This page gives an overview of the most important internal components, plugin capabilities, public interfaces (APIs) and data communication streams of the Open-Xchange server.

User and client based communication flow

• 1 All communication from and to the users client is purely based on HTTP. It is strongly recommended to use only encrypted HTTPS. For security reasons, some modules require HTTPS connections in the default configuration. The HTTP/S communication is terminated at Apache.

• 2 Within Apache, the mod_proxy_ajp module is used to convert the HTTP requests to the AJPv13 protocol and to forward the request to the OX server. The OX server contains an own AJP servlet, accepting this protocol as input stream. mod_proxy_ajp can also be used to configure session stickiness and load balancing in clustered environments.

• 3 OX Web UI & Mobile Web Interface
  • The HTTP API is the core API for all user functionality. Every function of the Web UI and the Mobile UI is using this API. To to that, all possible user functionality is available in this API and can be used from external applications as well. It is based on JSON via HTTP/S.
  • Requirements Web UI
  • OX Mobile Web App
  • Programming Example, how to use this API to build an Email widget, accessing the HTTP API

• 4 The OXtender for Business Mobility is a server based Active Sync Implementation. The "Microsoft Exchange Active Sync" protocol supports Push via HTTPS, therefore the email backend needs to send push events to the OX server. Details, see: OXtender for Business Mobility Installation Guide and Email Push Introduction. Serverside, the synchronization makes use of the "Universal Sync Module", which is a server bundle containing the synchronization logic for several clients. It also communicates via HTTP/S transporting JSON objects.

• 5 The OXtender 2 for Microsoft Outlook is a MAPI plugin, installed in the Outlook client to synchronize data between Outlook and the OX server. It makes use of the same HTTP/S and JSON based communication to the Universal Sync Module, like Active Sync.

• 6 CalDAV and CardDAV interface is available to synchronize calendars and address books with Apple OS X applications, Setup Mac Cal/CardDAV Clients

• 7 A WebDAV implementation provides the possibility to access the documents in InfoStore directly via any WebDAV client, like the Windows Explorer.

Administration, provisioning and operations related components and communication flow

• 11 Data Migration and Im-/Export of user data can be done via automated tools, using this interfaces:
  • Using the import servlet, Building an importer
  • Using the export servlet, Building an exporter, iCal/vCard
  • A tool is available to upload data from Outlook profiles or PST files to OX: Outlook Uploader

• 12 All provisioning tasks, like creation and editing users can be done with Commandline tools. The command line tools make use of the Java RMI API internally.

• 13 The native, central provisioning API is available via Java RMI Core API, RMI hosting API

• 14 Central control panels and billing systems, which are not implemented in Java, can use the RMI API via Open-Xchange-SOAP, SOAP API
  • Standard integration via SOAP is available for OPWV Directory
  • Parallels Operations Automation, see POA integration guide
  • for Parallels Plesk Panel: Plesk OXtender installation
  • and for cPanel: cPanel installation

• 15 Authentification is implemented as highly customizable plugins, many different standard and custom implementations are available
  • Authentication IMAP Plugin description
  • OX and Samba Login through LDAP
  • Database
  • custom

• 16 Monitoring the OX application is done via JMX interface: OX monitoring interface and a commandline tool
  • An example, how to use the monitoring interface is available as pre-built Scripts for the monitoring tool Munin: OX munin scripts

Backend related components and communication flow

• 21 All OX data - users, contacts, calendars, tasks and document meta information is stored in a MySQL Database, accessed via JDBC
  • 22 Native MySQL contacts storage

• 23 Addressbooks can also be read from other sources than the internal MySQL storage. Therefore an OSGi bundle needs to be implemented, overriding the standard contact storage.
  • Public available is an implementation using LDAP
  • Several custom implementations are available on request or can be implemented by partners

• 24 Email storage is accessed through the pluggable Mail Abstraction Layer API
  • The default implementation uses IMAP
  • Sending Emails is done via SMTP
  • Openwave Email MX, Stateless Edition OPWV MX
  • When Active Sync or Outlook are used, the email backend needs to send push requests to the OX server: Email Push Introduction
  • Several custom implementations are available on request or can be implemented by partners

• 25 Documents in the InfoStore are accessed via an API, which allows customized implementations.
  • The default in large environments is to use NFS
  • In small environments, the local filesystem is used
  • Scality Storage is a good scaling implementation
  • Several custom implementations are available on request or can be implemented by partners

Social/Public Data related components, plugins and communication flow

A subscription based plugin system allows to access data from external systems like webmail systems or social messaging. The underlying concept is called SocialOX, a list of some plugins can be found here:SupportedCrawler The messaging-, contact- and calendar-integration are done via the official API of the respective 3rd-party-service wherever there is one. For authentication OAuth is used wherever available for security and privacy control. All plugins use HTTP/S connections to the external service only. Access to the external email systems is done via IMAP/S, POP3/S, depending on the service.

