ezcollaboration feature -- any kind of doc available ?

Thursday 13 February 2003 4:50:00 am

> ezp3-rc2 includes some collaboration functionality. However,
> I can't find any description on what this is and how to make
> it work. Can anybody provide a hint on where to look ?
>
> Regards
>
> Volker

I guess this collaboration feature is designed to become the foundation for things like forums etc. If so, I would really appreciate this. In the moment, forums with possibly thousands of messages are treated as ordinary content objects hanging around in the content node tree together with articles etc. So it's simply a question of time when your article-view-performance decreases due to a pollution of the node-tree with myriads of temporary forum messages. Is this consideration behind the introduction of "collaboration" as a new kernel module?

Tuesday 18 February 2003 3:00:13 am

> > > ezp3-rc2 includes some collaboration functionality.
> > However,
> > > I can't find any description on what this is and how
> to
> > make
> > > it work. Can anybody provide a hint on where to look ?
>
> There's not much documentation now for this system, it's
> primarily been created for approval events for now but will
> be expanded in the future with documentation.
>
> > I guess this collaboration feature is designed to become
> the
> > foundation for things like forums etc. If so, I would
> really
> > appreciate this. In the moment, forums with possibly
> > thousands of messages are treated as ordinary content
> > objects hanging around in the content node tree together
> > with articles etc. So it's simply a question of time
> when
> > your article-view-performance decreases due to a
> pollution
> > of the node-tree with myriads of temporary forum
> messages.
> > Is this consideration behind the introduction of
> > "collaboration" as a new kernel module?
>
> The reason for the collaboration system was to replace the
> current task system which had a unsatisying design. Also the
> collaboration system will embrace a larger set of
> functionality than just tasks and approvals. The new system
> allows the specific item handlers to do mostly whatever they
> want to do.
>
> The main idea of the collaboration system is to link
> different users together on specific items, it can be used
> to give out tasks, discuss items, send messages, approval.
> The difference from normal content objects is that
> collaboration only works between a given set of selected
> users, while content objects are for anyone to see and use
> (if policy allows it).
> A private forum is possible with the collaboration system
> and is good idea for private discussions on items, however
> normal forums don't fit into it unless you add invitation
> support.
>
> The closest analogy is your email client, you receive
> incoming items (mails) that you categorize personally.
>
> We've worked a lot with the content object tree structure to
> ensure that it can scale to lots of objects and we will
> continue with this for future releases.
> eZ publish is already used on a site with thousands of
> objects and it should not be a problem with thousands of
> forum messages.

Thank you very much for this detailed explanation. Now I think I am going to trust the concept of the content node tree again.