Nextcloud Hub 21 Collaboration Platform Launched

The release of the Nextcloud Hub 21 platform is presented, which provides a self-sufficient solution for organizing collaboration between employees of enterprises and teams developing various projects. At the same time, the Nextcloud 21 cloud platform underlying the Nextcloud Hub was published, which allows you to deploy cloud storage with support for synchronization and data exchange, which provides the ability to view and edit data from any device anywhere in the network (using a web interface or WebDAV). The Nextcloud server can be deployed on any hosting that supports PHP scripts and provides access to SQLite, MariaDB/MySQL or PostgreSQL. Nextcloud sources are distributed under the AGPL license.

In terms of tasks to be solved, Nextcloud Hub resembles Google Docs and Microsoft 365, but allows you to deploy a fully controlled collaboration infrastructure that operates on its own servers and is not tied to external cloud services. Nextcloud Hub combines several open add-on applications over the Nextcloud cloud platform into a single environment, allowing you to work together with office documents, files and information for planning tasks and events. The platform also includes add-ons for email access, messaging, video conferencing and chats.

User authentication can be performed both locally and through integration with LDAP / Active Directory, Kerberos, IMAP and Shibboleth / SAML 2.0, including using two-factor authentication, SSO (Single-sign-on) and linking new systems to an account. entries by QR code. Version control allows you to track changes to files, comments, sharing rules, and tags.

The main components of the Nextcloud Hub platform:

• Files - organization of storage, synchronization, sharing and exchange of files. Access can be made both via the Web and using client software for desktop and mobile systems. Provides advanced features such as full-text search, attaching files when posting comments, selective access control, creation of password-protected download links, integration with external storage (FTP, CIFS/SMB, SharePoint, NFS, Amazon S3, Google Drive, Dropbox, and etc.).
• Flow - optimizes business processes by automating the performance of typical work, such as converting documents to PDF, sending messages to chats when new files are uploaded to certain directories, automatic tagging. It is possible to create your own handlers that perform actions in relation to certain events.
• Built-in collaborative editing of documents, spreadsheets and presentations based on the ONLYOFFICE package that supports Microsoft Office formats. Full integration of ONLYOFFICE with other platform components is provided, for example, several participants can edit one document at the same time, while discussing changes in a video chat and leaving notes.
• Photos is an image gallery that makes it easy to find, share, and navigate a collaborative collection of photos and images. Supports ranking photos by time, place, tags and frequency of viewing.
• Calendar is a scheduler calendar that allows you to coordinate meetings, schedule chats and video conferences. Integration with iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, Linux, Outlook, and Thunderbird groupware is provided. Loading events from external resources that support the WebCal protocol is supported.
• Mail is a joint address book and web interface for working with e-mail. It is possible to bind several accounts to one inbox. Encryption of letters and attachment of digital signatures based on OpenPGP are supported. It is possible to synchronize the address book using CalDAV.
• Talk is a messaging and web conferencing system (chat, audio and video). There is support for groups, the ability to share screen content, and support for SIP gateways for integration with conventional telephony.

Key innovations of Nextcloud Hub 21:

• A new high-performance backend has been proposed for the storage and file sharing subsystem (Nextcloud Files), which can significantly reduce the load from periodic status polling by desktop clients and the web interface. A mechanism for delivering notifications about file changes, comments, calls, chat messages and other storage-related events has been added that supports direct connection with the client. The proposed system of server notifications made it possible to increase the period of periodic status polling from 30 seconds to 5 minutes and reduce the number of connections between servers and the client by 90%. The new backend code is written in Rust and is offered as an option.
• Performance optimizations were carried out aimed at reducing page loading time, speeding up the execution of queries to the DBMS and reducing the load on the server. Access to object stores has been optimized and work with groups in LDAP has been accelerated. In some situations, it was possible to increase the responsiveness of the interface up to two times. The unified search has been optimized. Compatibility with the PHP 8 interpreter has been ensured, which introduced a JIT compiler. Optimizations implemented in the server components related to caching, working with the database and organizing storage, in combination with the new backend, made it possible to increase the number of clients served up to 10 times.
• A new collaboration app, Whiteboard, has been added that allows multiple users to draw shapes, write text, leave notes, upload images, and create presentations. Files created in Whiteboard are saved along with regular files, but can be edited together.
• When editing text together in Nextcloud Text, you can now highlight changes made by different authors using colors.
• Added support for document templates to speed up the creation of frequently used documents. Templates for meeting reports and invitation layouts are provided as examples. Templates can be created for text documents, office documents, spreadsheets and presentations.
• The capabilities of Nextcloud Talk, an application for chat and video conferencing, have been significantly expanded:
  • Added support for status indicators that allow you to evaluate whether the sent message has been viewed by all chat participants.
  • Chat visibility settings have been implemented, which can be used to provide access to guest participants without having to be added to the chat.
  • In conferences, a “raise hand” button has been added to attract the attention of other participants, for example, when there is an intention to ask a question or clarify something.
  • Added a walkie-talkie mode (“Push to talk”) in which the microphone is turned on only while holding down the spacebar key.
  • Implemented the ability to add descriptions to chat groups.
  • The call interface has been improved: a collapsible call control panel and a mode for providing access to the entire screen have been implemented. Reduced CPU load.
  • Increased the size of image thumbnails in chat. Added support for animated GIFs. Simplified access to settings.
  • Modules have been redesigned for integration with external services such as IRC, Slack and MS Teams.
• The Nextcloud Mail email client has added support for drag'n'drop mode and the ability to create custom special folders. The threaded mode for viewing correspondence has been improved. Attachment processing has been improved and the administrator can now set a limit on the size of attachments. The ability to automatically retrieve avatars from social networks has been added to the address book (for example, using the gravatar service).

Source: opennet.ru