The Nextcloud Polls App is a social and communication tool that allows you create, share, and implement access options for polls. For example, if you want to create a poll only open to a specific group of users, this app makes it simple.

In this special edition blog, we’ve interviewed the creators behind the Nextcloud Polls app: Vinzenz and René. Read on to discover their stories and how the Polls app came to be!

Meet Vinzenz and René

Tell us about yourself!

Vinzenz: I studied Computer Science in Tübingen, Germany focusing on 3D topics and graduated in 2015. During my studies, I was amazed by free and open source software, so I began to switch to Linux on all my work-related computers. I discovered alternatives to proprietary software but also still had to be able to work together with other students and their proprietary software. This wasn’t always easy – especially back in 2009! Back then, MS Windows and it’s Office suite were the default and could be acquired by students for free at the university. Now, over the last six years, I work as a software developer at the university and help institutions that want to have cultural heritage digitized in 3D. Besides my job, my hobbies are playing football (soccer) and (landscape) photography.

René: First, I have to mention, that I never learned programming and never wanted to be a programmer. I have an economic education and studied economics. However, I always loved to automate things and make routine work easier; out of pure laziness. In the 80s, I started to try programming in GW-BASIC and pure batch files, later dBase and Clipper, VBA and VB. I sometimes earned some money with that, but it was all just for fun or done as a hobby.

Why did you develop this app and publish it?

Vinzenz: Back in the late 2000s and early 2010s, there wasn’t much awareness for data privacy and cloud services such as Dropbox or Doodle offering easy to use and “free” applications. Learning groups and even professors have been using these services to share documents and schedule appointments or exams. By then, my web development skills were far from good and I only used HTML, PHP and other (outdated) web languages at school and the university. However, I wanted to create a better and FOSS Doodle. There have been some alternatives like Dudle, but I wanted to have a solution where all polls I attended on, created or shared with me are in one place. That is, not have to have another account or host another software. At the time, I used ownCloud despite the learning curve for such a big app. Luckily, someone already had the same idea as me and released a polls app for ownCloud. This allowed me to start working on smaller parts of the app instead of starting one big project. This was back in 2014. In late 2015/early 2016, unfortunately the developer no longer had time to maintain the polls app so we decided that I take over development and released “my” first version (0.6.9).

René: Initially, I was searching for an app that could help me organize meeting polls for a sports club where I was volunteering at. I found polls and ownCloud and judged it as quite usable for our purpose. Vinzenz was the maintainer of the app in these days, which he forked from another app. In 2017, I wrote my first change request for this app. A few months later, I contributed my first pull request and then things evolved.

How was the development experience?

Vinzenz: It was really easy to start working on smaller parts and fixing bugs in existing features. Later on, it took more time to keep the app up-to-date. When I started my job in late 2016, I had to accept that developing a large software from scratch as well as learning a couple of web frameworks already took a lot of time. Nextcloud also has their own frameworks and APIs. With every new release and possible changes, I had to do a lot more research and investigation of these changes. Doing this after doing the same in a full-time job I realized that I can not work on the polls app the way I’d like to, to get a feature-rich polls app.

René: It was tough in the beginning because the learning curve was very steep and all I used was git and a text editor. However, it was quite impressive how low the barrier for cooperation of total strangers was. The communication on GitHub was straightforward and there was an absolute understanding of the people involved. This cured the pain with the local dev environment. I really enjoy the focused way development within the community works. As the development environment developed further, it was more fun. For me personally, all experiences help me to keep up with the times and handle developers at the same eye level.

What are Nextcloud Polls best features?

Vinzenz:

• Flexibility with different poll types
• Integration into the Nextcloud ecosystem

René: I would say it (Nexctloud Polls) is an absolute replacement for comparable commercial tools. Also, the features you have to pay for when using the competitors tools are included in ours for free.

Have you had any feedback from the community yet?

