We are slowly starting to sum up this labor year, and we will begin, perhaps, with our application for iOS - " ONLYOFFICE Documents ". This year it has seriously changed in terms of functionality. It has become more independent due to the added ability to work locally, without connecting to the ONLYOFFICE portal. I got a collaboration and adapted to iOS 11 and IPhone X.



Let's tell about everything in order.

What can an application?

Here are the possibilities our application had at the beginning of the reporting period:

• Editing text documents and spreadsheets;
• View presentations and PDF;
• Convenient toolbar with everything you need to format;
• Manage documents that are stored on the ONLYOFFICE portal;
• Export documents and the ability to print them directly from the application;
• Interface in Russian, English, German and Spanish.

Here is what we wanted to do:

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• Increase the stability of the application;
• Reduce the number of failures during installation;
• Bleed security is a very important area for ONLYOFFICE as a whole;
• Adapt the application to work with new Apple.

Change language and increase stability

For the first big release of 2017, we rewrote the document management module from scratch, changing Objective-C to Swift. In our opinion, Swift is faster and safer when writing code. In addition, it is actively developed and supported by the community.



We did not regret that we decided to make changes: we managed to get rid of the outdated code and some restrictions imposed by the application architecture on the addition of new functionality, and most importantly, increase the stability of the application.

Self-sufficiency and local work

Initially, “ONLYOFFICE Documents” was conceived as an additional tool for those users who have a need to work on devices. These are familiar situations for many when you urgently need to fix something in an important document, and you’ll only have an iPhone at hand. At best - a tablet.



Over time, they began to realize the existence of demand for an alternative office suite for iOS. We have good functionality, excellent compatibility with popular Microsoft formats worldwide - in general, our application is suitable in all respects. Or not?



The percentage of failures was quite high, because to work with the application it was required to have a registered portal ONLYOFFICE. We tried to simplify the lives of users as much as possible - to create a portal in a couple of clicks, especially since you can use our free document storage solution - personal.onlyoffice.com . However, for users it all turned out to be quite serious obstacles.



To resolve this issue, we added the ability to work locally, on the device, without connecting to the corporate portal and not having it at all. Thus, our application has become a completely independent standalone office suite for iOS. In addition, it greatly simplifies the work in a situation of lack of Internet (sad, of course, but this still happens in 2017).



In addition to editing documents, other local actions appeared - exporting documents, printing, creating folders, etc.

Co-authoring has appeared in the application.

But on the way to self-sufficiency of the application, we do not forget to download functionality for users of portals. The main thing I wanted to add for them is co-editing. That is what makes working with online editors so effective.



Now in the application is available co-editing in fast mode. You can share the document with colleagues and simultaneously edit it in real time. In this case, you can work in the application, and your colleague in the web version. Or vice versa. Never mind!



As for building up the functionality as a whole, we added a long-awaited opportunity to edit the data of the diagrams and fixed errors in working with diagrams in the table editor.

New iOS 11 support

The new version of Apple's mobile OS was released in September. In her approach to some standard operations was changed, so we needed to adapt the application, which should look good on both new and previous versions of the system.



In version 2.1, we added Slide Over compatibility. Now on iPads, you can drag files between applications opened in Split View mode. To edit documents is just a gift - for example, you can add a picture to your text by simply dragging it into the editor window.







In version 2.2, it became possible to work with local files through the new system application “Files”. And support for iPhone X.

Security

This is exactly the direction in which we plan to develop ONLYOFFICE. Accordingly, the mobile application is changing: in addition to the already existing two-factor authentication, we added the SSO function. Recall that it can be configured using the services of Shibboleth, OneLogin or AD FS.



If you want to learn more about SSO, read the article in our Help Center .



The application also has the opportunity to work with text documents and password-protected spreadsheets. This works for both portal documents and documents stored on your device.

Switch between multiple accounts

It appeared in the latest version. Now you can (and we can) switch between accounts and not enter a password every time. This is very convenient if you have several portals, which, by the way, is a common situation in our company. In addition to our corporate portal, almost everyone has personal for personal purposes (sometimes even more than one) and a couple more test portals for experiments.

In general, the thing is necessary. Here's how it works:







Yes, and by the way, we have detailed and updated documentation on the functionality of the application in the Help Center . The application itself can be downloaded from the App Store , it is free. And your feedback will help us make it better, so we are waiting for your comments, suggestions and suggestions.



PS Soon there will be even more editing possibilities on mobiles, because now we are working on a presentation editor!