5 Using WebShare

This chapter explains step by step how to log on to the WebShare File Server, how to select a sharepoint and how to use the buttons in the sharepoint toolbar.

5.1 WebShare File Server login

Launch a browser and enter the WebShare WebObjects Server address using port 2009, e.g.:
http://<yourhostname>.company.com:2009

In the WebShare File Server field enter the name of the server you want to connect to (or just accept the provided server name), select the desired language from the Language pop-up menu, and click on the Continue button (Fig. 29).

Note: The login form must be completed within 2 minutes. Otherwise a time-out error will occur. In addition, the user has only 3 trials to log in.

You may also preselect the WebShare File Server via the URL parameters "wshost" and "autoforward":

When specifying the URL, the file server name is pasted by "wshost" in the WebShare File Server login field.

http://<domain>:<port>/?wshost=<a fileserver name>&autoforward

http://<domain>:<port>/?autoforward&wshost=<a fileserver name>

This URL pastes the WebShare File Server name, which is handed over by "wshost", into the WebShare File Server login field and proceeds with Continue.

For this to work, JavaScript must be activated in your browser. If JavaScript is not active, only the WebShare File Server is pasted.

In the upcoming window fill in the User Name and Password fields and click on the Login button (Fig. 30).

Note: The password field should begin with Crypted RSA... in order to ensure a secure password transfer. If it shows Cleartext, enable JavaScript in your browser to avoid insecure clear text password transfer. See also JavaScript in 8.1.1 "WebShare WebObjects Server".

If you do not already have a user name and password, use the Register as a New User link (if enabled) to enter user data in order to receive a WebShare account. If you already have a WebShare user name, but forgot your password, use the Forgot Password? link (if enabled) to request a new login password.

After a successful login, the "Home" window appears, which allows the selection of a WebShare sharepoint from the Sharepoint Name list (Fig. 31).

Fig. 31: WebShare "Home" window

To open the desired WebShare sharepoint window (Fig. 32), click on the respective link.

You can also open a new window for browsing by clicking on the New link in the "Window" column. Note that you can only have one window open for each sharepoint per login (see 5.8 "Supported browsers").

If you logout from one window, all other windows belonging to the same session will also be disconnected. When you click on a link in one of these windows, you will be redirected to a "Session time out" error page with the message: Your session has been terminated. Use the link Click to Login again.

Fig. 32: WebShare "Sharepoint" window

5.2 WebShare access keys

WebShare supports access key navigation that facilitates many user operations, which would have been done via mouse clicks otherwise.

Access keys are enabled in a different way with different browsers. Generally, the following keys are used:

Note: Internet Explorer requires pressing the Alt-key, then entering the access key, and finally hitting ENTER.

5.3 Work in a sharepoint

5.3.1 The WebShare toolbar

This chapter describes how to work in a WebShare sharepoint. In the following the icons in the toolbar (Fig. 33) are described.

Fig. 33: WebShare sharepoint toolbar

Underneath the toolbar the directory level in the sharepoint is shown. You may click on a subdirectory to jump to that level. A click on the folder symbol allows you to jump one level up, or back from the preview mode.

Note: If items in the toolbar appear grayed out then you do not have sufficient permissions (see 4.4 "Sharepoint Administration"). Ask the Administrator.

A click on this button reloads the page from the WebShare File Server. This may become necessary e.g. after one or more files have been uploaded to a WebShare sharepoint or have been modified by other users, in order to display them correctly in the sharepoint window.

Permissions
View and change file or folder permissions. This feature is of great value, to allow setting permissions so that other users can be allowed or denied access to files and folders. See also 5.3.3 "Note on file access permissions".

Note: Changing permissions is only allowed if Allow Rename is allowed (see page 37).

Duplicate
Duplicate one or more marked files or directories into the same directory. Duplicated files will have "copy", "copy 1", "copy 2", etc. appended to their name, before the suffix.

