Improve the Office Importer Application User Experience

The Office Importer feature is currently exposed in various places in XWiki Enterprise. Its interface and the way it is exposed to users can be improved.

Right now, the link to the Office Importer is located in the action bar, under the "Actions" menu. The action bar is meant to let users interact with the current page (context actions), thus the "Import Office Document" link shouldn't be located there.

• Move the "Import Office Document" link from the action bar to the Quick Links panel and rename it to "Office Import"

On the XWiki/OfficeImporter page, the import feature is displayed even if the OOo server is not currently running. Only after the user first tries to import a file is the "Open Office Server not available" message displayed.

• If the OOo server isn't running when the user accesses the XWiki/OfficeImporter page, a message should be displayed saying that:
  • "You cannot import an Office document since the conversion server has not been started. Please ask an administrator to get it started."
• If the current user is an admin, the message should read:
  • "You cannot import an Office document since the conversion server has not been started. You can start the OpenOffice server and manage it from this page (link to the OOo server administration page)."

On the XWiki/OfficeImporer page, the user is expected to know the name of the space he will import the file into. This is not very user friendly.

• Provide a select box displaying a list of spaces. At the top of the select box, a line reading "Create a new space" should be available. If the user clicks on this, an input field is displayed next to the select box. The input box reads: "Space to create"

If the user tries to import an Office Document on a page that already exists, an error message is dislayed but no "next step" is suggested.

• Ideally, when the user types the name of the page he wants to create, a live JS validator should tell him whether the page already exists or not
• If the JS solution isn't possible: the message should be improved to read:
  • "The target document Main.WebHome already exists. Please try again (link to the XWiki/OfficeImporter page) and choose another page name."

The XWiki/OfficeImporter page offers little explanations as to its purpose and how it works.

• An additional line should be added at the top, between the title and the import field, reading:
  • "This page allows you to import Office Documents into your wiki. It will turn the Office document you uploaded into a wiki page."
• "Document" should be renamed to "Select a document to import" next to the input field