Unable to open a template files (ott, ots, otp, otg) with Collabora Online / Nextcloud Office

[Jerome-Herbinet]

Hello,

Describe the bug
When you have an ott, ots, otp or otg file in Nextcloud Files and you click on it, the file downloads but does not open in the Collabora Online / Nextcloud Office suite.

To Reproduce

1. Make sure you have an ott, ots, otp or otg file in your Nextcloud Files
2. Click on it (with the intention of opening it)

Expected behavior
The file should open in Collabora Online / Nextcloud Office, but it does not. Instead, its download starts (browser).

Client details:

• OS: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
• Browser: Firefox 102.0
• Device: Laptop

Server details

Operating system: Ubuntu

Web server: Apache

Database: MySQL

PHP version: 8.0.21

Nextcloud version: 24.0.3

Versions:
COOLWSD : 22.05.4.1
Collabora Office 22.05.4.1
Nextcloud Office 6.1.1

Logs can be provided if necessary.

Warning : I have seen this problem on my personal Nextcloud instance of which you have the technical details and version numbers. I have seen it on several other test and production instances (Nextcloud 22, 23 and 24). Always the same behaviour.

My conclusion on this situation: Whether it's a bug or a feature, I think it's annoying for the average user who wants to create and modify his models.

Best regards,
Jérôme

[martin-77]

In two words:

same here...

[Raudius]

The template mimetypes need to be added to the richdocuments capabilities:

application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text-template
application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.spreadsheet-template
application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.presentation-template
etc.

[juliusknorr]

@Raudius Could you maybe check if Collabora handles opening and saving those properly? Iirc there was an issue with that some time ago.

There was also a fix to address this for the create from template case, I'll see if I can find that.

[juliusknorr]

Template files seem to get opened in read only mode, so maybe that is something to discuss with Collabora.

[kendy]

@Jerome-Herbinet @martin-77: Can you please share more info about your use case? What do you need to achieve?

Asking because it is unclear - do you want to start a new document from the template? Or do you rather want to edit the template itself?

If it is the former (create document from the template) - then it should be possible to start a workflow similar to the existing "Create from Template" functionality; ie. when the user clicks the OTT / OTS / ..., they are presented with a dialog asking for the (new) document name, and then the document is created from that template. I suppose @jancborchardt can add more details.

If it is the latter (editing the template itself) - then it is a bit hard, because of the behavior of the core (and exactly this dichotomy between using and editing the template).

Thank you in advance!

[Jerome-Herbinet]

@Jerome-Herbinet @martin-77: Can you please share more info about your use case? What do you need to achieve?

Asking because it is unclear - do you want to start a new document from the template? Or do you rather want to edit the template itself?

If it is the former (create document from the template) - then it should be possible to start a workflow similar to the existing "Create from Template" functionality; ie. when the user clicks the OTT / OTS / ..., they are presented with a dialog asking for the (new) document name, and then the document is created from that template. I suppose @jancborchardt can add more details.

If it is the latter (editing the template itself) - then it is a bit hard, because of the behavior of the core (and exactly this dichotomy between using and editing the template).

Thank you in advance!

@kendy For example, there is no problem to create an odt file from an ott template if it is in my personal templates folder (my templates folder configured after clicking on [+] and then on "Set up templates folder").
But the problem is that if I want to modify the template (in order to make it evolve over time), when I click on it in Nextcloud Files in order to open and to edit it (whether that file is in my templates folder or elsewhere), it doesn't open in Collabora Online / Nextcloud Office, it just gets downloaded by my browser. I remain at your disposal.

[martin-77]

Thanks for asking!

The idea was, to open the template directly from the target-folder and create a new odt with a new filename.
You are right, that this can be achieved by defining the correct template-folder, klick "+" and then create the new odt file.
But to be honest - my employees will never be able to do this. Sad, but true.
In order to lower the barriers it would be nice, if they could interact with templates as they are used to (from operating systems like windows/mac/linux)

My workflow would be the following:

1. I generate the template and share the file (ro),
2. the employee opens it inside the share, is forced to enter a new filename, edits the new file, saves and exits.

The ablility to edit the template file inside nextcloud is not, what I was looking for.

Thanks in advance!

[Jerome-Herbinet]

Hi @juliushaertl, will you or your team talk with Collabora Team about it or do you suggest opening an issue in the Collabora project ? Thanks for telling me what's gonna be the most efficient way to get this fixed. Thanks.

[sebastiaanveld]

When opening an template file, tested this with an .otp, I also expected the file te open with Nextcloud Office so I could edit the template. This is also how I do this using LibreOffice on the desktop.

So, could it be a solution to move the "Edit Template" option to the file hamburger menu for these specific file types.
Users working from the /Templates folder and clicking a template file would as suggested prompt the user for a new name to create a doc from that template (in line with what the + button does, but would be a longer route).

I like the idea of RO templates that are shared and also trigger theto prompt the user for a new name to create a doc from that template. This way (template) "admins" can decide who is able to modify those templates and so could make the "Edit Template" option visible in the file hamburger menu.

[juliusknorr]

I think this is a very nice proposal. 👍

Should then all be possible to implement within richdocuments.

[juliusknorr]

To summarize I think we should do the following:

• Clicking on a template file will offer the user to create a new file from the template with a file name input. Once clicked we open the new document
• There is an extra file action to edit the template
  • Collabora would need to offer editing for template files and be able to save them back to Nextcloud

cc @marcoambrosini for UX feedback and @jancborchardt since we were discussing template handling as well

@pedropintosilva What do you think?