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Introduction
Trash is one of the new functions of IBM® Lotus® Quickr® 8.5 for Domino®. In previous versions, once you delete documents---even when mistakenly---the documents are irretrievable.
The Trash function now makes it possible for you to restore the documents after deletion. All deleted documents are put into the Trash directory and can be restored by the user or by the Place administrator, if needed.
Let's start with a brief introduction on how to use the Trash feature. First, to delete a document, from the Quickr Library folder, click the More Actions buttons, and select Selected Items – Move to Trash (see figure 1).
Figure 1. Delete a document from a folder
Figure 2 shows how this deleted document can be seen in the TrashPlace, either to be deleted permanently or to be restored.
Figure 2. Deleted document in TrashPlace
You can see the type/name of the deleted document, by whom it was deleted, and when and from where on the page. Also note the four options from which you can choose: Restore, Delete, Restore all, and Empty trash:
- Restore. To restore items to their original location, select one or multiple items, and click the Restore button.
- Delete. To delete items permanently, select one or multiple items, and click the Delete button.
- Restore All. To restore all the items in the Trash to their original location, click the Restore All button directly.
- Empty Trash. To delete all the items in the Trash permanently, click the Empty Trash button.
NOTE: Trash currently only supports folders, lists, and documents. When you delete a document, all the versions and replies to the document are also put into the Trash and can be restored. However, when you delete a place, a form, an event, a task, a forum, a post, or an individual version and a reply of the document, the deletion is permanent.
Design aspects
This section introduces some basic design aspects of Trash.
- The properties of the deleted item, such as the name, the type of the item, deleted by whom, at what time, and from where should be seen in the Trash View (see figure 3).
- Only the root nodes of the deleted nodes can be shown on the page. The user has only view permission, without access or operating permission to the sub-nodes. This scenario mainly displays the folders.
For example, suppose that document B and folder C are in folder A. If folder A is deleted, you can only see folder A in the Trash, without noticing document B and folder C.
- Trash must support the existence of multiple items with the same name. The items with a same name---no matter if from the same or from different source locations---are all stored in Trash, as shown in the Source Location column of figure 3.
Figure 3. Trash view
Figure 4 shows the window that displays when another document of the same name exists, in which you can rename the document to restore or replace the existing document.
Figure 4. Rename the document to restore or replace the existing document
Note that, if another folder with the same name already exists, you can only rename the folder to be restored, as shown in figure 5.
Figure 5. Rename the folder to be restored
- If the original path no longer exists (has been deleted or removed) when you want to restore the item, the system will automatically generate the same type of item in the same source location. This is mainly for the case in which the deleted item does not have a parent folder.
There are three types of folders in Lotus Quickr 8.5 for Domino; specifically, Simple List, Tabbed, and Slide Show, which display the items in different ways, as shown in figure 6.
Figure 6. The folder types in Place
When you delete a document from a Simple List type of folder first and then delete this folder, you can still find this document in the Trash and restore it. The system automatically creates a Simple List type of folder with the same name at the same source location and restores the document to this new folder.
- With respect to access control, Room and Subroom should be considered first. Due to the privacy of Rooms, each Room has a Trash view in which its deleted items are stored (see figure 7).
Figure 7. Trash view in Room1
Secondly we address the role of the Place. The main roles of the Place are Manager, Editor, Author, and Reader. The Editor can edit all the documents created by the Author, the Author can edit all the documents created by himself/herself, and the Manager has the highest authority to all the documents.
In terms of the Trash view, readers have no access to it, but the author and the editor can browse / delete permanently / restore their deleted items, and the manager and the high-level users can browse / delete permanently / restore all the items in the Trash.
Folder access control
Now that we've introduced the key aspects of the Trash design, let's look at some applications of the Trash feature.
Prior to version 8.5 of Quickr Domino, the Place access control is limited to the document level. Quickr Domino 8.5 adds the access control to the folders, and thus some other roles are also added to the folder. Chart 1 shows the relationship between the folder roles and the Place roles.
Table 1. Restricted folder roles
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Able to modify the folder properties and ACL, and able to delete the empty folders. Folder Manager is the default Place administrator. Folder creator defaults to be the Folder Manager.
