Changing File from Desktop leads to conflict in browser, even if browser was not doing any changes.

[tzugen]

Steps:

• Create a new file, Test.md on a folder synced with Nextcloud client
• Add some text
• Open your browser and go to the file. It should display fine.
• Add new text using your desktop editor
• Switch back to the browser.

What happens

• The browser will show a warning "The file has been edited outside" and will show two contents side by side.
  BUT: There is actually no conflict, as the browser didn't do any change

What should have happen:
Detect that there was a change from outside and that the document in the cpollaborative editor was not changed in the meantime and just put the new document into the view.

[blizzz]

What exactly do you mean with conflict? As the message suggests, changes were done outside of the editor, and you see the document as it was loaded, and how it is currently. I would not call it a bug at all, but room for improvement. Also, a sudden reload of the file can lead to confusion (jumping cursors) and undesired changes, potentially unnoticed, when you were about to type, right when the reload happened.

[blizzz]

cc @nextcloud/designers for UX impact

[tzugen]

What exactly do you mean with conflict? As the message suggests, changes were done outside of the editor, and you see the document as it was loaded, and how it is currently. I would not call it a bug at all, but room for improvement. Also, a sudden reload of the file can lead to confusion (jumping cursors) and undesired changes, potentially unnoticed, when you were about to type, right when the reload happened.

With Conflict I am referring to the technical term that is commonly used when a common document A is modified by two parties B and C and the changes need to be consolidated into a new state. There are types of changes that cannot be automatically resolved and need human intervention.

But when a document is modified only by one Party, its a linear history and that should not create a conflict (or a confusing warning for the users).

And I don't think the point that the content could change under your eyes is really valid, because this can already happen when someone else is modifying the document using a different browser instance. (and this is actually a great feature because it allows collaborative editing)

I did not have a look in how far the server requests differ when the document is edited in another browser VS. In the Desktop app. But one possible strategy would be that the when the document changes the server send a DIFF instead of the full file and if that DIFF can be cleanly applied it is applied like any other streamed change. Only if that DIFF cannot be applied without conflicts, then and only then this warning should be shown. I would estimate that using this strategy this interrupting error message could be reduced by 50-90% depending on the type of work flow the users have.

[tzugen]

But there is no need to reinvent the wheel there. All these issues are relatively common and have been solved for example in the git program that also this repository is using...

[blizzz]

Not exactly, as you are aware when someone else is having the document open in text, and you also see the guest's cursor position.

[hugodu69]

this really looks to me as a bug :

when you share the .md file in nextcloud, in some way the text app make it visible online, which is great, but if i modify it with any other app than the online text editor (and maybe the markdown editor ? i didn't try, didn't enabled this app) it will go crazy, the changes do not show untill i connect to my account and validate that there is no conflict, and the desktop nextcloud app cannot sync the document anymore, creating a multitude of conflict messages

so this problem prevents me to modify my document outside the online text app, hence : bug

that's weird from an ux point of view : this document is a md document in my folders, i should be abble to modify it offline without conflict since i'm the ony one doing so

[tzugen]

Not exactly, as you are aware when someone else is having the document open in text, and you also see the guest's cursor position.

Yes, thats right. I guess that it won't be possible to implement this if a change is coming from external.

this really looks to me as a bug :

when you share the .md file in nextcloud, in some way the text app make it visible online, which is great, but if i modify it with any other app than the online text editor (and maybe the markdown editor ? i didn't try, didn't enabled this app) it will go crazy, the changes do not show untill i connect to my account and validate that there is no conflict, and the desktop nextcloud app cannot sync the document anymore, creating a multitude of conflict messages

so this problem prevents me to modify my document outside the online text app, hence : bug

that's weird from an ux point of view : this document is a md document in my folders, i should be abble to modify it offline without conflict since i'm the ony one doing so

Thanks for putting it in different words, not sure if I explained it so good before..

[tzugen]

https://github.com/nextcloud/text/blob/c967d0127151da5a64b770778c097a52e8b3c69a/lib/Service/ApiService.php#LL245C1-L252C5
On a cursory look this seems to be part of the problem. If I understand it right, the client will call Sync regularly, even if nothing changed in the browser (fine), but then the sync will trigger an unconditional call to autoSave, which will fail, because there is a newer file outside. But this call to autosave is not needed if no changes were done.

[blizzz]

As discussed internally today, we'd like to stress that this behaviour right now is by design, so changes to this are indeed improvements, and we also agree with the sentiment here. When implementing the change, and text does reload the document without user interaction in the scenario outlined, there must be also some sort of visual feedball/notifier for the users to be not surprised by sudden changed. It could be a popup notification for instance.