Document and Content Management

In BSCW, any file uploaded from your local computer system is represented as a document. A document may contain text, spreadsheets, graphics, print files, pictures, sound, video, etc. and is one of the most basic object types in BSCW. The upload of documents is described in 3.3.2 Uploading and changing documents.

BSCW supports the management of documents and their contents:

o Text and HTML documents may be directly generated and edited on the BSCW server. Under certain conditions, also MS Office files and arbitrary documents may be directly edited on the BSCW server.

o Documents may be ‘resubmitted’ to remind you of certain documents; documents may be locked or frozen to save them from inadvertently being replaced or edited.

o Documents may be put under version control in order to keep track of changes when a document is edited by several authors in a shared workspace.

o Documents may serve as templates kept in specific template folders from where they may be copied to other places. Typical examples of templates are letter or spreadsheet templates with elaborate layout and formats or complex formulas.

o Collections of interlinked documents (HTML documents, image, audio or video files) may be created and managed using URLs for BSCW objects. You may share such document collections with the other members of a workspace and even publish them for anonymous access on the Web.

o HTML documents may be grouped into a website folder to be managed as a miniature website in BSCW. Website folders have two special documents: the home page and the layout page, the latter serving as the standard framework for all other HTML documents of the website folder.