[Building Sakai] WebDAV instructions in Sakai help

[Adam Marshall]

We added instructions for linux:

Setting up WebDAV for Linux (Ubuntu 10.10)
Note: There must be at least one object (file, folder etc.) in the course or project resource area before you begin the setup procedure. This procedure needs to be done once for each site before you can use WebDAV to transfer files to and from any one site.

 1.  From the panel, open the Places menu and then select "Connect to Server..."
 2.  In the resulting dialog box, select Secure WebDAV (HTTPS) in the Service type dropdown.
 3.  Type in the path as shown above in the input labelled Server.
 4.  Click "Connect"
 5.  Type in your username and password and click "OK"
 6.  You will now see a window on your desktop that represents the resources in your site. You can now drag and drop files into this window and delete files by dragging them to the Rubbish Bin.


From: sakai-dev-bounces at collab.sakaiproject.org [mailto:sakai-dev-bounces at collab.sakaiproject.org] On Behalf Of Charles Hedrick
Sent: 03 February 2011 14:46
To: Venstra, Elizabeth
Cc: 'sakai-dev at collab.sakaiproject.org'
Subject: Re: [Building Sakai] WebDAV instructions in Sakai help

I recently revised the instructions. The new version documents Cyberduck for older versions of OS X. For newer versions, it tells how to use the finder, but starts with the following:

Note 1. Depending upon the exact update of OS X, The Webdav support in the Macintosh Finder may well be too buggy to use. If you have problems with this approach, consider using Cyberduck (link to the section of the documentation explaining how to use Cyberduck).

I have mixed experience with OS X. I find the native support usable but buggy. The worst bug is that if a mount fails, the finder sometimes gets stuck on the hostname and port you supplied, so even if you tell it to mount a different URL it still retries the one that failed. There's no way out other than to reboot (or maybe logout).

The Windows XP instructions use My Network Places. As far as I know, Network Places has always worked.

The problem is that in Vista they removed that by default, so the builtin approach used the OS client, which was buggy in the initial release of Vista. I am reasonably sure that Windows Vista was fixed in SP3, and that the fix got into Windows 7. (I actually got to the Microsoft developer in charge of Webdav, but it was too late for Vista SP 2.) I've not seen any problems with Vista SP3 or 7. So for Vista and Windows 7, we document the native approach, but give Anyclient as an alternative. Anyclient should really only be needed for unpatched versions of Vista.

Some sites might choose to change the order. The advantage of the native approach is that it allows use from within applications and the command line. I find that useful.



On Feb 3, 2011, at 9:23 AM, Venstra, Elizabeth wrote:


Hi all,

I wonder if I can get enough of an opinion about WebDAV to move forward with changes to a few help/Knowledge Base documents.  I'm hoping that the Sakai community would be okay with using the same solution as IU has decided on, so I can just make the IU version of the documents visible in the Sakai domains also.

Right now, the documents about WebDAV display instructions in the Sakai domains for the native method of connecting in each OS, for Vista, XP, and Mac OS X 10.4 and later.  (For Mac OS X 10.3 and earlier, we tell people they need to download Goliath.) But I have been told that the reliability for these methods is sketchy at best for Vista and basically non-existent for Windows 7, or something like that.  Instead, at IU, we are recommending that people use third-party clients-Cyberduck for Mac OS X 10.4 and later, and AnyClient for Windows Vista or 7 (or anyone else who wants to use it, since it's available for Windows, Mac, and Linux).

What do you all think of third-party clients, and those two specifically?  Would you be comfortable relying on IU's testing for this method?

Or do I need to wait for a documentation group to specifically look at these documents?  (If so, the Sakai version will continue to lack instructions for 7 until somebody in the Sakai community provides them.)

Thanks,

Elizabeth Venstra
Knowledge Management team
University Information Technology Services
Indiana University
erytting at indiana.edu<mailto:erytting at indiana.edu>
812-855-0459

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