Vinzenz: There has always been a lot of feedback from the community which I really, really appreciate! This showed me that this app is needed and helps a lot of users in their daily routine. Also the feedback from the dev community was awesome! Especially René helped to push the app forward and in 2018 he took over development when I couldn’t find the time to maintain it. Since then, he’s puts in a lot of work and effort into it to develop new features and keeping everything up to date.

René: Unfortunately, not as much direct feedback as I’d wish. However, since Polls was voted in the top 20 apps of Nextcloud, I think we did a good job until now.

What are your plans for the future with the app?

Vinzenz: Whatever René’s plans are!

René: There are still some key features missing that I would like to make a reality. One thing is a smart calendar integration (a heavily desired feature judging from the change request on GitHub). The other thing is to offer public poll creation.

The post The Nextcloud Polls app: Meet the developers! appeared first on Nextcloud.

Whether you’re an amateur, experienced or an expert developer, our tutorials will prepare you for developing apps for Nextcloud.

We focus on open source app development and are commited to providing our community all the tools they need to transform their ideas into real Nextcloud apps.

Why Nextcloud Apps?

So what are you waiting for?

Read on to discover our brand new Nextcloud App development tutorials!

Developing a complete app

If you have a groundbreaking idea for an app, now’s your chance to develop it from scratch!

In this tutorial, you will learn how to develop a complete app with a navigation bar and database.

After the tutorial you will know how to:

• Create a stand-alone app with a navigation menu
• Use the database
• Extend Nextcloud’s API with your app’s endpoints
• Export data that is stored by your app in the database to a file

Add automated tests to your app

After you’ve set up your own app, you can learn how to configure automated tests for it!

Learn how to use GitHub Actions – a continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) platform allowing you to automate your development workflow. With GitHub Actions, app developers don’t have to deploy a test environment for all the different Nextcloud, PHP and database system versions.

You’ll see just how convenient it is to have tests being triggered automatically so they are running for each pull request.

After the tutorial you will know how to:

• Use GitHub Actions to set up a specific Nextcloud test environment
• Configure which tests to run
• Implement tests
• See if the tests ran successfully

Basic troubleshooting techniques

Is your app not functioning as expected? Do you not know why the code is not working properly?

This tutorial will teach you how to:

• Restart your Nextcloud instance
• Access the browser console
• Get the Nextcloud.log file

EXTRA: Set up a test environment – Reproducing bugs and testing PR’s

For those working on the core of Nextcloud, you can learn how to set up an easy test environment using Simon’s Nextcloud Easy Test Instance.

This is a super quick instance using docker for Nextcloud to quickly launch different versions of Nextcloud which is great for reproducing bugs, testing PR’s, and user testing UX changes.

After this tutorial you will know how to:

• Set up a local Nextcloud environment for testing purposes
• Test PR’s for Nextcloud
• Quickly reproduce bugs on different Nextcloud versions and get logs
• Set up multiple environments for user testing UX changes

The post Develop your own Nextcloud Apps: Check out our new tutorials! appeared first on Nextcloud.

In this blog, we show you 9 most popular Nextcloud features, apps and functionalities that allow your government organization to come full circle and be digitally sovereign.

1. File Drop for End-to-End Encrypted folders

You may already use File Drop – the Nextcloud feature that allows your external personnel, clients and partners to easily upload files to a secure cloud folder through a hyperlink.

With the new Hub 4 (Nextcloud 26) release, File Drop now includes the option to upload into End-to-End Encrypted folders for increased security in your government organization. Receive confidential files in a secure, trustworthy way without worrying about security breaches. It’s simple, secure and a no fuss file exchange.

2. Persistent Versions

When using your Nextcloud Office in the cloud, you never have to worry about losing data if your computer suddenly shuts down or you accidentally exit your tab. That’s because of Nextcloud’s versions. Whenever you leave your work (intentional or not), the last copy will always save automatically and be available to revert back to.

With Hub 4, you are able to name versions so you can easily identify your copies and go back to them if or when needed. For example, you could name the first version of your document “original,” the second draft “Jane’s edit” or lastly “final draft.” Persistent versions are extremely beneficial when collaborating on a project, in confidential cases and for content writing. You can rest assured that any version created is saved as long as you want, and will never be deleted.

