Zukunftswerk is a platform for bilingual collaboration. Zukunftswerk provides shared workspaces for handling and commenting on various kinds of content objects (documents, notes, textblocks). Content objects are freely placed on a workspace "canvas" and can be further decorated by heading and arrow elements. Every user input is automatically translated on-the-fly by the means of the DeepL service.

The canvas is synchronized between collaborating users. There are 3 user roles: administrators (create workspaces and user accounts, manage menberships), editors (edit content objects and arrange the canvas), and users (browsing canvas content).

The Zukunftswerk application is developed by contract with the Deutsch-Französisches Zukunftswerk. The Zukunftswerk UI is fixed to German/French languages. A generalized version of this application, with configurable languages, is available as project "Linqa".

Zukunftswerk is an application for the DMX platform. Both, Zukunftswerk and Linqa are Open Source software under the GNU AGPL license.

1.6.2 -- Aug 15, 2023

• Fix: there was a bug that prevented the deletion of an user in a certain situation

1.6.1 -- Aug 1, 2023

• Fix: replying to untranslatable comment shows proper comment reference

1.6 -- Jul 16, 2023

• Features:
  • Text blocks: a new type of content object that shows both languages at the same time, colorizable, commentable, used for collaborative bilingual text creation
  • Canvas search: user can search content on current canvas, search results are highlighted in-place, when browsing search results the canvas auto-pans to respective object (animated)
  • Multi-selection: users can select multiple objects at once, editors can multi-move and multi-delete
  • Text highlighting: editors can highlight text, 7 colors available, available for notes, text blocks, and comments
  • Snap-to-grid: when moving content objects they snap to a 20px grid, rotation takes place in 5° steps
  • Object locking: administrators can lock objects to prevent unintended changes by editors
  • Admin area: in the user list an "Active" checkmark indicates whether the respective user has logged in at least once
• Improvements:
  • Usability improvements:
    • All workspace lists are sorted alphabetically (in both, user area and admin area), and are resorted when the UI language is switched
    • All bilingual text forms: a "translation modified" indicator is shown when automatic translation was modified manually, to prevent unintended overriding when redoing an automatic translation
    • Canvas: the object commands ("Edit", "Delete", ...) have bigger click area
    • Canvas: zoom-1:1 button is removed, it was not needed
    • All automatic panning/zooming operations are animated, e.g. home button, zoom-to-fit button
    • All buttons show tool tips when hovered
    • More consistent wording in UI elements
  • Rich text editor:
    • Removed 3 formats from toolbar: code, blockquote, and code-block, these were not needed
    • All toolbar buttons are placed in a single row (instead of 2 rows)
  • Login page:
    • Username/email address is handled case-insensitively
    • Login page shows no "beta" label anymore
  • Admin area: a workspace can be deleted by all team members (not only by workspace owner)
  • The DeepL API URL is configurable, so it works with both, the free, as well as the payed DeepL plan (improved in DeepL plugin)
  • Smaller DB size (improved in DMX platform: transaction log files are purged on a regular basis)
  • In case of a server/network loss an alert box is shown and the application is relaunched (improved in DMX platform)
  • Legal information: imprint and privacy statement are updated to reflect the organizational change ("IASS" -> "GFZ")
• Fixes:
  • Text containing special characters (HTML's >, &, ...) is properly translated (fixed in DeepL plugin)
  • All bilingual text forms: after pressing "translate" the translation state switches back to "automatic"
  • New workspaces are available immediately, page reload is not required
  • The workspace menu is now scrollable, in case there are a lot of workspaces
  • When switching to another workspace the canvas search is cleared
  • Downloading files (documents, comment attachments) always works on 1st attempt
  • Discussion panel: long attachment names are line-wrapped
  • Deleting a workspace (admin area) does not corrupt other workspaces (fixed in DMX platform)
  • Various view inconsistencies and layout oddities are fixed, particularly in the admin area
• Compatible with DMX 5.3

1.5 -- Sep 5, 2022

• Improvements:
  • Auto-translate document name
  • Manual-translate button is always visible (documents, notes, headings, and comments)
  • PDFs remember selected page when fullscreen is switched on/off
  • Note and heading forms have a gray background
  • Image data-URLs are not send to the DeepL service (improved in DeepL plugin)
  • Discussion panel shows a spinner while loading
  • Admin area:
    • The respective workspace owners are displayed
    • Only the owner can delete a workspace
  • Send email digests: only one mail per day and workspace (at 6am)
• Fixes:
  • Working with multiple forms at the same time works
    • The selected form appears before other forms
  • New canvas items are selected programmatically
  • New document name is shown if entered afterwards
  • New viewport zoom value is respected immediately (when pressing the Home button)
  • When switching UI language the document resize-frame adapts
  • Document discussion button appears yellow when doc-filter is set
  • Change no-workspace error text ("Du" -> "Sie")
• Compatible with DMX 5.3-SNAPSHOT

