OneDrive woes and fixes

Posted on 3 May, 2022

File box old HyperCard icon Ever since I updated my home Mac to Monterey, OneDrive has been a bit flaky. I updated the app and it has been syncing. But I could not open the app itself or click on it in the menu bar. Attempting to do so grave me a beach ball of doom. Restarting, etc had no effect.

To day my Mac at work, an older iMac with an older system presented me with the message, “The application “OneDrive.app” is not open anymore”. This persisted through a couple of force quotes, resetting OneDrive and restarting. Eventually installing a new version from the App Store and resetting allowed me to set it up again. The syncing has changed so that by default items are kept in the cloud and downloaded on the fly.

On getting home I decided to try and sort out my home Mac too. This was already running the most recent version. Resetting, rebooting several times did not work. Finally I deleted the app using CleanMyMac, to get rid of any stray bits, and reinstalled from the App Store. This then let me go through the setup process again, logging on, enabling extensions, choosing the same folder and all the rest.

I’ve set my mail school work folder to be always downloaded and left the rest in the cloud, I’ll see how this works.

The reset process seems pretty bonkers for a modern application. Opening the application package, navigating to a folder and running a command file!

Hopefully I’ve now got OneDrive sorted for a while, an maybe these notes will help someone else. I do find OneDrive an important time saving device that lets me work from home fairly seamlessly, when it works. I am lucky in that I’ve got a Mac at work, though I worry about it lasting to my retirement.

Posted on 31 January, 2021

john

Bookmarked Re: Get direct download link of a file in OneDrive for Business (TECHCOMMUNITY.MICROSOFT.COM)

Use "Get link", then use "People with existing access" to get the direct link to the file. Then, the url will be direct path to https://org.sharepoint.com/personal/user_org/folder/filename.ext?d=oiuqjaweorihjlkj Now, just remove everything after the ? and put in download=1 and magic happens. https://org.sharepoint.com/personal/user_org/folder/filename.ext?download=1

This works fine with files in Glow OneDrive even for publicly shared files.

I’ve started to use it on my class blog to share files. Here is a simple example. A PowerPoint on my onedrive, publicly shared, the first link is the standard share link, the second has the download parameter.

https://glowscotland-my.sharepoint.com/:p:/g/personal/gw09johnstonjohn4_glowmail_org_uk/EVaRRmxQ5sdLuGfRss9xM7gBW4hpamdB48iNfKbixRpOUg?e=tegAeu

https://glowscotland-my.sharepoint.com/:p:/g/personal/gw09johnstonjohn4_glowmail_org_uk/EVaRRmxQ5sdLuGfRss9xM7gBW4hpamdB48iNfKbixRpOUg?Download=1

Immersive Reader on iPad Question

Posted on 13 June, 2020

john

In the iPad version of Word immersive reader does not have (or I can’t find) the Grammar Options. I can get to the online editor in the Safari browser only by viewing the files in Onedrive, checking the radio button beside the doc and using the vertical ellipses that appear to open a menu, choose open and then open in browser.

O365 seems to want me to open word files in the iPad app.

If I am in teams I don’t have the option to open word docs in the browser.

The Grammar options look very useful but on iPad hard to get to.

A workaround for me is to screenshot the text in teams or word. Open office lens, scan the image and then send to immersive reader.

I am sure there must be a more sensible way to do this. I’d like to find it out before I suggest the workaround to my class!

Office for iOS

Posted on 23 February, 2020

john

Office for iOS

The new Office app simplifies how you work on a phone by combining Word, Excel, and PowerPoint into one app and adds mobile-first features so you can get more done all from one app. This app maintains all the functionality of the existing Word, Excel, and PowerPoint mobile apps but requires far less phone storage than using three separate apps. New features leveraging the camera help you create content in uniquely mobile ways. Additionally, the app includes a new Actions tab so you can accomplish many common mobile tasks without needing to switch between apps.

Works with Glow’s O365 education accounts.

I don’t use office apps on my phone very often except for office lens.
This looks like an interesting development.
The quote above was grabbed with the Image to text function. This seems less powerful than Lens (no immersive reader) but allows you to copy text without a trip to OneDrive/Word which is handy. For my use, as opposed to pupil’s, it should be more useful.