3. Shared mailboxes

Having a shared mailbox is an excellent tool for teams that have to cooperatively manage their communication. Shared mailboxes were developed for transparency, information sharing and inbox management.

The way shared mailboxes work so seamlessly is through ACLs or Access Control Lists. ACLs enable users to share their email folder with other users in the instance – without even sharing a username or password. ACLs even let you hide certain folders or mailboxes from other users, so just the primary inbox is shared.

There are many great use cases for shared mailboxes:

• IT support teams – users easily share the account and have access to all data
• Maternity leave or holiday replacements – the replacement user can take over the mailbox without the person temporarily leaving losing access
• Shared work roles – users can pick up work ad hoc and stay informed

4. Office template creation

Government offices often have lots of paperwork circulating for several different use cases. For example, immigration and housing forms. In Nextcloud Office, users have the ability to create customizable templates that can be used over and over again. Choose any font, style or format for your template and name it so it’s easily identifiable.

Templates can be created for documents, presentations and spreadsheets in Nextcloud Office.

5. File Retention

File retention is the ability to have control over if and/or when your files get deleted. For instance, if you’re working on a short-term, highly confidential project, it would be smart to have the files be deleted after a certain period of time. With file retention, you can set up these functionalities and rest assured that data you don’t want is permanently deleted.

File retention and deletion can also be controlled based on tags set manually or automatically, ensuring legal or practical requirements for the longevity of data lifespans can be enforced.

6. Nextcloud Tables: Microsoft SharePoint alternative

Nextcloud Tables is an on-premises, open source SharePoint lists alternative that lets customers track data that is relevant to their organization, such as expenses, projects or sales leads.

The built-in app enables customers to build, manage and work with data structures, putting together easy ‘apps’ and connecting them to various other components in Nextcloud for automation. The flexibility of Tables allows users to tailor the table to their specific needs.

Many organizations use Nextcloud Tables for privacy and compliance reasons.

7. File firewall

File firewall’s monitor who’s entering and leaving your documents and decides whether or not to allow or block specific traffic based on a defined set of rules.

In Nextcloud, sharing can be restricted through the file firewall, with the ability to filter on user properties like location or group, or file properties like (automatically or manually) assigned tags, file type and more.

8. Group folders

Nextcloud’s group folders app allows admins to create groups of users with special permissions. For instance, the admin can configure the users’s ability to write, share and delete documents within the folder as well as control how many gigabytes are used. The benefit of group folders is the level of control you have over your teams and the ability to scale up.

Especially for organizations or governments that value strict management and policies, group folders allow you to take full control over your data and be a digitally sovereign entity.

9. Nextcloud Office watermarking

Watermarking helps protect confidential information, like your assets or branding, and ensures the validity of a legal document.

In Nextcloud, you can easily enable watermarking in ‘secure view settings’ and customize them too with placeholders like, “confidential” or “copyrighted.” To create a simple workflow, you can create a tag that will automatically watermark your documents every time it’s used. When you open the watermarked document, you can see the date, time and user who accessed the file. Watch the video for a demo!

Nextcloud watermarking is available in Nextcloud Office (with Collabora Online) and ONLYOFFICE.

The post 9 Nextcloud features for Government users appeared first on Nextcloud.

Nextcloud Text is perfect for note-taking, outlines and templates and it is also used in some other apps like Collectives for the text editing component. When you want to work in a simple and uncluttered environment, Text is your ideal choice. It offers a variety of rich formatting options without the more advanced functionalities of a complete office app like Writer in Nextcloud Office. The Text App saves its files as ‘markdown’ files which is very popular among writers, bloggers and techies alike.

Calling all developers!

Like any app, Text gets regular updates, bug fixing and development, and it is a great place to get started contributing to Nextcloud! Several Nextcloud developers, like Max and Jonas who developed the Collectives app, got their first contributions to Nextcloud in through Text. And if you get involved, you’ll certainly encounter them, triaging issues and fixing bugs!

