Workflow Improvements

[blizzz]

• have one app that can do copy/move/etc (so it's a "complete" rules - action - argument thing)

@jospoortvliet I understand what you mean is to have one, unified GUI for any app that takes advantage of the workflow engine

Missing pieces from #16682

Backend

• [x] Dispatcher Events: currently we rely on GenericEvents, but it is not reliable (i.e. tagging is using the deprecated Disptacher's Event subclass) and we actually have an offical API subclass (based on GenericAPI). These needs to be ironed out to work generally:
  • [x] WFE should either require \OCP\EventDispatcher\Event or find a good way for any of those. Related: https://github.com/nextcloud/server/pull/17085
  • [ ] switch File events (and move event names to constants)
  • [ ] maybe change tagging events to be based on \OCP\EventDispatcher\Event
• [ ] optimize File entity to fetch nodes from the respective userFolder, not rootFolder
• [x] ensure user-scoped rules to not access foreign objects
• [ ] OCC command for admins to manipulate the workflow, at least to disable user workflows that might be stressful for the instance
• [ ] CompoundEntity – predefined for end users: an entity with one or more checkres, e.g. "Picture" (File + mimetype) or "One on one" (direct chat).
• [ ] add more entities (see use cases)
• [ ] add more operations (see use cases)

Frontend

• [ ] Move system tag selector to vue components https://github.com/nextcloud/nextcloud-vue/pull/568
• [x] Handle validation on inputs before sending (enhancement)
• [x] Check if fetching tags incremental is working
• [x] Comments from https://github.com/nextcloud/server/pull/16706
• [x] Remove additional style import https://github.com/nextcloud/server/pull/17367#discussion_r330947557

UX

• [x] when choosing "Images" as mime type, the checker will only work when the operator is "matches", not "is"

App modifications

• files_accesscontrol
• workflow_script
• workflow_pdf_converter
• files_automatedtagging

[MorrisJobke]

cc @karlitschek

[jospoortvliet]

Here's a super simple and not pretified mockup of what I imagine it'd be able to do.

[karlitschek]

I agree with the mockup from @jospoortvliet This is how it should a unified UI should work. An additional new feature would be to make it (optionally) possible for normal users to also define workflows for themselfs. We should also have new actions like send notification or email.

@nickvergessen FYI

[blizzz]

Unifiying the UI is pre-dominantly frontend work and with this it would be reasonable to migrate this part to Vue.js, too. I can do that, but will take me some time as I am not that familiar with this frontend stack, yet.

Enabling workflows for regular users (perhaps groups?) would need deeper refactoring on the backend and we need to figure out what makes sense to provide to end users. URL criteria probably not, and external scripts neither, that'll be de-facto RCE :)

[nickvergessen]

Just for the record, as said in the meeting: I think moving them to the same sidebar entry is a good step forward. Whether they should all be in one list or something, I don't know.

The cases of access control I saw so far are quite heavy, at least mixing that in between autotagging/pdf converting/other workflow stuff sounds like creating more confusion and less overview.

[MorrisJobke]

The section was renamed in #14291 for 16. The other tasks are delayed for 17.

[juliushaertl]

I've updated the op to reflect the missing pieces from #16682 @blizzz Please extend if you remember anything else

[blizzz]

@blizzz Please extend if you remember anything else

done!

[jospoortvliet]

• [ ] figure out how to communicate moving a file. Most users won't realize that that is a 'rename', technically ;-)
• [x] figure out how to best deal with the case that users want to trigger an action when a file is put in a specific folder. This can happen because a file was moved, copied AND uploaded into a folder... In the current UI they have to add 3 filters, or at least one filter with 3 triggers, that isn't clear to users.

[blizzz]

igure out how to best deal with the case that users want to trigger an action when a file is put in a specific folder. This can happen because a file was moved, copied AND uploaded into a folder... In the current UI they have to add 3 filters, or at least one filter with 3 triggers, that isn't clear to users.

Aye, it would be good if we can multiselect the triggering events. The backend supports that.