Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Service Pack 2 (12.2.0) contains a surprise new appliction - Microsoft Document Connection
What is Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Service Pack 2 (12.2.0)?
According to Microsoft, this update contains several improvements to enhance stability and performance. It also introduces a new application called Microsoft Document Connection for Mac OS X, and includes new features in Microsoft PowerPoint 2008 for Mac. In addition, this update is the minimum Office for Mac requirement for installing Microsoft Entourage 2008 for Mac, Web Services Edition.
What is Microsoft Document Connection for Mac?
Microsoft Document Connection for Mac is a surprise bonus application delivered in Office 2008 SP2 in July 2009. It makes it easier to work with files that are located on a SharePoint site or Microsoft Office Live Workspace.
It has a pretty standard Mac OS X user interface, with a toolbar and navigation pane, and the individual sites or libraries accessible in the main part of the screen. You can Create new files, add existing files from your local file system, open files for editing or check them in or out. You can navigate through locations by using the navigation bar, and then save files and locations to the navigation pane. A control that looks like a kind of breadcrumb shows the exact location within the hierarchy of a site at the top of the main screen underneath the toolbar. You can click this control to navigate
Its a very simple application, but it proves that the browser isnt the universal answer to everything. I like that it remembers my SharePoint credentials in the keychain, and has extensive keyboard shortcuts. I dont like that its only for file access - its analagous to but different to the web folders application for Windows. Theres no indication of a broader mac encompassing SharePoint application environment in this application. Its more of a utility.
I found it quite difficult to connect at first, getting an error message that I didnt have adequate permission. After the fun and games I had with Entourage accessing Microsoft Online, I was prepared for this to be difficult.
SharePoint Authentication
Once I found the Preferences and selected 'Enable Basic Authentication' it started to work for me. You can double click a name and change it, although its very un Mac like - opening a dialog box rather than just making the name editable. Once you succeed it trundles through a refresh cycle and you can use the SharePoint - its a bit like using CuteFTP or any other visual FTP tool.
Selecting a document allows you to click the check out button, which downloads the document to a local cache and opens it. The application does quite a good job of keeping track of whats been downloaded and uploaded and tries to make this part of SharePoint work well.
Keyboard Shortcuts for Microsoft Document Connection for Mac
There are quite a few keyboard shortcuts for us luddites: -
Connect to a SharePoint site - ⌘+K
Sign in to an Office Live Workspace - ⌘+L
Open a file for editing - ⌘+O or ⌘+DOWN ARROW
Open a file as read-only - ⌘+OPTION+O
Add a file from your computer to the server - ⌘+SHIFT+U
Create a new file from a template - ⌘+N
Move forward - ⌘+]
Move back - ⌘+[
Open folder - ⌘+DOWN ARROW
Its a nice tool, but one wonders why it isnt located inside the Office products themselves. I can only assume the QA would have been too disruptuve to the rest of the applications.
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