Do you:

• Already have experience programming?
• Are familiar with tools y.js, vue.js and tiptap?
• Curious to learn about new technologies?

Then you should contribute to the Text App!

The tools being used (y.js, vue.js, tiptap) are all built by people who know their craft, have looked into the problems in depth, and found innovative solutions which makes Text a great place to learn how to build up code for those with some experience in programming.

About y.js

y.js was implemented to solve the problem of merging conflicts while collaborative editing. Dealing with these conflicts is a very interesting challenge that people have studied for decades. The requirement for combining the changes of different people was to have a certain order: the changes of person A would be merged first, then the changes of person B, etc., even if the changes of person A and B were made at the same time. The order has to be respected. This means the submission of the changes was often out of order, changes had to be resubmitted, and the user experience was not smooth. y.js was invented between 2016 and 2020 as part of a research project, and it became the first widely used implementation of a CRDT (conflict-free replicated data types) algorithm for shared editing. CRDTs allow collaborating without worrying about the resolution of conflicts. This means we can allow accepting the changes even if they arrive in different orders. The implementation of y.js in Text resulted in great improvements for the performance and user experience.

Getting started

In the Text repository, there’s a very accessible entry-point for new contributors: all issues are triaged, feedback on pull requests is provided fast, and the team is continuously investing in reducing technical debt.

To get started, a variety of ‘good first issues’ are ready for you! Some of the issues just require a one line change in the code and are a very accessible starting point to get some confidence, while other issues are detailed and provide a great chance to learn how the code is structured. Overall, all issues contain elaborate explanations and help is available if you get stuck!

With that, let’s get going!

The post Contribute to the Text app: the hidden gem! appeared first on Nextcloud.

The Developer Tutorial Series is a program where we help developers improve their coding skills by providing them the tools and step-by-step guides on a variety of topics to succeed.

Nextcloud Dashboard

The Dashboard is where you start your day. You have your cup of coffee or tea in hand, and are ready to start your work.

Who messaged you? Do you have an important email to answer? With Nextcloud Dashboard, you have a quick overview of everything happening in your Nextcloud and can get a productive head start to your day. It makes it easy to pick up where you left off on a project through the Deck widget, for example, or an upcoming Task.

There’s a whole variety of widgets to choose from, and with some practice you can even make your own!

Start Customizing your own Widget!

Have an idea for a new widget on your dashboard? After completing our fourth tutorial, you will know how to create widgets in Vue.js, an open source, front-end JavaScript model.

Vue.js is mainly utilized for building user interfaces and single-page applications and is known to be a progressive and approachable framework. Learn more about Vue.js here.

In the written tutorial, we first teach you how to create a simple dashboard widget using pure (or vanilla) Javascript and then you will learn how to do it successfully on Vue.js.

We hope you learn from and have fun with this tutorial!

If you have any questions or want to share your new widget, post in the forums!

The post Developer Tutorial #4: Create Dashboard Widgets with Vue.js appeared first on Nextcloud.

Nimisha lavora con Nextcloud da quasi due anni, iniziando come collaboratrice ed entrando subito dopo in azienda.

Oggi si unisce a noi per parlare del viaggio che ha portato alle nuove foto di Nextcloud che tutti conosciamo e amiamo!

Anche prima di questa versione, l’app Foto era solo un luogo per visualizzare le foto sulla tua istanza. Si può dire che l’app Foto è stata molto amata dalla comunità, e molti di voi l’hanno utilizzata per tenere i propri ricordi al sicuro, protetti e a portata di mano.

L’ultima versione di Nextcloud ha portato con sé la più grande revisione dell’umile app Photos, includendo un editor di foto, album collaborativi e persino il riconoscimento di volti e oggetti!

