10. Using Sophie Server in Sophie Author

Sophie Author can open and edit local books as well as remote books using Sophie Server. The easiest way to demonstrate is for you to be running a copy of Sophie Server yourself. (See here for information about running Sophie Server.)

Connecting to Sophie Server

When Sophie Server is running, turn to the Server tab in the left flap in Sophie Author. It looks like this:

The top palette is the list of known Sophie Servers; the three top buttons add a new server, edit the address of an existing, and delete a server from the list. To add a Sophie Server, click the + icon to add a server. Enter http://localhost:8003 or http://127.0.0.1:8003 if you're running a copy of Sophie Server; or, you can try the demonstration version of Sophie Server by using http://sophie2.org:8003 (although that server is being used for testing and is not always running).

When you've successfully connected, the server should be added to the list of servers, as http://localhost:8003 is in the example above. The blue and red icon next to the server name means that the server is not connected. To connect, click the Connect button at the bottom of the top palette or just double click on the server you want to connect to. You'll then be prompted for a username and password for an account on that Sophie Server:

(If you don't have an account on that Sophie Server, you can login anonymously by using Anonymous as your username with no password. When you successfully connect, you'll see this:

If it is not working, you'll see a message saying that the connection failed; check that you entered the address correctly or that your server is running and try again.

When you've successfully connected to a Sophie Server, the bottom palette will show resources on the server when the server is selected in the top palette, like this:

(Note that in the top palette, one of the servers is connected - the one with the green and blue icon - and one is not.) A connected Sophie Server will list all of its resources in the bottom palette; you can open any of these by double-clicking on them. You can disconnect from a Sophie Server by pressing the Disconnect button; if you want to refresh what you're seeing on the server, click Disconnect and then Connect.

Uploading books to Sophie Server

Once you're logged in to a Sophie Server, you can save books to the server. This is easy to do: just select File > Save on Server. You'll see a dialogue box that looks like this:

The top drop-down menu, Server URL lists the different Sophie Servers that you're connected to. Choose the one that you want to save the book to. Below that, you can change the name of your book as it will be saved on the server if you edit the text in Resource name. (Be sure to keep the .book.s2 extension.)

The three buttons to the right of the server name allow you to set permissions for your book. If the first one is selected, only you will be able to edit or view your book. Use this setting if you want your book to be private. If the second one is selected, other users will be able to view your book, but only you will be able to edit the book. The third one is the default: if this is selected, everyone can view and edit the book.

And finally, there's a checkbox that's labeled Start editing. If this is selected, as it is by default, once you click Okay to save the book on the server, you'll also start editing on the server. This means that any change that you make will automatically be saved to the server. If you don't check this box, Sophie will upload the book to the server when you click Okay, but any further changes that you make won't automatically be saved.

Click Okay when you're ready to upload your book; or, you can Cancel.

Editing books on Sophie Server

If you've uploaded a book to Sophie Server and you've chosen to edit the book on the server, all of your changes will immediately be saved to Sophie Server. This is also the case if you double-click a book listed in the resources palette of Sophie Server to open it: if the book can be edited, any changes that you make will be saved to the server. You can always save a local copy of the book using Save As; generally, however, you shouldn't need to save the book when you're working on Sophie Server.

Sophie Server allows for collaboration: so more than one person at a time can edit the book. Changes are saved with the username of the person who did the edit; in the future, we'll be able to visualize who edited which sections of the book.