Posted on 8 September, 2019

john

I don’t think FirstClass likes O365 😉

Office Lens

Posted on 29 October, 2015

john

I tried this iPhone app out before the summer on the recommendation of Ian Stuart. At that time it was not integrated with O365/Glow and its main selling point seemed to be it took great pictures of whiteboards and straightened them up nicely.

Back then I gave it a try and it did that job, but not, IMO, as well as Scanner Pro. Scanner Pro is £2.99. (I like paying for apps, if you are not the customer…).

So last week when Ian mention that it was now integrated with O365 for business/school (ie Glow), I didn’t get that excited but I did download it. Not being at a conference or near a whiteboard I just did a quick scan of a newspaper and saw that it uploaded.

Continue reading →

Delve in Glow 0365

Posted on 28 October, 2015

john

Hot on the heels of Sway comes Delve. This is a sort of search engine come Pinterest for O365.

This post is just a quick note. I’ve only spent an hour or so last evening having a quick look at delve in the browser and iOS app.

I have been amazed by the results of searching. Who would have thought there were so many results for ‘voles’!

If you have a glow account it is worth heading over to O365 and opening delve from the waffle. Then just search for something.

Next step is to start a board. This is the Pinterest bit. The more folk that do this the more interesting it will get. Boards are not supported on the iOS app but appear in the works. Boards are shared, looks to me like a collection of tags. It seems to take a while sometimes for these to come through if someone else tags them.

I’ve not really spent that much time in the O365 bit of glow. I have been fairly critical of sharepoint in the past but delve looks like it might be the most interesting part of the whole O365 setup.

More info on the Glow Help Wiki.

You can opt out of sharing your stuff on Delve, but I am not sure why you would, other users only see your documents if you have share those particular docs with them.

Sway in Glow

Posted on 26 October, 2015

john

Sway has arrived for Glow users.

Sway allows you to

Create and share interactive reports, presentations, personal stories, and more.

I blogged a bit back in May.

Basically the app helps you present media online in a slick way. I’ve mostly looked at the iOS version. The different versions, Windows, web and iOS so far have different feature sets and a personal Microsoft account allows you do do slightly different things from a business/education account.

The app feels as if it is in pretty active development. Features that were coming soon in May are here.

What is particularly interesting, from my point of view, is that sways can be made public on the web and can be shared ready for remix.

This evening I used the iOS app on an iPad to build another sway (The featured image on this post is a screenshot of the borwser version of the sway, not the iPad view):

It didn’t take very long to add text and images. One difference I noticed was if I was signed into the app with a personal account I could upload video in iOS, I could not do this with my Glow account. Hopefully coming soon.

The browser app has a lot more options, including built in searches over flickr, youtube and other media sources.

It also looks like if you create or even edit a sway in the browser you cannot edit it afterwards on iOS (I might be wrong about this). I do not think either of these things are a great problem, we now know an iPad is a great content creation device and I would hope pupils would be using there camera and their own images for the most part on mobile.

Swaying in Public!

I’ve got the same feeling about the slickness of the creations as I had back in May, mostly about the ‘automatic creativity’ but the most exciting two things about Sway are public sharing and remixing.

Users have control over who the Sway is shared with and if they will allow their Sway to be duplicated by others.

Learning Opportunities

This is the first of the O365 services to allow public sharing which is very encouraging for those who see value on pupils sharing widely. I also think that the ability to remix, change and improve someone else’s creation is a important skill.

There is obviously the opportunity to discuss aspects of publishing in public, Internet safety and copyright. The copyright issue is also nicely lead into by the browser version:

We want pupils (and teachers) to understand aspects of copyright and creative commons. Unfortunately the editor does not auto-add attribution but it can be copied and pasted in the browser.

Glow Blogs?

I can embed a sway in this blog using the embed code. Unfortunately this is via a iFrame. iFrames are not supported in Glow Blogs. I do hope we can develop oEmbed like functionality in the Blogs soon in the same way as we have for ClickView video.

It looks like Sway itself supports oEmbed of other content so I’d hope that oEmbed of sways is at least under consideration.

I’ve barely scratched the surface of Sway, and look forward to seeing how it is used in Glow.

Update 11.11.2015 Glow Blogs support the embedding of sways, just paste the url to a sway into the editor: Embedding Media | Glow Blog Help.