Il viaggio verso le foto 2.0

C’è sempre stata un’enorme quantità di attività intorno all’app Photos nella comunità. I forum erano sempre pieni di idee su nuove funzionalità che potevano essere implementate e su vecchie funzionalità che non erano più così utili. Così, mentre eravamo presi dalla frenesia di fare brainstorming su come rendere questo il più grande aggiornamento di Nextcloud di sempre, ci siamo rivolti a help.nextcloud.com!

La visione iniziale di Photos from Frank era una base. Questo numero del 2019 contiene l’idea originale di cosa potrebbe essere Photos. Poi abbiamo cercato nel forum e nell’issue tracker le funzioni più richieste di Photos.

Album collaborativi

Gli album collaborativi sono stati un grande successo. Molti hanno detto che questa era la cosa che li tratteneva dal passare completamente a Nextcloud. Ci sono stati diversi progetti ben studiati su come potrebbero funzionare gli album, ma anche alcuni che pensavano che gli album esistessero già, quindi era un ovvio candidato per una nuova funzione.

Riconoscimento di volti e oggetti

Il riconoscimento dei volti e degli oggetti è stato molto popolare tra le richieste. Sebbene nel 2019 sembrasse una funzione futuristica e avanzata, con l’app Recognize di Marcel il dilemma sembra essere stato risolto: la scelta tra la privacy e la comodità di una categorizzazione basata sulle macchine è diventata obsoleta – perché non avere entrambe le cose? Per saperne di più sul riconoscimento facciale e sull’app Recognize, leggi qui.

Le questioni che erano poco presenti nell’elenco delle priorità sono state messe a fuoco. Una griglia dinamica, in cui la griglia delle foto non contiene un numero fisso di colonne per ogni riga, era una richiesta di funzionalità che era esattamente in linea con l’idea di aggiornamento delle foto.

Modifica delle foto

Abbiamo anche esaminato il principale concorrente dell’attuale app Foto – Google Foto – per vedere se c’erano delle caratteristiche essenziali che avrebbero colmato il divario. Una caratteristica interessante è la possibilità di modificare le foto. Sebbene un vero e proprio editor di foto non sia stata una funzione molto richiesta, molti utenti hanno menzionato il processo di ritaglio e rotazione delle immagini come un processo macchinoso (vedi qui). Dopo aver approfondito l’implementazione di questa funzionalità, abbiamo scoperto che in realtà era abbastanza facile avere un editor completo utilizzando la libreria open source chiamata Filerobot Image Editor, e così è stata inserita nell’elenco finale delle funzionalità!

Tutti questi miglioramenti sono stati possibili grazie a te, la comunità. Vorremmo ringraziare tutti coloro che hanno partecipato alle discussioni per la creazione di Photos e tutti coloro che hanno partecipato alla creazione, al test e al feedback sulla nuova app Photos.

Partecipa al prossimo miglioramento!

Vuoi essere più coinvolto? Consulta il nostro issue tracker su Github o avvia una nuova discussione su questo forum! Siamo sempre entusiasti di ascoltare le tue idee!

The post Come siamo arrivati al nuovo Nextcloud Photos appeared first on Nextcloud.

1. I link si trasformano in widget

Nelle chat di Talk, i link inviati si trasformano istantaneamente in widget che forniscono una visione completa di ciò che ha inviato. Può trattarsi di anteprime di pagine web, video, documenti, carte Deck e altro ancora. Sono molto più delicati per l’occhio e si fanno notare, in modo da non perdere mai più un collegamento o un compito.

2. Creare un sondaggio nella chat

Può creare un sondaggio direttamente nella messaggistica di Talk!

In una chat di gruppo, clicchi semplicemente sulla graffetta a sinistra della barra della chat e trovi l’opzione “crea nuovo sondaggio”. Crei una domanda e aggiunga tutte le risposte che desidera.

Idee per i sondaggi:

1. Chieda come sta andando la giornata del suo team
2. Chieda quando il suo team può organizzare una cena natalizia
3. Chieda quando è meglio riprogrammare una chiamata di squadra

I sondaggi sono un ottimo modo per interagire con il suo team e ottenere risultati rapidi per prendere decisioni su base giornaliera!