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Able to delete the empty folders
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Able to browse all the content in Folders, and create, edit or delete all the content (under the document access control permission)
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Cannot delete folders, except those with particular identity
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Able to browse all the content, create new content, or edit/delete the documents created by itself
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Cannot delete folders, except those with particular identity
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Able to browse all the content
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Cannot delete folders, except those with particular identity
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To create a restricted folder, the Server administrator first enables “<folder_acl enabled="true"></folder_acl>” in qpconfig.xml, after which the Place administrator enables the Folder/List ACL function, using Customization – Basics. Then, follow these steps:
- Select New – Folder in some folder, enter some properties, and select “Who Can Access This”.
- Specify some folder members and click OK, so we can get a restricted folder.
- Go into the folder and click “Restricted”; the roles of the folder display in the Who Can Access window (see figure 8).
Figure 8. Create a restricted folder
Trash has different ways to handle the restricted folders, public folders, and a special list folder:
- The Place administrator can delete any folder.
- Only the folder administrator can delete an empty restricted folder; only the author of the folder can delete an empty public folder.
List is a special kind of folder that is used for creating, displaying, and managing all kinds of similarly structured data. Place members can customize views of a List folder for data representation, and import or export in electronic form from Microsoft Excel / CSV file / Lotus Symphony
TM Spreadsheet files to the List folder (see figure 9).
Figure 9. Import Spreadsheet window
Trash handles Lists and Folders in two ways:
- The place administrator can delete any List.
- Only a List administrator who is also an editor can delete the empty restricted folder; only the editor or administrator of the List can delete the empty public folder.
Trash supports Lotus Quickr Connector
The Lotus Quickr Connector is a set of application plug-ins based on Quickr Services. Users can access the content on different servers through the Connector, and it seamlessly integrates the desktop application with the remote service. There are four Connectors:
- Lotus Quickr connector for Microsoft® Windows Explorer
- Lotus Quickr connector for Microsoft Office
- Lotus Quickr connector for IBM Lotus Notes
- Lotus Quickr connector for IBM Sametime®
Lotus Quickr Connector 8.5, released in September 2010, also supports the Trash function. Let's use an example of Lotus Quickr Connector for Windows Explorer to illustrate the application of Trash in Connector.
As figure 10 shows, similar to Web access, the Trash in the Connector lists the name of the deleted item, the source location, deleted by whom and at what time, and provides the restore / delete permanently / view properties functions.
Unlike the Web access, however, when different Rooms of a place have different Trashes, the Connector can only be shown in one Trash with access control.
Figure 10. Lotus Quickr Connector for Windows Explorer
When you operate the Trash items in a Web browser and the Connector at the same time, the server responds to the events in chronological order. When you want to restore a document, but another document with the same name already exists in the source location, you can choose to rename or replace the document, in a way similar to that of Web access (see figure 11).
Figure 11. Rename/replace document that already exists
Trash supports Offline Place
To see this functionality:
- Log into a Place, and click the Take Place Offline button in “Place Action” on the upper right-hand portion of the Place page
- Install the Lotus Domino Sync Manager to local, and click the Open Offline button after the Place has synchronized (see figure 12).
Now you can access the offline Place in an offline state. For detailed installation steps, refer to the product documentation topic, “
Setting up Lotus Quickr for offline use (optional): qd851."
Also note that you can click the Start Sync button to synchronize with the server when the network is working (i.e., when online).
Figure 12. Offline Place of Lotus Quickr Domino
Resolving conflicts caused by Trash working offline
The content in Trash is synchronized both locally and server side and, because the local and the server sides may operate on the same document, it will cause conflicts. The major conflict in Trash occurs when either the local or server side deletes the Trash item while the other side restores it.
How you resolve the conflicts is based on Domino replication:
(1) Delete first, unless under the circumstances of (2) or (3);
(2) Restore first when the delete operation comes after restoration;
(3) Restore first when the document has been edited many times after restoration.
Conclusion
You should now have a better understanding of the detailed operation of Trash and its techniques, which provide security to document management. Users can choose to access Trash either via the Lotus Quickr Connector services or via Web access. In addition, Trash supports the Offline Place, making it more convenient for you to use Quickr Domino offline.
Resources
About the author
Yang Rui is a Software Engineer based at IBM's China Development Lab in Beijing, where she works on the Lotus Quickr for Domino product and is responsible for developing the Quickr 8.5 Trash function. You can reach her at
ruiyang@cn.ibm.com.