How Locking Works
Locks in Goliath work in a similar fashion to locked files in the Finder, except that when a file is locked on a web server, the user or group that created the lock can make changes to the file while all other users will be prevented from making changes to that file.
Locks are transient in nature; a user will lock a file when they start working on it and either the server will remove the lock at some given point in the future, or the user will remove it themselves when they are done working with the file. There are 2 different types of Locks that can be supported by a WebDAV enabled web server, Shared and Exclusive. Shared locks allow a group of users to make changes to a file, while an exclusive lock will allow a single user to make changes to the file. Goliath currently only supports Exclusive locks.
Goliath will store all of a users locks between uses of the application. If you lock a set of files and quit the program, when you come back to edit them later, they will still appear to be locked. On MacOS 9 with Multiple Users turned on, Goliath will also store the locks for each user.
What locked files look like
All files that are locked by any user have a small lock icon super-imposed on the lower left corner of the item. If the item is locked by the current user on the computer, then an image of the MacOS User icon is super-imposed over the upper right corner of the item.
A file locked by the current user
A file that is not locked by the current user
Locking and Unlocking files with Goliath
Locking and unlocking files in Goliath is as easy as selecting the files that are to be locked or unlocked and selecting the approriate menu item from the Locks menu.
"Lock Items" and "Lock and Download" Menu Items
These menu items will be enabled if at least one of the files currently selected is unlocked. The second menu item will first lock the item and then make a copy of the file on your Macintosh's hard disk in a folder of your choosing.
"UnLock Items" Menu Items
This menu item will be enabled if at least one of the files currently selected is locked by the current user on the current computer.
"Claim Lock" Menu item
This menu item is used in the case where an item is locked, and the current user wants to claim the lock as their own - either they locked it on another computer or for some reason Goliath doesn't recognize the lock as beloning to the current user. Claiming the lock doesn't automatically assume ownership, however. The web server may still reject use of the lock if the user isn't properly authorized.
Why are the Lock related Menu Items Disabled?
When Goliath first contacts a server, it determines which WebDAV features are supported by the server. If the server does not support locking (it is not a mandatory feature required for WebDAV compliance), then the menu items related to locking will not be enabled.