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Integration Overview
iNetWord is most useful when it connects to and inter operates with online applications. This overview offers a framework to facilitate your integration design. Integration design decisions can be grouped into four "edges." Although not precise, categorizing integration issues into four functional groups helps to organize integration decisions and implementation. By default, iNetWord comes with a fully functional user interfaces and underlying implementation for each of the four edges. You can integrate each of the four edges incrementally over time, or choose not to integrate some edges at all. You can integrate an edge completely, or integrate it partially. You can integrate each edge with just your application or with several applications working together — a mash-up. iNetOffice recommends that you strive to balance conceptual simplicity, ease of use, and breadth of features. In general, your application will handle browsing, finding, control, and storage of documents. iNetWord will handle creating and editing documents. The most powerful integration facilities iNetWord offers are:
Four Edges of IntegrationUse these four edges to shape your integration goals, user interfaces, and implementation. Edges one and four are commonly integrated first.
Web User Interface Your application might have several Web pages, forms, tables, and other UI elements. You will be adding links to create and edit documents in iNetWord. Consider the terminology, look, and locations of these links. How will you differentiate editing a document's meta-data (keywords, permissions, status, etc.) from editing its contents? A first decision is whether to use iNetWord's Files pane to browse the file hierarchy. We recommend you either use your file browsing UI or iNetWord's, but not both. Another decision is whether iNetWord will appear within your Web pages or will be launched in its own window. The latter is easier to implement but the former is more intuitive to your users. Notice that the entire iNetWord UI is contained in its single editor screen. This single screen approach makes it easier for you to integrate. Your users will view iNetWord as a single component within your application and will not be confronted by a series of modal pages or popup windows.
Sources of Materials iNetWord is often used to combine a variety of materials into notes, reports, analysis, or proposals. Your application may supply and manage some or all of these materials. Consider your user scenarios -- how will they find and insert materials into their documents? Document templates are the easiest materials to customize. You can display a choice of templates to choose from, or you can launch the editor with a template designed specifically for the task your user is performing within your application. With Merge Fields you can pass information to be included in the document. The Merge Fields are replaced with their values but keep their formatting. For example, to create a letter to a customer, offer your user a link that launches iNetWord on a letter template with the customer's name, address, etc. already filled in via Merge Fields. Other materials will usually be copy/pasted or click-inserted into iNetWord. You can use iNetWord's picture browser or connect your picture UI to iNetWord.
Distributing DocumentsiNetWord includes basic facilities for publishing documents to the Internet via FTP and posting to Blogs. Your application likely includes a much richer and more focused approach to distributing and controlling documents. Most notably, iNetWord does not currently support emailing documents. The simplest approach is to allow iNetWord's and your document distribution mechanisms co-exist. If iNetWord duplicates some of your functionality, such as publishing documents to the Internet, then remove that functionality from iNetWord via its config file. If you find that iNetWord's Publish dialog box is a natural place for users to go to distribute files, you can add facilities to that dialog box to gather and send settings and requests to your system. The left side of iNetWord's publish dialog box, shown below, is extensible and can offer a scrollable list of Publish To options.
iNetWord's Save As dialog box is another place users look to distribute documents. Consider how saving and Save As will re-insert documents back into your application's processes and storage architecture. In some cases you may want to disable iNetWord's Save As and simply have all documents saved back to their original name and location.
Data StorageiNetWord's storage format is HTML 4.01 + CSS. iNetWord can import MS Word .doc files and export to .doc and .pdf. By default iNetWord stores documents on the Linux file system. Because iNetWord can operate on a hierarchical file system, without a database, it is compatible with many scalable NAS, SAN, and backup infrastructure. iNetWord's Platform Dispatch Layer can store and retrieve files from many locations using a variety of protocols:
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