Delete
Delete the marked files from the sharepoint. As a means of security and to avoid inadvertent deletion, you will be asked to confirm the deletion by clicking on the Remove Selected Items button, or Cancel to remove all checkmarks.

Search
Search for files and folders within the sharepoint. In the example below (Fig. 34) a search for files with "baseUB" in their name is done.

Fig. 34: WebShare search function

After clicking on the Search Files button all hits are listed in the Search Result section (Fig. 35). You may directly go to each hit by either using the arrow buttons, by clicking on the link underneath each hit, or by using the access key P and N (see 5.2 "WebShare access keys"). However, clicking on the file name itself will open the file in preview mode.

The File Search as well as the Search Result section can be hidden by clicking on the arrows in the left upper corner of the respective section, or by clicking the caption "Search Dialog" and "Search Result" respectively. Another click will show them again.

Label >
Mac operating systems up to Mac OS 9.x, and then again from Mac OS X 10.3 on, allow assigning color labels to files and folders. Files and folders can be "marked" for their importance or priority. HELIOS WebShare offers a similar functionality in this submenu.

Note: HELIOS Admin allows defining color labels in its Settings > Color Labels menu (see Base manual).

Set View >
Change the view of the sharepoint listing, e.g. add or extend column types, and display the listing in a set of 3 predefined modes (Default, Extended, and Small). Note that only the extended view option includes the UNIX file permissions. This is a convenient means to see who is allowed access to specific files and folders. These permissions can be changed by using the Permissions option in the pop-up menu (see above). The options Hide Comments and Show Comments allow hiding and unhiding comments that are mapped to a file or folder.

Select All
Mark all checkbox items in a sharepoint at the same time. Clicking on this button again will unmark all items.

Paste
Paste one or more previously copied files or directories into the currently opened sharepoint directory path. Existing files are not overwritten, but will have "dup", "dup 1", "dup 2", etc. appended to their name, before the suffix.

Note: The difference between copying/pasting a selection and duplicating is that copied items can be pasted into different sharepoints or different directories. However, duplication is only possible within the same sharepoint, i.e. directory.

Note: Copy, Move and Paste is allowed according to your server file and folder permissions. The setting of the Always Allow Reading and Always Allow Read/Write checkboxes (see 4.4 "Sharepoint Administration") has no influence on that.

Move
Move one or more previously copied files or directories into the currently opened sharepoint directory path. The behavior is the same as if using Paste, with the exception that the source files or directories are deleted.

Mail
WebShare provides a front-end for the HELIOS mail tool, which allows sending e-mails directly from within WebShare (Fig. 36).

Fig. 36: WebShare mail functionality

Download
Download one or more files or folders that have been marked to the local disk. These will be transferred to the client in a Zip file named "download.<date>.zip". For example, the file "Cafeteria.tif" will be contained in a Zip file named "download.07-06-15.zip" after being downloaded from a WebShare sharepoint on June 15, 2007.

After extraction, each download folder includes the file "DownloadLog.txt", which contains a list of successfully downloaded items, and for any omitted items a short description why they were omitted.

Upload
A new window opens (Fig. 37) in which the button Choose File allows choosing the file to be uploaded.

Fig. 37: WebShare sharepoint file upload

After confirming the upload selection, the file name of the file to upload is stated next to the Choose File button (Fig. 38). For best performance, and to upload multiple files, it is recommended that a Zip archive be created to upload. This is easily done using the Mac OS X Finder Create Archive of "<file>" functionality. Windows clients (XP or later) can use the Zip archiving and extracting capability built into the Windows Explorer via the Send To > Compressed (zipped) Folder context menu. By default, uploaded Zip archives are automatically extracted on the WebShare File Server (see 5.7.1 "Supported upload formats").

Fig. 38: WebShare upload selected file

After clicking the Start Upload button the file is uploaded to the selected sharepoint (Fig. 40, compare with Fig. 32). When the upload is done, details in terms of file size, upload performance, etc. are displayed (Fig. 39). It may be necessary to click on Refresh in the directory listing window to make the uploaded data visible.

