Dear List

we’re going to add a new tool inside the upload section of the workflow (next to convert and extract tool) to offer our submitters a way to manipulate PDFs on the fly. At each file we’re adding a new function to snip (for example) coversheets, means remove the 1^st, 1^st+2^nd or last page by using qpdf in the background. The screen plugin is copied from convert tool and works fine for us:  pop up to choose from a dropdown pages-to-remove-list (1, 1+2, last), and then returns to the workflow step. Snipping works like this: we’re doing a copy from the original PDF, snip, taking the placement, remove the old PDF and add the new version including the old ones ‘placement’.

So here are my two problems:

1. The first problem is: if I have got more than one PDF files, and I snip one of the higher shown ones (e.g. 1^st of 3), the screen refreshes but only shows up this 1^st, no more files. I have to realod the browser on this page or use “update Metadata”-Button.  I tried to

• commit, commit by force, doc and eprint
• push all docids to processor
• $self->{processor}->{refresh} = 1;
• $screen->redirect_to_me_url()
• … used 1000 things from other screen plugins like MoveUp, Remove etc.

but nothing really happened. When coming back to workflow, the list is shortly wincing, but not shown at it’s full length.  This is ugly.

2. The second problem is: if I use  $self->{processor}->add_message( "warning", … ); to inform the user about the result (success, warning, error),  it seems to be a little bit very 90^th stylish, if the message is shown at the top, while action is happening at the end of the page. The messages are not in browsers focus; this is not user friendly. Perhaps, it should be a JS popup.

Any hints are welcome.
Cheers from Zürich
Jens

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Jens Witzel
Zentrale Informatik
Universität Zürich
Stampfenbachstrasse 73
CH-8006 Zürich

mail:  jens.witzel@uzh.ch
phone: +41 44 63 56777
http://www.zi.uzh.ch