3. Opzioni di benessere digitale

Nella realtà digitale di oggi, ci sono innumerevoli distrazioni che arrivano da tutte le direzioni e che la distolgono dal lavoro effettivo che deve svolgere, oltre a creare un ambiente di lavoro opprimente. Tenendo presente la sua salute mentale, abbiamo alcune opzioni per lei:

1. Selezionare le notifiche di chiamata – Se desidera avviare una chiamata all’interno di una grande chat di gruppo ma deve notificare solo alcune persone, può selezionare i partecipanti individualmente e inviare loro una notifica di chiamata. In questo modo si evita di disturbare gli altri che non hanno bisogno di unirsi.

2. Inviare un messaggio senza notifica – A volte i messaggi non sono urgenti e lei non vuole disturbare un collega..

3. Pulsante “non disturbare” – Tutti hanno bisogno di uno di questi! Nelle impostazioni di Nextcloud, attivi automaticamente l’opzione “non disturbare” al di fuori degli orari di lavoro da lei scelti.

4. Scadenza per i messaggi di chat

Nelle impostazioni della sua chat Talk, può attivare la scadenza dei messaggi per 1 ora, 8 ore, 1 giorno, 1 settimana o 4 settimane. Questa è un’ottima opzione se desidera che tutti i messaggi di una chat vengano eliminati dopo un certo periodo di tempo:

Conversazioni riservate

Conversazioni quotidiane e informali che non sono importanti

Progetti a breve termine

Nel complesso, l’opzione di scadenza dei messaggi agisce come una pulizia “automatica” per i messaggi in una chat, tuttavia può sempre scegliere di eliminare manualmente interi messaggi o di cancellare la chat stessa.

5. Si integra con Deck e Office

Deck

Poiché Nextcloud è una piattaforma di collaborazione all-in-one, il nostro obiettivo è quello di integrare profondamente le nostre applicazioni tra loro, in modo che lei possa lavorare in modo più efficiente in un unico luogo. Per esempio, se sta lavorando in Deck e vuole condividere una scheda con un collega in quel momento, è sufficiente cliccare su “invia a una conversazione” e la scheda verrà immediatamente inviata a una chat Talk di sua scelta e visualizzata come widget.

Office

Sapeva che può creare un nuovo file, un foglio di calcolo o una presentazione direttamente nella sua chat?

Diciamo che sta messaggiando con il suo manager che sta parlando di una nuova strategia e le viene una grande idea. Prima di dimenticare il suo pensiero, apra rapidamente un nuovo file di testo all’interno della sua chat e annoti le sue note. Efficiente e semplice.

Tutte le novità di Talk in Nextcloud Hub 3!

Recensioni di Nextcloud

The post 5 funzioni di Nextcloud Talk che non conosceva appeared first on Nextcloud.

Perhaps the Cookbook app brought you joy to store all your favorite recipes, or the Bookmarks app helped you organize your favorite websites.

But what if you have the best idea for an app that would help you and others, but nobody has done it yet?

What if we told you YOU could develop one yourself?

Well, we are happy to announce that we now offer Nextcloud App development tutorials!

Nextcloud App development tutorials

It’s hard to get into the coding world sometimes even with all the information out there.

Tutorials offered online are often very hard and stressful to follow and leave you feeling defeated and disappointed.

We are offering a different approach.

Our tutorials are:

• Written in a language that does not assume pre-knowledge
• Meant to enable any developer who wants to enter into the world of Nextcloud
• Tested by someone who is not a developer, to ensure the tutorials are easy to follow

So if you lack extensive coding experience or are hesitant to start, we are providing you with all the guidance, instructions and support you need in these new tutorials.

What’s inside?

In the Nextcloud folder – Nextcloud app development tutorials final – we are providing tutorials for:

• Setting up a development environment
  • Tutorial for Mac
  • Tutorial for Ubuntu
• Developing a simple files plugin

More coming soon!