If the name of a file to be uploaded already exists in the destination folder, the uploaded file will have "dup", "dup 1", etc. appended to its name, before the suffix. This refers only to a duplicate name, not to the actual file content, which may or may not be the same.

Fig. 39: WebShare upload complete

If you wish to upload Zip archives without automatic extraction, you must edit the "wsupload.pl" script:

Copy "HELIOSDIR/etc/webshare/wsupload.pl" to "HELIOSDIR/var/webshare/wsupload.pl" and change the line:

@unzipOpts = ("-u", "-m", $mimetype, "-o", "$fname", "-n", "$wsmv", "-C", "$dir");

@unzipOpts = ("-u", "-m", "application/octet-stream", "-o", "$fname", "-n", "$wsmv", "-C", "$dir");

Note: If ImageServer and WebShare are installed on the same host, the OPI server will by default create layouts of uploaded files. You can switch this behavior off according to the instructions given in the ImageServer manual.

This toolbar item makes action scripts available that are stored in "var/settings/WebShare/Actions". Corresponding icons must be named "<actionname>.png" and copied to "var/settings/WebShare/Brandings/<branding>/actions". Fig. 41 shows an example for two action scripts, "wsll.pl" and "wssendmsg.pl", including their corresponding icon.

Important: The Actions > item in the WebShare toolbar is only available once scripts are copied to "var/settings/WebShare/Actions"!

5.3.2 Add file comments

You may add file comments, which are also available when accessing that file from EtherShare or PCShare, to any file in a WebShare sharepoint. These comments are restricted to 199 characters.

In the sharepoint file listing click on the

button pertinent to the item to add a comment. To read an already existing comment click on the

button.

5.3.3 Note on file access permissions

When setting permissions on sharepoints and files, it is important to keep in mind the following file system rules that affect who can rename and delete files and folders.

The write ("w") permission for a file controls only the changing of the file content. This permission has no control over the renaming or deleting of that file.

The write ("w") permission for folders controls the changing of folder content, i.e. files and subfolders within that folder. The permissions set on a folder control the changing of file names and the adding or deleting of files within that folder.

Hence, if you wish to create a folder where users can read and modify files, the folder would need read/write permissions. However, if you wish to save a reference file to that folder, and do not want anyone to be able to rename or delete it, then the only way to do so is to save it into a different folder (or a subfolder), which has read-only permissions. Generally, when a WebShare user attempts to perform an action that is not allowed, either no action occurs, or an explanatory error message is displayed.

Note: In EtherShare volumes, changed folder permissions will also change permissions of all files in this folder in order to be compatible with AFP 2.2, which only supports folder permissions. However, changing file permissions only affects the files.

In addition to users who have permissions for a file or folder as described above, "root" and members of the groups "SysAdm" and "WSAdm" are also allowed to make modifications on file and folder permissions in WebShare (even if the file access permissions would not otherwise allow them to do so). Fig. 42 shows permissions for 2 folders and 2 files. The folder "PUBLIC" as well as the file "public.txt" are accessible by everyone.

The folder "PRIVATE" as well as the file "private.txt" are only accessible by the owner ("root"), its group ("daemon") and by members of the groups "SysAdm" and "WSAdm". The permissions are:

drwxrws--x for the folder and -rw-rw---- for the file.

Fig. 42: WebShare permissions

Note: Check with your UNIX server administrator for questions about permissions.

5.3.4 Logout

Clicking the Logout button will close all connections for that user, abort any downloads in progress and exit to the WebShare "Logged Out" window (Fig. 43).

Fig. 43: WebShare "Logged out" window

If user closes the browser without logging out, or the user has been idle for a time, i.e. no web activity has occurred, the session will automatically be closed, after the idle time period specified by the WOSessionTimeOut preference (see 6.5 "Preference keys").

