File template rework - Githubissues

Our current ways to manage, organize and distribute file templates is a wild mix of old code and not very accessible to admins and end users.

The server provides the possibility for a user defined directory but there is no option to change it or see which folder that is.

Additionally templates that we ship are only copied on user creation, so existing users will not get updated or new templates.

Collabora has additionally a separate config option for a user template directory and an admin Ui where admins can define instance wide templates:

Especially in larger organizations, defining and updating templates on the admin level is quite important, but also for us shipping new templates regularly this would be better way as currently those templates only reach new users.

My proposal to clean this up would be:

Add a folder picker to the files settings modal so users can have a fixed way to set, update which folder is used as their personal template directory
Add a special icon to show for the folder that is the current user template directory
Add an admin settings section where admins can upload and manage template files that are exposed to all users in the template picker dialog
Remove the Collabora settings as they get obsolete with the server ones
That way other apps like text can also make use of this

Open questions:

Should users be able to opt out of admin defined templates?
How do we want to handle our default templates?
- It probably makes sense to add them as system wide templates
- However then users cannot adjust them on their own unless there is an opt out
- Admins might still want to remove them, maybe it is the best to just have a checkbox to include shipped templates or not?

@nextcloud/designers for feedback

FYI @sorbaugh as it touches the area of files

nextcloud / server

File template rework #46455