I frequently have to access a variety of documents to do my job. Unfortunately a lot of these documents are stuck on the Portal, which whilst it can do a good job of being a document management system it does terribly at getting those documents out to people. Let me explain how getting a document normally works.
- Visit a long Portal URI, which is usually long enough that either you’re drawing a pension by the time you’ve finished typing it or it breaks across two lines on your screen so it needs copying and pasting.
- Log in, even for supposedly public documents.
- Discover I’m not at a document, but at a ‘sub-portal’ for a department with a big list of things I can read.
- Find what I want.
- Click the item, to be taken to another page where I can click another button to download it.
- Download the document.
- Open Pages, since my Mac doesn’t have Word installed.
- Tweak the document formatting so it looks right.
- Read and enjoy.
Now, I really wish I was exaggerating there, but I’m not. What I’d like to happen is:
- Visit short, sensible URI.
- Read online version with a nice layout, the ability to use my own browser accessibility etc.
- If I want it to download, click to get a PDF.
Let’s see how we can do that.