The Click here to enter again link leads directly to the login window (Fig. 29).

5.4 Preview files in WebShare

5.4.1 Preview of images and single document pages

WebShare allows previewing images and supported document formats (see 7.4 "Image and document previews"). If this feature is enabled for a sharepoint, then file names will appear as links.

To view an image or document, click on the file name, or select one or more files and click the File > Preview toolbar button.

If multiple items have been marked for preview in the sharepoint list, the first preview is displayed, and the other(s) can be selected from a pop-up menu or by means of the "next" and "previous" arrow icons (Fig. 44). A checkbox adjacent to the pop-up menu allows unselecting images in the sharepoint list (Fig. 40).

Fig. 44: Select preview from pop-up menu

Previews can be scaled in resolution and dimensions via the pop-up menu or the magnifying glass icons (Fig. 44). The dimensions and resolutions available in the pop-up menu (and in the Set View > button from the toolbar) can be specified in the Preview Resolutions (pixel or dpi) field of the WebShare "Server Preferences" window. However, the magnifying glass icons have fixed resolutions: 256, 512, 768, and 1024 pixel.

The Rotate > and Flip > toolbar icons allow transforming the preview according to the action selected in the corresponding submenu.

The Set View > Show/Hide Image Info button controls whether basic image information is displayed along with each image.

The selected view settings (zoom, rotate, flip, info) are maintained for subsequent items.

Note: Please read 5.4.2 "Previews of multiple page documents" for toolbar functions when previewing multipage documents.

5.4.2 Previews of multiple page documents

If you open a multiple page document, the toolbar is extended to offer more functions (Fig. 45):

Fig. 45: WebShare multipage preview toolbar

You may navigate through the document by entering the desired page number, or you can turn the pages forward and backward.

In addition you can add or remove rows and columns for previewing multipage documents. These functions are also available in the Set View > Rows/Cols > toolbar menu. Presets are available in the View Presets > submenu; 2x2, 2x4, and 4x4 rows/columns.

Note: The maximum number of concurrently displayed preview images is 300.

Set View > Options > makes two more preview options for multiple pages available:

Facing Pages
The pages of a document face each other, with the even numbered pages being always on the left and odd numbered pages on the right (Fig. 46).

Note: Multiple page documents are considered as books if Facing Pages is selected. Therefore the first page of a document is always displayed single.

Page Breaks
The gap between facing pages is removed if Page Breaks is selected (Fig. 47).

Fig. 47: Multiple facing pages without page break

5.5 Remote Proofing

5.5.1 Proofing images and document pages

A click on the preview image opens a new proof window that contains detailed information on the image file, e.g. image type, compression, color space, resolution, spot colors, separations (Fig. 48).

From the ICC Proof Simaulation pop-up menu select an proof simulation profile to view an accurate ICC color matched preview of the specified output. See also 5.5.2 "WebShare monitor proofing support".

The Print toolbar icon allows printing the preview with the resolution/dimensions specified in the preview window. In addition, if Print Image Information is disabled, only the image is printed. If you have defined a head banner image (see Fig. 16 in 4.6.1 "Create and configure brandings") another option, Print Banner, becomes available. If this checkbox is ticked, the head banner is printed as well.

Note: The foot banner image (see Fig. 16 in 4.6.1 "Create and configure brandings") is not printed at all.

Clicking on the arrow in the upper left corner allows toggling the toolbar and image information between visible and hidden.

5.5.2 WebShare monitor proofing support

WebShare supports ICC color matched proofs for all supported image formats and PDF documents within the separate WebShare Proof Window. The proofs are PNG true color based and represent the original color or simulate a printing process according to a specified ICC output profile. The Safari Browser on Mac and Windows supports true color images with a tagged ICC profile.