1.4 -- Aug 6, 2022

• Features:
  • New user profile dialog:
    • The user can edit her Display Name
    • The user controls whether to show her email address to other users by the means of a checkbox
    • The user can initiate a password-reset
  • Chat panel: show email-address of other users, if allowed by respective user
  • Canvas: documents can be downloaded
  • The Privacy policy text is now in place
• Improvements:
  • ZW UI language:
    • At first launch the browser's language setting is respected
    • The UI language chosen by the user is remembered
  • Canvas:
    • Item rotation is restricted to steps of 5 degrees, so resetting to 0 is easy
    • New "reset zoom" button sets the zoom back to "normal" (1)
  • Chat panel: scroll comment's OK/Cancel buttons into view when clicking Edit
  • Imprint/privacy policy: clicking the ZW logo returns to home page
  • Updated texts for the password-reset workflow
• Fixes:
  • Canvas:
    • Zoom-to-fit button works as expected
    • Editing of notes/headings when created w/o translation
    • Item selection works for participants (selected item appears on-top)
  • Chat panel:
    • Break long words in comments
    • Comments are properly rendered when logged in using uppercase in username
  • Admin area: workspace names in membership list reflect UI language
  • Images survive the auto-translation
  • Special characters in sent emails are properly encoded (both, HTML and plain text parts)
  • Client-sync:
    • Client sync for update-comment and delete-comment
    • Control box is updated when item moves
  • Redirect if user is logged in but the requested workspace is not readable
  • Missing translations are added
• Compatible with DMX 5.3-SNAPSHOT

1.3 -- Jul 7, 2022

• Features:
  • 4 new canvas buttons: "Home", "Zoom to fit", "Zoom in", "Zoom out"
  • Rotatable canvas items: Notes, Documents, Headlines
• Improvements:
  • Login:
    • User lands in recently used workspace (based on ws-cookie)
    • Workspace deep-links: request login if due
  • Canvas / PDF viewer:
    • Larger "fullscreen" toggle button
  • Chat panel:
    • Accept only images and PDFs as comment attachments
    • Use "paper plane" icon for submit
• Fixes:
  • Canvas: arrows properly follow when moving handles
  • Chat panel:
    • Editors can't edit posts (only her own)
    • Reset doc-filter on workspace change
    • New-comment placeholder text adapts to UI language
  • Header: workspace drop down is up-to-date after WS edit
  • Admin area: disable "Editor" checkbox if "Member" is unchecked
• Compatible with DMX 5.3-SNAPSHOT

1.2 -- Jun 4, 2022

• Features:
  • Client-sync for canvas items:
    • Notes, Documents, Arrows, Headings, Viewport Topic
    • Operations: Create, Move, Edit, Delete
• Improvements:
  • Auto-translation:
    • Untranslatable notes and headings can be saved anyways
    • Notes, headings, and comments can be auto-translated after creation
  • Canvas:
    • Add Note colors "white" and "transparent"
    • Draggable items show hand cursor
    • Arrows:
      • Arrows appear before other items (except selected items and forms)
      • Different mouse cursors for move-arrow vs. move-arrow-handle
    • Slightly more prominent grid in the background. The grid now zooms along with canvas.
  • Discussion panel: strip "video" button from text editor toolbar
• Fixes:
  • Login of users which are not Team members
  • Set initial viewport in zoomed topicmaps. "Persistent Viewport" feature is now complete.
  • Header: show workspace names in dropdown bilingually
  • Admin area:
    • User list shows workspace names bilingually
    • User area is up-to-date once workspace edited
  • PDF viewer works with Chinese characters
• Compatible with DMX 5.3-SNAPSHOT

1.1 -- May 6, 2022

• Features:
  • Freely editable arrows
  • Admin area: Edit/Delete of Users/Workspace
  • Editor role (selected users can create/edit canvas content of selected workspaces)
  • Colored notes
  • Persistent viewport
• Improvements:
  • Clicking on canvas deselects
• Fixes:
  • In comment-refs show Display Name (not email address)
• Compatible with DMX 5.3-SNAPSHOT

1.0.3 -- Apr 6, 2022

• Improvements:
  • Login page has a "beta" stamp
• Fixes (admin area):
  • Also the 2nd level of workspaces/users lists is sorted
  • Workspaces and Users areas are consistent after updates
  • Disable create-user button when user input is missing

1.0.2 -- rejected

1.0.1 -- Apr 4, 2022

• Improvements:
  • Show notification once password reset mail is sent

1.0 -- Apr 4, 2022

• Features:
  • Admin area (for ZW team members)
    • Create users and workspaces
    • Manage memberships
  • Notification mails (team members are notified via email about new comments)
  • PDF read mode (the entire canvas is used)
• Improvements:
  • Login page (no public access anymore)
    • Password reset dialog
  • Users are pseudonymized via "Display Name" (email addresses are never shown)
  • Comments which are not auto-translatable can be stored anyways (and manually translated later on)
  • Comment auto-translation status is shown: "automatic"/"edited"/"none"
  • Workspace selector (in case the user has more than one workspace memberships)
  • "Imprint" & "Privacy Policy" shown on to Login page (linkable)
• Design:
  • ZW corporate style guide is applied (not yet complete)
• Fixes:
  • Only team members can move canvas items
• Compatible with DMX 5.3-SNAPSHOT

0.9.1 -- Mar 1, 2022

• Fixes:
  • PDF viewer and language switch
  • Edit/Delete and non-team members
• Compatible with DMX 5.3-SNAPSHOT

0.9 -- Mar 1, 2022

• Improvements:
  • UI-less PDF viewer
  • Discussion panel: chat metaphor
  • Reply works also when doc-filter is set
  • Canvas zooms around mouse position
  • Edit and Delete functions for all types (Notes, Documents, Comments, Labels)
  • All forms have a Cancel button
• Design:
  • Redesigned discussion panel
  • Doc-filter is more visible
  • Header shows ZW logo
• Compatible with DMX 5.3-SNAPSHOT

0.8 -- Jan 15, 2022

• Data model: Notes, Documents, Comments, Labels, Arrows
• Basic UI: header, canvas, discussion panel, doc-filter
• Actions: create, reply, set doc-filter, pan, zoom, move item, resize item
• User roles: team member (authoring), participant (commenting)
• Client-sync: comments
• Compatible with DMX 5.3-SNAPSHOT