Productivity Storm

Installing Apps

Once you have logged in to the Sandstorm instance with your account, you will see a very straightforward menu on the left where you can select options. After logging in, you are taken to the Apps view. You can get started directly or press the large square with the plus sign (+ ), which opens the App market, and you can browse through the available apps at your leisure.

The examples chosen for this article are the GitWeb and EtherCalc collaboration tools. GitWeb supports collaboration by Git and lets you share maintenance of Git web pages. EtherCalc is a tool for collaborative spreadsheet editing. After selecting an app in the Market, the app is first downloaded to the server. Next, press Install in the Sandstorm dialog once again to add the app to your user account.

GitWeb Example

After installing GitWeb, create a new repository at the bottom of the display. In the Grain view that now opens, you can see the commands in the text box that will let you clone Git at the command line, so run the commands on the console and change to the newly created directory.

In addition to the classic Git functions, GitWeb offers its own web server. You can create content for it in the gw-pages branch; run the commands

git checkout -b gw-pages
$ echo "<h1>Hi there</h1>" > index.html
$ git add index.html
$ git commit -m "first commit"
$ git push origin gw-pages

to create this branch and add initial content for your website. The server message during the push gives you the URL where your new website can now be found. The web pages are automatically deployed to this branch on the web server with each push.

Now return to the Sandstorm web interface to share the repository you just created with your fellow workers. Select Share access at the top of the web page and choose one of two options: Invite users by email address or create a link that you can share. In both cases you need to select the desired access permissions, either read-only (CAN READ ) or read and write (CAN READ AND WRITE ).

Regardless of whether you have the system send an email or send the link you generated yourself, a share link for the grain remains valid until the grain or the share itself is deleted. An overview of all shares for a grain can be found in the Share Access dialog at bottom right after the See who has access link.

If the invited person now follows the given link, they gain access to one grain. Without an active login (i.e., in anonymous edit mode), the menu on the left side is missing. The view of GitWeb itself and the description for cloning the repository are the same as those seen by the owner of the grain, but the credentials used for the repository are different.

EtherCalc

Clicking the Create new spreadsheet link in the EtherCalc app display opens the spreadsheet with the new document. The Sandstorm frame around the document does not change. In the menu on the left-hand side, you see both the GitWeb grain and spreadsheet, which is now also listed for direct access.

To avoid losing track, you can change the names of the grains if you have several open by clicking Untitled EtherCalc spreadsheet at the top. If you use Share access to share the document after the name change, it will be shown to the other users with the new name, too. Name changes by anonymous users are accepted by the Sandstorm interface but are not saved or synchronized. If a logged-in user changes the name of a grain, this name is stored locally but not synchronized. Instead, the name used by the owner is displayed, as well.

If you want to revoke a previously shared link or the associated access to your grain, selectively delete both in the Shares overview. Unfortunately, Sandstorm does not display the link itself, but only the label you specified. You therefore have to rely on your own descriptions when deleting the links, making it essential to specify a meaningful label when you create something. After deletion, the grains in the link are no longer available; sessions opened at the same time are immediately deleted and the user will see a message to this effect.