UK Cloud

What is UK Cloud?

UK Cloud is a place for rebels to create, store, and share documents securely with one another. With it you can collaboratively edit office documents so it is a great replacement for tools such as Google Docs.

It can also be used for a number of other things. For example, with UK Cloud you can:

• Manage a shared calendar for your XR group
• Create a Kanban board for managing projects
• Create polls and forums

Important: Individual users have no personal storage area in UK Cloud. Instead all files are the property of an XR group.

Getting access

Important: You should have already completed the steps outlined on the READ THIS FIRST page before attempting to access UK Cloud. Otherwise you will not have an account to log in to.

To access UK Cloud you can:

• Click on the UK Cloud icon on the Hub homepage. It will look like this:

• Type https://cloud.extinctionrebellion.uk into the URL bar of your browser and hit Enter. You will then see a screen that looks like this:

• Log in. The simplest way to do this is by clicking Log in with XR UK Hub.

Note: We recommend adding UK Cloud to your browser's bookmarks/favourites so it's easier to find in future.

Note: UK Cloud can also be accessed via an app so you can install it to your smartphone or tablet. Please read this guide for instructions on how to do this.

Landing page

Once you have logged in you will see a screen that looks similar to this:

We will refer to the parts of the screen circled in red throughout the rest of the document by referring to them by number in red font (e.g. 6).

Managing files

Basic tasks

Finding files

On the landing page you should see a number of folders that you have access to (13). This will include public folders that everyone can see (e.g. Library) as well as folders that are private to your XR groups.

To find a file simply click on the folders to navigate between them until you are in the right one. You can always go back to the landing page by clicking 1 or using the breadcrumbs (12).

Uploading files

To upload a file:

1. Click the button at the top of the screen
2. Select Upload File
3. Choose the file to copy to UK Cloud

Important: Although we do our best to keep the data in these tools reasonably secure, you must not post incriminating material of any kind here. By doing so you risk the authorities taking down the server, which would upset our communications severely. Not only would you risk your own arrest, but the arrest of the system administrators.

Deleting files

To delete a file click on the three dots to the right of the file and select Delete File.

Editing office documents

To edit office documents such as spreadsheets and presentations you need to:

1. Click on the three dots icon on the right of the file.
2. Click Open for editing.

This will open the file in your browser for you to modify. It even works collaboratively so other people should be able to work on the document at the same time as you.

For more information on how to use the different editors please refer to the ONLYOFFICE user guides.

Note: Unfortunately office documents cannot be edited on a mobile device. Please see here for more information.

Advanced tasks

Uploading files from Google Docs

Obviously the ideal is to move the document from Google Docs to the Library - download it from Google, upload it to your shared Library area, and then delete it from Google Docs. The Library is the shared part of the UK Cloud.

However it may be desirable to leave the document in Google's care and simply have a link to it in the Library. In this case:

1. Get a link from Google Docs - with whatever options you require.
2. Navigate to the folder where you want the link to appear (in your shared library folder if you want all rebels to have it, or in your group folder if it is private to your group).
3. Click the button at the top of the screen and select New Link.
4. Enter the name you want for the link as it will appear in the file list (doesn't have to be the filename, keep it fairly short). Don't delete the ".URL" on the end of the name. Press enter or click the arrow.
5. In the box that pops up after a second or two enter the link URL that you got from google (or any other link you want) and click Save.

And that's it. Your link will appear in the list of files, with a globe icon to indicate it is an external link:

Sharing files or folders

To share files and folders with other rebels the first thing you need to do is click on the icon to the right of the file name (circled in red below). Once you click on this icon, a menu will appear on the right hand side of the screen with three different sharing options (labelled 1, 2, and 3 in the screenshot below).

The different types of sharing are:

1. Share with someone else in your group

   To share a file with people in your group, click the icon next to Internal link (1 in the screenshot below). This will copy the link to your clipboard where it can then be pasted into an email, Mattermost message, etc.

2. Share with a particular user or group

   To share a file or folder with a specified user or group, type the name of the user/group into the box (2 below). As you type, a list of different users/groups should appear below where you are typing. Click on the user/group that you want to share the file or folder with. Please don't do this unless the person or group you are sharing with really wants the share - otherwise you will clutter up their All files page with shares they don't want, and have to delete. The default is to share stuff so people can edit it, but you can alter the permissions with the ... menu next to the share.

3. Sharing with everyone on the Internet Click the + sign next to Public Share Link (3 above). This creates a public share that anyone on the Internet can use, without having a login on UK Cloud. The share will be listed below, with a clipboard icon so you can copy it to your clipboard, from where you can paste it into any program (e.g. Mattermost or email). By default the share will be read only, with an expiration date, but you can change that with the ... menu. Obviously, please don't share any stuff that should not be public, especially including identifying details of people (unless you have their explicit permission in writing). Remember, if you share a folder, people can access everything in the folder and all its subfolders.

Creating and editing text files

To create a text file:

1. Navigate to the folder you want to create the file in.
2. Click the button at the top of the screen and then click New text document.
3. Enter the name for this document (e.g. minutes.md).

The empty file will now open in your browser for you to edit. You can click on the icons at the top of the page to do things like create headings and lists and make text bold or italic. If you prefer you can also use Markdown syntax to add formatting. This is very similar to what you can do in Mattermost and the UK Forums.

The file will be automatically saved when you close it.

Undeleting files

1. If you want to find that Deleted File, click 'Deleted Files', bottom left of UK Cloud screen, and search the resulting Deleted Files List for the lost File.
2. You may have to put the File Name into Search to help, as the Deleted File List may be long.
3. Also, if it is a recently deleted File, then ensure the List displays Recent First (toggle the up/down arrow).
4. Find the File, click 'Restore' and the File will be returned to its Folder.

Changing the order of UK Cloud's header icons

In the browser view of UK Cloud there is a row of icons at the left hand end of the yellow header bar:

These link to the internal cloud apps (files, polls, forms etc) and some external websites.

As the screen width is reduced the icons flip from the right into a three dots drop-down menu.

The default order of the icons is: Files | Activity | Calendar | Deck | Polls | Forms | UK Hub | UK Forum | Mattermost | UK Website

You can customise the order to suit your requirements:

1. Click on your Avatar in the top right of the header and select Settings.

2. In the left hand pane select App Order. Uncheck any you don't want displayed and drag the remaining ones into the order you want.

Click away to something else and your ordering will be saved.

Other tools

Calendar

You can access the calendar by clicking on the correct icon at the top of the screen (3). For information about how to use it please take a look at the official documentation.

Deck

Deck is UK Cloud's project management/Kanban tool. You can access it from the top of the screen (4). Some documentation about how to use the tools can be found here.

Polls

A tool for doing simple polls. It can be accessed from the top bar (5).

Forms

A tool for doing questionnaires. You can find it from the top menu (6).

Further information

Why don't we have personal storage space?

Everyone’s Cloud account has 0 bytes of storage in their personal folder. This is for security reasons - if everyone had personal space, there would be nothing to stop someone uploading illegal material to their (fake) account, then reporting it to the police so they raid XR and shut down the servers.

Everyone has access to the read-only Library, and people in an XR group which has requested storage have full read-write access to their group’s storage (where we trust other members of the group would spot suspect files, and remove them).