• 31 For subscription to an external calendar, a plugin to subscribe to Google Calendar is available.

• 32 External messaging services (Facebook, Twitter, SMS/MMS)

• 33 Contacts integration (Xing, LinkedIn, MSN/Windows Live, Yahoo, Facebook, google, gmx.de, web.de)

• 34 External email accounts can be integrated (POP3, IMAP)
  • preconfigured for mail-account plugin: google, Yahoo, msn/WindowsLive, gmx.com , gmx.de , web.de , freenet.de
  • Install and configure the mail-account plugin

Public Available Plugins

• An overview of the existing public plugins can be found here: Open-Xchange Plugin Overview. Many others are available on request or through partners.

Lisog is a German open source non profit business development organization founded in 2005 in Stuttgart.^[1] Lisog has about 120 members (April 2011) and branch offices in Berlin, Hamburg, Vienna,^[2] Zurich, Palo Alto and Toronto. The members are providers, user companies, and scientific partners like universities.

In 2011 Lisog was merged with the LIVE association. The new organization is called Open Source Business Alliance.^[3]

[edit]Goals

The main goal of Lisog is the promotion of solutions based on open source software. The Lisog open source stack initiative brings together isolated modules and providers to a unified enterprise stack.

Lisog helps companies to develop an open source based business strategy. Many providers of the Lisog open source stack had a proprietary offering only.

The Lisog cloud initiative brings this stack into several clouds. The infrastructure partners in Germany (IaaS) are Noris Network and Fujitsu. Lisog works together with the Open Cloud Initiativeinitiated by Sam Johnston to provide a full open source cloud enterprise stack. The main goal here is to avoid a vendor lock-in for users.

[edit]Board

The board of Lisog consists of 12 members:

• Dr. Karl-Heinz Strassemeyer, IBM Deutschland Entwicklung (Chairman)
• Holger Dyroff, Novell (Deputy Chairman)
• Thomas Uhl, Topalis Holding GmbH (Deputy Chairman)
• Prof. Dr. Helmut Krcmar, Technische Universität München
• Henriette Baumann, integratio GmbH
• Karl-Eugen Binder, Stuttgarter Lebensversicherung
• Martin Jähn, Unternehmensberatung Martin Jähn & Partner GmbH
• Niels Mache, struktur AG
• Jens Ziemann, Red Hat
• Elmar Geese, Tarent GmbH
• Peter Ganten, Univention GmbH
• Rico Barth, Cape IT GmbH

[edit]Lisog open source stack

[edit]Open Source Integration Initiative (OSII)

Currently Lisog works on a project which will integrate the single components through a SOA strategy. The project is hosted by MFG in Stuttgart and founded by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology within the Central Innovation Programme SME.^[4]

[edit]References

1. ^ article about the foundation of Lisog on Golem
2. ^ article about Lisog in COMPUTERWELT
3. ^ article about LIVE/Lisog merger in COMPUTERWOCHE
4. ^ SME/ZIM Programme of German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology

[edit]External links

• Official Lisog Website
• Open Cloud Principles

This list of PDF software includes links to articles on software used to manage Portable Document Format (PDF) documents.

[edit]Multi-platform

[edit]Converters

These allow users to convert PDF files to other formats.

[edit]Editors

These allow users to modify an existing PDF file.

[edit]Development libraries

These are used by software developers to add and create PDF features.

[edit]Creators

These create files in their native formats, but then allow users to export them to PDF formats.

[edit]Viewers

These allow users to view (not edit or modify) any existing PDF file.