The WebShare server settings (Administration > Server Settings) allow specifying a comma separated list of ICC profiles. The remote user can then select the desired output profile within the proof window. The proof simulation is done on the WebShare file server. All proofs are represented by an embedded sRGB v4 profile which allows browser adjustments to sRGB colors on the remote monitor.

The proof image generation can be customized within the "wspreview.pl" script. This allows custom rendering intents, e.g.: "Black Point Compensation" options, pure Black/White/Gray/CMY options, custom ICC printer and monitor profile combinations.

Create a custom monitor profile for the proof monitor and select it from the Color tab in System Preferences > Displays (Fig. 49).

Create a custom monitor profile for the proof monitor and select this from the Color Management tab (Fig. 50) in Settings > Advanced > Color Management.

Use Photoshop and a calibrated monitor. Drag and drop the image from the WebShare proof window onto the Photoshop program icon (or drag the image to the Desktop and open it with Photoshop). Photoshop will automatically detect the embedded profile, and ask how to proceed. Select the "Use the embedded profile -" option.

Use an sRGB color matched monitor. The browser will display the sRGB v4 matched images and the monitor will present the correct proof.

All Gray/RGB/CMYK images should be tagged with an ICC source profile that represents the image. Embedded sRGB EXIF references from digital cameras are detected and used. CIELab TIFF images are assumed with a D50 white point. Non-tagged RGB images are assumed as sRGB v2, non-tagged CMYK images are assumed to be identical with your selected ICC proof profile.

PDF non-ICC tagged CMYK colors and images are assumed to be represented according to the ICC output profile. Untagged RGB colors and images are assumed to be sRGB. Embedded ICC color spaces with profiles are converted to the proof output color space. Pure Whites/Gray/Black vector objects are preserved. Additional customization of the "wspreview.pl" scripts allows special rules, e.g. ignore embedded profiles and use custom rendering intents.

Note: Only the WebShare proof window will generate true color proofs with embedded ICC sRGB v4 profiles. These proof images have a significantly larger file size compared to the File Preview JPEG compressed previews.

5.5.3 Proofing separation plates and spot colors

The section "Proof Color Options" lists all process colors and spot colors that are available in the document (Fig. 51). A checkbox for each available separation plate allows switching the proof color on or off:

Select or deselect the checkbox(es) for the proof color and click the Update button to make the changes visible.

Note: For this to work, an entry must be selected in the ICC Proof Simulation pop-up menu.

5.6 My User Preferences

In Administration > My User Preferences you can specify personal user settings (Fig. 52).

The dialog basically offers the same features as the "User Administration" window (4.2 "User Administration"), but allows the user to specify individual settings for downloading files, which may well override the settings specified by the administrator in the "User Administration" window.

Fig. 52: WebShare "My User Preferences" window

The Download Encoding pop-up menu offers MacRoman, PC850, ISO8859-1, UTF8, MacIcelandic, EUC-KR and SJIS encoding methods. In addition, OS Default uses the client OS default encoding, which was set by the administrator (see Fig. 7 in 4.1 "Server Preferences").

With the Zip Streaming Format checkbox ticked, the file download uses Zip streaming, which allows file compression on-the-fly, without creating any temporary files.

After changing your user preferences click on the Save User Preferences button. Otherwise your changes will get lost.

In addition, the "Change WebShare Password" section allows WebShare users to change their WebShare password on their own, without having administrative rights on the WebShare File Server. This is another means of security for Host Users who may not want to use their host user password over the Internet. For example, a remote login to WebShare from an Internet cafe bears the risk of a spyed host user password (e.g. keystroke logging spyware can capture a password as it is typed in, before the password is encrypted for transmission). If someone uses their host user name but a password that is only used with WebShare, the worst-case scenario would be a spyed WebShare login, with the host login not being affected. For more information on content security see also 8.1.10 "No content security". Of course, Virtual Users can also change their password on their own in this configuration window.

Note: Users which were assigned the "Cannot change Password" flag by the administrator cannot change their WebShare password on their own (see Create users in 4.2 "User Administration").

