See also
What Is New in the New Release
CoWord Collaboration Features
CoWord Editing Features
Frequently Asked Questions

CoWord is capable of retaining all functionalities and the "look-and-feel" of the single-user MS Word, while providing state-of-the-art real-time multi-user editing capabilities. Anyone who is familiar with MS Word is able to use CoWord without learning. This document is an introduction of CoWord user interface and collaborative functionalities.

Instructional Video

Introduction - Breifly describe the features of CoWord.
Getting Started - Tutorial on how to set up CoWord.
Chapter One - Detailed decription on modified Word functions, the save and undo button.
Chapter Two - Detailed decription on the CoWord Toolbar.

The Collaborative Document Repository Browser (CoDRB)

The CoDRB is the interface for the user to manage documents in the Collaborative Document Repository Manager (CoDRM) and collaborative editing sessions.
 Figure 1 is the user interface of CoDRB. The two panes in the top row forms a Windows Explorer-like user interface which list all Word and PowerPoint documents stored in the remote document repository. It also displays information about the currently on-going collaborative editing sessions and users. E.g. the document /demo-features.doc is being collaboratively edited by user CZSUN-NTU and StevenXia. To start editing a document or join an on-going session, you can simply double-click the document.

You can download from or upload documents to the document repository.

The two panes in the bottom rows provide additional collaboration information. The left pane provides information about all online users, including which documents they are editing. The right pane provides information about on-going collaborative sessions, including which users are participating in.

Figure 1 CoOffice Document Repository Browser Interface

When CoDRB starts, it pops up a window that allows you to select the repository you want to connect (as shown in Figure 2). By default, information about our public demo server located at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, is included. With this window, you can add your own repositories.

If you have installed our CoOffice Server on your own computer, you may wish to add your account information on that server into the list. To do this, change the account information displayed in the textboxes. In particular, input the name of your server into the "Repository Name" (any name you like), input the domain name or IP address of the server into the "Repository Address", input your account name into the "Account Name", and input your password into "Password". Finally, click the Add button. The new account entry appear in the list.

If you want to connect to different repositories, you can also activate this window from menu Tools - Config.
Figure 2 CoOffice Client Repository Manager
 

The CoWord User Interface

As shown in Figure 3, a document is displayed in two windows in CoWord. The left one is the main document window. The user may edit the document in this window in the same way in normal single-user Word. Moreover, telepointers are also displayed in this window to indicate the mouse cursor positions of remote users. The right one is a radar view, which consists of a miniature document window and a collection of view ports to indicate the view positions of users in the same session.

Figure3 CoWord User Interface

With CoWord, you can use your familiar user interface of MS Word (see Figure 3 and Figure 4) to collaboratively edit documents with others. CoWord automatically converts editing functions of Word into collaborative versions. In the following, currently supported editing functions are briefly described.


Figure 4 Menu and Toolbars
 

Modified Word Functions

Most of these menu and toolbar items will produce the same effects as in the single-user Word, except the following:

1. Save
Save can be invoked from the Save button in the Standard bar, the Save button in the File menu, and the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-S. In single-user Word, the document is saved to the local disk. However, in CoWord, the document will be saved to the remote document repository. If you want to save the document locally, please use Save As in the File menu.

2. Undo
As shown in Figure 4, a Group Undo button is added in the Standard bar to support undoing operation in the collaborative environment. This button supports two group undo modes, which are Local Undo – chronologically undoing operations of the local user, and Global Undo – chronologically undoing operations of all users in this session. These two undo modes can be selected in the CoWord Options (see below).
You can also invoke group undo with the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-Z.
 

CoWord Tools

In Additional, CoWord adds a CoWord toolbar to accommodate collaboration-specific features.

1. Toggle Action Modes
This button allows you to switch between the Single-Actor and Multi-Actor modes. The Multi-Actor mode is the default mode, in which all users are free the edit the document. In the Single-Actor mode, only the action controller can edit the document.

2. Toggle View Modes
This button allows you to switch between the Single-Viewer and Multi-Viewer modes. The Multi-Viewer mode is the default mode, in which all users are free the view any part of the document. In the Single-Viewer mode, all users are forced to view the same part of the document. Furthermore, only the view controller can change the view.

3. Enter Private Mode
By clicking this button, you will enter the Private mode, in which the local user’s editing operations are not propagated to other users, but operations from other users are still received and executed at the local site.

4. Highlight Users Input
This buttons allows you to enter the User Input Highlighting mode, in which users’ inputs are highlighted with different colors. If you are in the highlighting mode, you can also quit this mode by clicking this button again.

5. Remove Highlight
By clicking this button, you can remove the user input highlights.

6. Reset Session State
By clicking this button, the collaborative session state will be reset.

7. Session Information
Clicking this button will bring up a window which displays information about the current session, as shown in the following figure.

8. CoWord Options
Clicking this button will bring up a window which allows you to change CoWord options, as shown in the following figure.

9. Message History
Clicking this button will bring up a window that displays all messages that generated in this session.

10. About CoWord
This button displays the About CoWord window.