[edit]AmigaOS

[edit]Converters

• Antiword: A free Microsoft Office Word reader for various operating systems; converts binary files from Word 2, 6, 7, 97, 2000, 2002 and 2003 to plain text or PostScript; available forAmigaOS 4, MorphOS, AROS x86
• dvipdfm: a DVI to PDF translator with zlib support

[edit]Viewers

• Xpdf a multi-platform viewer for PDF files, Amiga version uses X11 engine Cygnix

[edit]Unix and Linux

[edit]Annotation functionality

• Okular: Supports a range of annotation types. Annotations are stored separately from the unmodified PDF file.
• Xournal: Allows for complex and customizable annotations by freehand drawing, a shape recognition tool, multiple colours and text fonts. In addition, there is a rule tool for straight lines, highlighting and underlining. Annotations may be copied, pasted and easily moved. Annotations may also be in complex scripts such as Tibetan through SCIM input. Annotations are stored separately from the unmodified PDF file, but the annotated document can be exported to PDF.
• Evince: Supports addition, but not removal, of basic text note annotations.^[7]

[edit]Converters

The CUPS printing system can render any document to a PDF file, thus any UNIX/Linux program with print capability can produce PDF files.

• Pdftk: can merge, split, en-/decrypt, watermark/stamp and manipulate PDF files.
• poppler-utils: includes command-line tools to extract images from a PDF (pdfimages) and convert a PDF to other formats (pdftohtml, pdftotext, pdftoppm).
• ps2pdf: converts a PostScript file to a PDF.
• SWFTools: its pdf2swf component converts PDF to SWF.

[edit]Creators

• Xournal: an open source program that creates PDFs.
• Scribus: an open source program for professional page layout.

[edit]Development libraries

• Xpdf: an open source multi-backend library for viewing and manipulating PDF files. Bundled with a viewer with the same name

[edit]Editors

• PDFedit: an open source program for viewing or editing the internal structures of PDF documents
• PDF Studio: proprietary software for viewing and editing PDF documents

[edit]Viewers

• Adobe Reader: freeware version for GNU/Linux.
• Evince: default PDF and file viewer for GNOME; replaces GPdf.
• GPdf: for GNOME; replaced by Evince.
• Okular: KDE desktop environment; replaces KPDF.
• Xpdf: for the X Window System.
• Foxit Reader: from Foxit Software.
• Xournal: GTK2 PDF viewer and annotator using Poppler.

[edit]Mac OS X

[edit]Converters

• deskUNPDF for Mac: proprietary application from Docudesk to convert PDF files to Microsoft Office, OpenOffice.org, image, and data file formats

[edit]Editors

• Adobe Acrobat: Proprietary PDF authoring suite
• PDF Studio: Proprietary software to view and edit PDF documents
• PDF Signer: Proprietary; fills forms and embeds image signatures in PDF documents.

[edit]Creators

• Mac OS X: Creates PDF documents natively via print dialog

[edit]Viewers

• Safari: This bundled web browser has built-in support for reading PDF documents.
• Firefox: Includes a PDF viewer
• Google Chrome: Includes a PDF viewer
• Preview: Mac OS X's default PDF viewer (in Mac OS X v10.5 and later, it also can rotate, reorder, annotate, insert, and delete pages. It can also merge files, create new files from existing files, and move pages between files.)
• Adobe Reader: Adobe Systems's reader which is also available for Macintosh; Safari plug-in available
• Skim, an open source (BSD licence) PDF reader and note-taker for Mac OS X

[edit]Microsoft Windows

[edit]Converters

• Adobe Acrobat: Can convert files into PDF or convert PDF files into other formats^[8]
• ABBYY FineReader: Commercial PDF converter which converts PDF into Word (.doc), Excel (.xls), PowerPoint (ppt), and more
• deskUNPDF: PDF converter to convert PDFs to Word (.doc, docx), Excel (.xls), (.csv), (.txt), more
• GSview: File:Convert menu item converts any sequence of PDF pages to a sequence of images in many formats from bit to tiffpack with resolutions from 72 to 204 × 98 (open sourcesoftware)
• gDoc Fusion: Proprietary, shareware; PDF views, edits, converts documents into PDF, XPS or Microsoft Word document; after 30 days a watermark is placed on documents in shareware version
• PDF-XChange: PDF Tools and PDF-XChange print driver allow conversion from many formats to PDF. A "lite" version of the print driver is free for non-commercial (home and academic) use.
• SaveasPDFandXPS: Freeware add-in for Microsoft Office 2007; converts documents in standard Microsoft Office formats, e.g. Word, Excel, Powerpoint, into PDF format.
• SWFTools: 'pdf2swf component converts PDF to SWF – command line with GUI wrapper

[edit]Creators

[edit]Development libraries

• HTML2PDF-X: Proprietary software library for PDF creation from HTML input.