We love to support our community

We really want to provide our community members the best experience possible, especially if it’s their first attempt at a Nextcloud coding project! Our goal is that these tutorials put you at ease and help flatten the learning curve.

See what some participants have already said about our development tutorials:

“Great job! This is certainly a much better experience than I had bootstrapping my first app back then. Very approachable .”

– theCalcaholic , NextcloudPi Developer

“Thank you so much. This is really very helpful for me. I am looking forward to further tutorials.”

– olheem

Already an expert?

Help the next generation of #Nextcloud app developers and contribute to this project!

We need:

• Create tutorials about setting up a development environment in the same format for other operating systems
• Help with answering the questions that arrive on the forum posts [1] [2]

The post Nextcloud App Development Tutorials: 1 step closer to creating an app! appeared first on Nextcloud.

The organizational chart the team created is a new feature of the Nextcloud Contacts App. Using just one open source library, you can have an entire organizational chart be created in seconds from your contacts list.

Starting with the head of the organization or company, a list of employees under different heads, managers, and teams can all be made into a visual dream.

The organizational chart is perfect for the HR manager or team of any organization or business, as it works swiftly and is a place that can keep track of all the changes in staffing occuring all the time. For other employees in the organization, it’s a great visual to understand the hierachy in the organization and to be able to play around with the different teams and their leaders.

Visually appealing, interactive, and versatile, this new organizational chart is a must have! No more manual work, it’s now all automatic and easy, thanks to our hackers.

Also available is a single pull request for the code from the Contacts app.

To hear it from the team lead herself, watch the demo video below!

This feature is available now in the Contacts app. The team already has an open GitHub for improvements.

Under the team lead Shieva Saavedra, Manuel Castro, Juan Manuel Tejonero Valdes, Alba Real Aragón, and Vassilis Kritharakis all received the 2nd prize at the NextGov Hackathon and were awarded €3,500 for their time, efforts, and talents in creating the new Contacts feature. We thank them all for their work and dedication at the event, and in improving Nextcloud which in turn will hope to encourage public administrations to switch to more secure, open source cloud solutions.

Stay tuned for features of the rest of the winners on #AppTuesday!

The post 2nd Prize Hackathon Winner Creates Organizational Chart Feature in Contacts appeared first on Nextcloud.

At our recent NextGov Hackathon, Arne Hamann from Germany had a clear goal for his idea: make the maps app collaborative. Prior, the features were minimal, and there was no possibility for interaction between others. Now, thanks to Mr. Hamann’s talent and efforts, you can collaborate with family, friends, or colleagues in Nextcloud Maps.

To do this, you first create a new map under the default. You can name it anything you like, for example, “Bike Tour in Europe.” Then you can create your route, and add stops along the way in the form of tags. These tags will show up as pictures on the map, seen below.

To add family and friends, just share it with them using the sidebar and they will not only be invited to see the map, but can make comments too. It’s a great space to discuss trip plans with the map visual as a very helpful tool.

In addition, you can also share your live location and allow others to add theirs. This is of course helpful during a trip, especially for a bike tour, when people are moving at different speeds or break off in groups. Want to meet up for lunch on the way to the next destination? Share your location and tag a new picture to the map so everyone can find it, and you.

There’s so many new possibilites with the new collaborative app, so we encourage you to try it out!

To see a wonderful demo of collaborative Maps, check out the video below:

Arne Hamann received the 1st prize at the NextGov Hackathon and was awarded €5,000 for his time, efforts, and talent in creating the new Maps features. We thank him for his work and dedication at the event, and in improving Nextcloud which in turn will hope to encourage public administrations to switch to more secure, open source cloud solutions.

Stay tuned for features of the rest of the winners on #AppTuesday this month!

Edit: Collaborative maps is based on a new maps frontend, therefore this needs to be released before the collaborative maps can be released. The release of the new frontend is scheduled for July 18th and the collaborative maps feature will come out with Nextcloud 25 or 25.0.1. release. Thank you for your patience!

The post Plan your next trip with Nextcloud Maps! New Features! appeared first on Nextcloud.