Featured KnowledgeTree Community Project: "Wemag Online Document Viewer" by Aart-Jan Boor, Wemag Consultancy

The KnowledgeTree community is extremely fortunate to have members who are actively involved in developing and supporting open source software.

For this month's featured KnowledgeTree community project, we'll be showcasing the "Wemag Online Document Viewer" plugin by Aart-Jan Boor from Wemag Consulting.

DW: Briefly, describe this project and what it entails?

This KnowledgeTree plugin allows users to view the content of documents without downloading the document or having any special software installed on their computer.

DW: What inspired you to create this project?

Often you simply want to view a document quickly and this is exactly what this plugin allows you to do. We just wanted to support the KnowledgeTree community by adding even more functionality to the KnowledgeTree application.

DW: What business problems were you looking at solving specifically with this project?

The software has not been developed to solve a specific business problem but it is useful in many business situations. For example, if you need your users to be able to read documents on PC’s without relying on Microsoft Office software, you can use this plugin to view the documents.

DW: What other KnowledgeTree projects have you been involved with?

We have a few other open source plugins; such as a plugin that allows you to set up a default dashboard lay-out, a plugin to customize the sidebars in the KnowledgeTree interface and a plugin that allows users to browse the repository using a tree widget. All of these are available at www.ktplugins.com. In addition, we are and have been involved in numerous custom integration projects for a wide range of customers.

DW: What are the benefits that you experience from your involvement with KnowledgeTree?

KnowledgeTree enables us to help customers solve their information management problems. Our involvement provides us with useful insights and experience with the software that, in turn, allows us to deliver better products to our customers. In addition, our community work also is a great reference for potential customers.

DW: What would you say to encourage additional community participation?

Community participation involves more than just developing plugins. Contributing documentation, hints, tricks and translations are also very valuable for the community. Community participation is rewarding and every KnowledgeTree user benefits from an active an vibrant ecosystem that generates new plugins and other useful resources. Any contribution, in any form, stimulates this!

DW: What would you like to develop next for KnowledgeTree?

I think there are a lot of great opportunities to develop useful software for KnowledgeTree. A solid reporting solution, an improved online document viewer that does not require Flash, better user interface control and better data integration (metadata synchronisation, export etc.) would be very useful. We’ve not decided which we will actually develop next yet, but we would most likely update our current plugins first with improved features.

DW: With KnowledgeTree 4.0 on the road-map, which KnowledgeTree feature would you most like to see included in the next major release?)

I’m really looking forward to the revamped user interface. I think the system will greatly benefit from the new interface. I also would really like to see that this new interface is customizable using plugins.