[edit]Editors

• Adobe Acrobat: Adobe Systems's proprietary desktop PDF authoring suite.
• Adobe Photoshop: Adobe Systems's Graphic Design software and image editor.
• gDoc Fusion: proprietary/shareware desktop product to create, review, edit, share or archive PDF and XPS documents. After 30 days a watermark is placed on documents in shareware version.
• Infix PDF Editor: a proprietary PDF editor with word processor features
• Nitro PDF: a proprietary WYSIWYG editor with interface styled after Microsoft Office
• PDF Studio: Proprietary software for viewing and editing PDF documents
• pdftk: free (GPL) command-line tools to manipulate, edit and convert documents; supports filling of PDF forms with FDF/XFDF data
• PDFedit: free and open source software for viewing and editing PDF documents
• Qiqqa: Freeware PDF reader, indexer, tagger and annotator. Supports OCR and export of PDF text and images.
• PDF-XChange Viewer: Freeware PDF reader, tagger, editor (simple editions) and converter (free for non commercial uses).
• Microsoft Word 2013: Proprietary desktop software. The 2013 edition of Office allows editing PDF files.

[edit]Viewers

• Adobe Reader: Adobe's freeware PDF reader.
• Evince: a free (GPL), open source PDF reader. Part of the GNOME desktop environment. Windows port available since version 2.28.
• Foxit Reader: Proprietary/freeware PDF reader, supports FDF import/export, saving filled forms; other extended functionality available via purchasable plugins.
• gDoc Fusion: Proprietary/shareware to view PDF, XPS, Microsoft Word document, Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, Microsoft PowerPoint presentation or image files, included in the evaluation version of the product. Shareware version places a watermark on documents after 30 day eval.
• GSview: Open source software and Ghostscript's viewer for Windows
• Nitro PDF Reader: Shareware PDF reader, proprietary PDF reader and creator. Supports PDF creation, saving filled forms (AcroForms), text typewriter, markup/collaboration, and stamp signature. Free trial runs 14 days.
• Nuance PDF Reader: Freeware(adware) PDF reader, supports saving filled forms, partial support for XFA forms; enables the capability to convert PDF files to MS Word or Excel files through Nuance website.
• PDF-XChange Viewer: Freeware viewer with free OCR, supports FDF/XFDF import/export, saving filled forms, extended markup and export to image capabilities.
• Qiqqa: Freeware PDF reader, indexer, tagger and annotator. Supports OCR and export of PDF text and images.
• Sumatra PDF: A free (GPL), open source PDF reader. It also supports DjVu, XPS, CHM, Comic Book (CBZ and CBR) and eBook (EPUB & MOBI) file formats. Supports automatic reloading of PDF files.
• STDU Viewer: A freeware for non-commercial usage PDF reader. It also supports DjVu, Comic Book Archive (CBR or CBZ), XPS, TIFF, TXT and image file formats.

[edit]Mobile

• Evince: Ported to Maemo platform
• iBooks: PDF viewer for iOS (iPhone, iPad)

[edit]Web-based

[edit]Converters

• Cometdocs: Online PDF conversion
• Software602 Print2PDF 9.0: interactive web conversion from IIS or XML-SOAP web service
• Zamzar: Online file converter

[edit]Editors

• PDFescape: a free web service to view, create forms, fill out forms, and edit PDF documents from a web browser (requires JavaScript to be enabled)
• PDFVue: a free web application that allows the user to view PDF's, comment and fill PDF forms from a web browser. Generates a watermark.

[edit]Viewers

• A.nnotate: a web service which views PDF documents as HTML in the browser, with annotation features.
• DigiSigner: free online PDF viewer java applet with additional function to digitally sign PDF documents.
• Docstoc: a web service which allows viewing PDF documents online
• Issuu: a web service which allows viewing PDF documents online
• Google Docs: a web service which views PDF documents as PNG images in the browser
• Scribd: a web service which renders PDF documents as HTML5 in the browser
• Pdf.js: A Javascript-based library, with viewer, and browser plugin.

[edit]References

[edit]External links

• PDF at the Open Directory Project
• PDF software at the Open Directory Project
• Windows Tools and Drivers at the Open Directory Project