Enter the old (existing) and the new password in the respective fields. To use the existing host user password again, Host Users just leave the New Password field blank. For Virtual Users, any attempt to leave the New Password field blank will yield an error message. In this case the "original" WebShare password has to be entered again.

All changes made in "My User Preferences" are stored in the WebShare user configuration file "webshare.passwd". See also 7.1 "User configuration file".

5.7 WebShare file format support

5.7.1 Supported upload formats

We recommend using the Zip format for uploading. It offers the following benefits:

5.7.2 Supported download formats

5.8 Supported browsers

WebShare uses standard HTML web pages. Special browser plug-ins and Java are not needed. JavaScript is used for the password encryption, if desired. WebShare has successfully been tested with many different browsers on Windows, Mac OS 9, Mac OS X and UNIX platforms. For power users, this chapter provides information about which browsers have intensively been tested by HELIOS, and some hints about possible problems.

Safari 2.0 and newer
Firefox 1.5 and newer
Internet Explorer 6 on Windows
Internet Explorer 7 on Windows
Apple iPhone

These above listed browsers have received more intensive testing and are considered to work perfectly with WebShare. Again, many other browsers will just work fine with WebShare but have only received limited testing.

1) Automatic MacBinary upload support:
All current browsers skip MacBinary data so that the document resource (e.g. preview picture, icon, document type) gets lost during the upload.

Instead of uploading just files, generate Mac OS X Finder Zip archives (Mac OS X 10.3 or newer). Uploading the compressed Zip files will work with any browser.

2) Uploading large files from Mac OS X (> 50 MB):
Older Safari versions (up to 1.1.1) will first load the entire upload into memory, which requires at minimum twice as much main memory as the file size. E.g. a 600 MB image files requires 1.5 GB of main memory!

Some browsers do not accept additional requests while they are uploading files (refer to your browser documentation). A second login via new browser window, or using a different browser application, allows logging in a second time and continuing with other tasks or monitoring the loading files. The disadvantage of the second login is that it will require one additional user session on the WebShare File Server.

Previewing an A4 page in 72 dpi requires at minimum 1.5 MB of main memory for the browser to display this image. Though JPEG or PNG previews are compressed, the browser needs to uncompress them before displaying. The same A4 page at 144 dpi requires four times the memory, e.g. 6 MB. Additional double buffering of the operating system or browser application may require additional memory for a second copy.

Log off from the WebShare server, quit and restart your browser application to free up all its used memory. Mozilla based browsers (e.g. Firefox) do not have this memory problem.

As WebShare crypts all passwords with a random number for every login, re-using the same old password does not work for a second time. Browsers may cache the user name and passwords and try to re-use it a second time, which fails with the WebShare login. HELIOS considers this a security feature of WebShare.

In case JavaScript is turned off the password is sent unchanged (in clear text) to the server, and the keychain/browser feature remembering this clear text passwords works again. We recommend to keep JavaScript active to allow encrypted passwords for the WebShare Server login.

When downloading files, the WebShare Zip streaming technology compresses files always on-the-fly during the download. The browser progress bar shows the uncompressed original size. However, the download size will differ due to the zipstream compression and additional changes on the server before the download is completed. The very last file in every download is called "DownloadLog.txt" which includes a list of all downloaded files and possible errors (file was not accessible anymore, no permission, etc.). If this file is included after unpacking the "download.zip" archive you can assume a complete download.

WebShare keeps some state about the current directory, selected files, etc. Using the back button, the client will request a page and may use the selection of the previous page instead of the current one. This can lead to unpleasant results, e.g. if the selection was "delete files". Only the home window allows to open a separate window for each sharepoint. Do not use the back/forward buttons or the "Open Link in new Window" option of your browser. The central Home menu or selectable URLs in the file browser allow you to go back to different locations.


WebShare UB⁺ User manual

WebShare UB+ User manual