2.0 - WebDAV

Overview

WebDAV (Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning) is a protocol which provides the ability to create, change and move files in a remote server. Through WebDAV documents can be easily uploaded and downloaded to a ProcessMaker server. WebDAV can also be used to easily edit documents stored in a ProcessMaker server, because the files in a WebDAV server appear in the file browser of a remote computer as locally stored files.

WebDAV permits process designers to directly edit the documents stored in a remote ProcessMaker server with their local PC. This can be very useful when editing the XML or HTML in a DynaForm, because a process designer can use their favorite text editor running in their local PC.

Note: WebDAV only works until ProcessMaker version 1.6, because the service is unavailable form later versions. This was reported here.

ProcessMaker file structure in WebDAV

ProcessMaker's files in WebDAV are available under the following directory structure:

Classes are all the *.php files used to create and control PM Tables. Editing these files will extend the functionality of the Propel classes for PM Tables.

Processes/mailTemplates are the *.html files which are used to generate emails based upon HTML templates. These are the files which are uploaded with the Process File Manager(which is available in the right click menu in the Process Map) in the mailTemplates directory.

Processes/public_html are the publicly accessible files for a process, which can be uploaded with the Process File Manager. These files are accessible from a web browser. Files generated by Web Entry are also stored in this directory.

Processes/xmlform are the *.xml and *.html files which corresponde to the XML and HTML code for the DynaForms in a process. With WebDAV the DynaForms can be edited on your local machine with your preferred text editor.

To access these files, open your file browser and direct it to the address:

Note: It is not possible to create new files, nor erase existing files, because only the ProcessMaker system should carry out these functions.

Configuring WebDAV

There are a number of different programs which can access WebDAV, such as Windows Explorer, Internet Explorer, Konqueror and Nautilus. For a full listing see: http://webdav.org/projects

Novell's client software netdrive.exe allows a disk to be mapped to a WebDAV directory (or "collection" as they are known according to the WebDAV protocol). It can be downloaded for gratis from this link: http://www.theblog.ca/novell-netdrive

To use WebDAV in different operating systems, see: http://in.solit.us/about/webdav

Accessing WebDAV in Windows Explorer

The WebDAV client in Windows XP known as "Web Folder" can be configured with the following steps:

1. In Windows Explorer, open My Network Places.
2. Go to the Tools menu and select the option Map Network Drive...
3. Use the option “Sign up for online storage or connect to a network server”
4. Select the option “Choose another network location”. Specify the address of a Web site, network location, or FTP site.
5. In the textbox “Internet or network address”, enter the WebDAV which corresponds to a workspace in the ProcessMaker server. For instance, a ProcessMaker server using the default "workflow" workspace located at 192.168.2.100 would have a network address of http://192.168.2.100/sysworkflow/en/green/services/webdav
6. Click Next and in the creditials verification window, enter the username of a ProcessMaker user who has the permission PM_WEBDAV in his/her role. All users with the role PROCESSMAKER_ADMIN have this permission, but additional roles with this permission can also be defined.