This document describes how to use, setup, and develop the MobWrite Module .

All are invited to contribute to documentation as well as code, but please coordinate with the project/s maintainer: tomdavidson

Mobwrite for end users

Use

  1. Enable MobWrite for the desired content type.
  2. Create a node. Save the node - MobWrite depends on a unique path, so it is not activated on node/add.
  3. Edit the node and you are presented with MobWrite control options.
  4. Select a share option such as "Share by Role" to allow all uses with existing node edit permissions to join the session or "Share by URL" to generate a key'd URL that will grant recipients of the URL will node edit permissions.
  5. All users with access can edit at the same time, with each others edits syncing across web clients.
  6. When a user saves, it does not lock out the others users from being able to save.

Set up

The MobWrite module installs just as most modules, but also requires separably downloading the Apache Licensed Mobwrite components from Google - just like other Drupal modules that use non-GPL technology.

Get the code

Select the desired module release from the project page: http://drupal.org/project/mobwrite If I am not installing from version control, I like to copy the download link and then on my webservers console, I wget "paste" followed by tar -xvf module.archive.tar for example:

cd 'to your modules directory'
wget
tar -xvf

Next get the library from Google source You can put it in what ever folder you want, but the modules default library path will be 'google_mobwrite/html':

cd 'to your libraries directory'
svn checkout http://google-mobwrite.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/html google_mobwrite/html

Configure

Once you have enabled the module find your self at the configure page (admin/config/content/mobwrite). Here you will find several site-wide options to set:

  • Sync Gateway. This is the server side component to Google's MobWrite. The modules default has a public gateway hosted by Google set as default. You leave it be until you read the sever side section below and change your mind.
  • Library Path. Self explanatory. If you followed the get the code steps above, you do not need to change the default value.
  • Timeout. This value in seconds is how long the module will wait with out any mouse activity from a user before removing them from the MobWrite editing session. This is how abandoned web clients are handled. The default value is 5 min.
  • MobWrite Debug. When enabled, the Google MobWrite Library will be run in debug and your JavaScript console will display all the MobWrite activity. The module also outputs some additional messages that maybe helpful in troubleshooting.
  • Content types. Simply select which content types you desire to enable MobWrite for.

Server side

MobWrite has a server side and a client side. The Drupal MobWrite Module provides an integrated client using Google's MobWrite library. There are several server-side options:

  1. Use Google's public sync gateway.
  2. Deploy on your own AppEngine account.
  3. Deploy on your own server, with either the PHP or Python sync gateway on LAMP.

      4. #1 Use Google's public sync gateway service.
      This is the easiest, quickest way to get going. In fact, unless you changed the default, the module is already configured to use this option. BUT as per Google, "MobWrite is running on Google App Engine as mobwrite3.appspot.com. If your loads are relatively light, you are welcome to use this service. In this case you don't need to do anything."

      #2 Use your own App Engine account.
      Again, quite easy. It can support heavier loads than the public service in #1 and you get to control the code should you want to modify. Rather than include a copy/paste, you are encouraged to visit the Google MobWrite Google MobWrite wiki for instructions on setting up MobWrtie at App Engine.

      #3 Deploy your own on LAMP
      Will document a Debian/Linux install. For now visit Google MobWrite wiki for instructions.