

(I've never used this functionality, so I can't really comment one way or the other).

Report · Jun 14, 2010

Hi Arnis,

Thanks for the links -- I had seen a couple of them but was put off by the references to CMS since we don't use a "real" CMS like Documentum.

I read lots of the FAQs at www.webdav.org and also found a couple of excellent sources:

For IIS 6 on Windows Server 2003: Mitch Tulloch's tutorial at http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/WebDAV-IIS.html
For IIS 7 on Windows Server 2008: http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/350/installing-and-configuring-webdav-on-iis-7

We won't be upgrading to the latter till later this year so will first go with IIS 6 on Server 2003 and see how we fare. Apparently we *should* be able to check out, open, edit and save a file on the server, but although SharePoint also offered that functionality, it apparently was limited to Microsoft products. So I won't celebrate prematurely -- but as always, my fingers are crossed!

~~Gay

Report · Jun 14, 2010

FrameMaker 9 WebDAV features are supported for servers that implement the WebDAV protocol. FrameMaker successfully integrates with IIS, Alfresco and tomcat as the supported WebDAV servers. SharePoint however does not use the WebDAV protocol. For more info refer thread-
http://forums.adobe.com/message/2156276#2156276

You should also refer to the online help on Browse URL functionality to know more about the supported workflows.
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FrameMaker/9.0/Using/WS642B1E61-7E81-4d18-A795-F3A34326B79C.html

:Nakshatra

Report · Jun 15, 2010

Thanks, Nakshatra --

In my hours of research yesterday, I read the entire thread about WebDAV-enabled servers, which is where I learned (from you!) that "SharePoint provides its own WebDAV implementation using the Stsfilt.dll ISAPI filter that is installed with both Windows SharePoint Services and SharePoint Portal Server."

I also read the entire online help, word for word, which -- together with Mitch's article -- is where I finally started understanding the true situation. Now to just implement everything... ;~)

~~Gay