Apps

• 1: Connecting the *Cloud - FileLink with Thunderbird
• 2: Fill file drop with scripts
• 3: Joplin
• 4: Office Integrations
• 5: Overleaf

1 - Connecting the *Cloud - FileLink with Thunderbird

If you use the Thunderbird email programme with the *cloud - FileLink extension, you can upload large email attachments to Sciebo and then just send the download link.

Installation of the Thunderbird

Follow the download link to download the suitable file for your operating system, then run the file and follow the instructions for installation.

Installation of the *cloud- FileLink

1. Go to Thunderbird -> Settings -> Composition -> Attachments -> Find more providers...
2. A new tab would open, enter "*cloud “ in the search field.
3. Click on “+ Add to Thunderbird. In the popup window click again on “add” and close the tab.
4. Click on the newly appeared field *Add *cloud in the Attachments section
5. Fill the form:
   • Server URL: the URL of your institution’s Sciebo instance (e.g. https://sciebo.uni-muenster.de)
   • Username: your Sciebo account
   • App token or password: Your Sciebo password
6. Click on Save

Usage

When composing an e-mail, click on the drop-down menu next to " 📎Anhängen” and select Filelink -> *cloud. Select the file you want to attach and click ‘Open’. The selected file will now be uploaded to your Sciebo account and the recipient of your e-mail can download the file using the link.

2 - Fill file drop with scripts

Sometimes data is generated automatically somewhere and you want to move it to a specific Sciebo folder. Preferably in an automated way.

In this case, you can share the folder via a link and create a share with write permission (and password).

The link will look something like this: https://uni-muenster.sciebo.de/s/XphYPtnTxc2MDm0 and the password could be secter. The part after the /s/ is the username that you would use to interact with the webdav interface https://uni-muenster.sciebo.de/public.php/webdav/ and the password is the corresponding password.

You can now send a request to the Sciebo webdav interface for example with Curl and upload a file data.csv via:

curl -u "XphYPtnTxc2MDm0:geheim" -T "daten.csv" https://uni-muenster.sciebo.de/public.php/webdav/daten.csv

Note that the webdav interface does not have an update verb (as far as we know), i.e. if you want to overwrite a file, you must first delete the file using the following command: curl -u "XphYPtnTxc2MDm0:geheim" -X DELETE https://uni-muenster.sciebo.de/public.php/webdav/daten.csv

3 - Joplin

The Joplin app allows you to create notes on your smartphone or desktop/notebook and synchronise them via sciebo. You can download the apps at https://joplinapp.org/.

To synchronize the Joplin using Sciebo go to Tools -> Options -> Synchronisation

• Synchronisation target: WebDAV
• WebURL: https://your-institute.sciebo.de/remote.php/dav/files/your-sciebo-ID/Joplin where is to be replaced by the abbreviation used by your institution, to access Sciebo via a web interface. For example for University of Münster it would be uni-muenster.
• WebDAV username: your Sciebo id, for example for University of Münster it would be username@uni-muenster.de
• WebDAV password: your Sciebo password

During synchronisation, a new folder Joplin will be created in your Sciebo folder. Your Joplin notes will be stored in this folder.

4 - Office Integrations

In sciebo wie currently offer two Office integrations:

• OnlyOffice for .xlsx, .docx, .pptx
• Collabora for .ods, .odt, .odp, .odg

With OnlyOffice we only have a limited number of licenses, so that in peak hours (about 11am) it can occur that not everyone can use OnlyOffice. In this case one can only wait and try again later.

Collabora is currently in testing stage and not limited by the number of licenses.

Current issues with OnlyOffice and federated shares

Currently editing files which have been received via federated shares does not reliably work in OnlyOffice. The devolopers are working on a solution.

5 - Overleaf

Sciebo offers an integration of the collaborative LaTeX tool overleaf. This integration is based on the open source variant and its feature set is roughly between the free and basic tier of the commercial overleaf service.

We run our own overleaf instance, which can be used by all sciebo users.

The integration currently requires considerable development effort on our side and is provided as is.

In particular, we recommend to make regular backups of overleaf projects via the download function of overleaf projects, as we have only limited ability to restore singular projects.

Sharing

In order to be able to share with a person, it first has to log into our overleaf instance via sciebo and create a new project.[^1]

If you receive a share, there is a notification in the project overview about this. This invitation can be accepted via “Join project” or be dismissed by a click onto the cross.

Note that for sharing with persons from other universities, you do not need to use the federated id, but just their local username, which is everything before the second “@”. This feature can be used for guests at https://gast.sciebo.de also.

Import and export of projects

Currently, it is sadly impossible to directly interact with the sciebo storage, but it is possible to use .zip archives both for importing and exporting projects.

To import a project, you click on “New Project” and use the upload option:

To export/download a project, you click on the small cloud symbol in the project overview:

Known problems and non-features

• Overleaf does not send out e-mails; you have to inform share receivers by yourself
• we run Overleaf in Version 3 and are evaluation forks for our update path to Version 5. Until then we can not tell how the future feature set will look like
• sharing only works after a person logged into overleaf via sciebo at least once
• you cannot directly import from sciebo or export to sciebo
• we allow for compiles beyond one minute, but the webinterface has a bug telling you after 60 seconds that it does not work. Subsequent clicks on the compile button then should return a message that a compilation is already running. If that is the case and only your initial compile takes longer than 60 seconds, you usually can still get a full compile sequent on subsequent compiles.
• folder and filenames are heavily restricted; sadly if the folder name does not match the rules, no error message is being thrown. If a name is not allowed as a filename, it is also forbidden as a foldername

$( 1 )$: To be honest we are not completely sure if it is necessary to really create a project beforehand. Logging in definitely is necessary though and when there is a project, we can be sure that a login happened.