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Annotate this!

July 28th, 2011 by cstephenson

Over the past 12 months (or maybe longer) and I have been involved with 2 separate projects to integrate Daeja ViewONE Pro with Alfresco.

Daeja ViewONE Pro is a java applet designed to allow users to apply annotations to any* document.  That is just the starting point.  The applet has been developed whereby an implementer can interact with it via javascript to enhance the user experience.  The implementer can also dynamically change what controls and features are available to a user based upon the user’s role and permissions within the CMS.  I could go on but I would probability end up repeating Daeja’s website :)

(more…)

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Posted in Alfresco, Alfresco Development, Webscripts | No Comments »

Beginner Thoughts on Alfresco Architecture

February 15th, 2011 by jhsu

If you asked me three months ago if I enjoy developing to Alfresco’s repository and Share UI (specifically Enterprise 3.3.3), it would have been a frustrated “NO…” — Not frustration about WANTING to learn a new product, since that is always exciting and challenging, but frustration on not understanding the architecture, the BIG PICTURE, to know how to use the product.

I’m not going into any deep personal thoughts on Alfresco ECM architecture today; rather I am going to share my thoughts on working with the Alfresco repository and the Alfresco Share UI from a software developer’s standpoint that had (almost) no prior experience with Alfresco, or ECM platforms in general.

I am relatively new to Armedia, and went headfirst into learning Alfresco ECM.  NOTE! It is generally a good idea to get a “crash-course” in a new product from a product expert before jumping headfirst into a new product, even if Alfresco has thorough documentation via their Wiki (http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Main_Page).  My coworkers and I had the pleasure to have an “Alfresco Architecture Crash-Course” presentation shared with us from Dimy Jeannot who was working on another Armedia Alfresco project.

The high-level architecture is as seen below.  Any numerous UI technology, frameworks, etc are represented by the presentation layer (Alfresco Share, jQuery, EXTJS, etc).  The presentation layer can communicate with the Alfresco repository, or via Alfresco data web scripts (data layer).

High-Level Alfresco Architecture

High-Level Alfresco Architecture

The more detailed Alfresco architecture is seen below; we use the Alfresco Share UI as our example here.  Share, and any custom Share code you write, calls RESTful presentation and/or data web scripts.  These web scripts, in turn, communicate directly with Java Core Services exposed by Alfresco (i.e. document, search, node), or any custom services you may need to add for your application, to communicate with the Alfresco Repository.

Never assume that Alfresco and Share are running on the same server host.  For example, you should not hardcode localhost or any other hostname in your Share code.  Instead, use Share’s proxy URL when invoking a data web script (i.e. from a Share ftl, use Alfresco.constants.PROXY_URI when invoking your data web script -> Alfresco.constants.PROXY_URI + “<URL>”).

Where should you store your web scripts?  If you are concerned with data, store your web scripts in the data layer.  When your data web scripts are deployed, they are stored at webapps\<alfresco webapp context>\WEB-INF\classes\alfresco\templates\webscripts, create custom packages for your application.  Else you are concerned with presentation (such as from a Share dashlet), store your code in the presentation layer (it should then in turn call a data web script to get its data!).  When your presentation web scripts are deployed, they are stored at webapps\<share webapp context>\WEB-INF\classes\alfresco\site-webscripts, create custom packages for your application.

Detailed Alfresco Architecture

Detailed Alfresco Architecture

Looking back now and reading the Alfresco Wiki’s, the Alfresco architecture makes sense, I just needed guidance on putting the big picture together to start feeling comfortable with working with a new product.  If you ask me do I enjoy developing with Alfresco now, I would say yes <with smiles>.

Posted in Alfresco, Alfresco Development, Architecture, Enterprise Content Management, Software Development, Webscripts | 3 Comments »

Think Alfresco from Documentum perspective –Take 1

July 14th, 2010 by bsampath

Open Source ...</ins>

When you work for a while in the software you get numbed to “technologies have come and gone…” occasionally though some become commodities and others trend setters. We have seen that with many products like Apache, Tomcat, Lucene, Drupal …etc that have stabilized and matured over the past years with the help of increased development from the open source realm. Wait! Did I mention the word “Open Source” and going to talk about the enterprise content management?

So without any more ado, we have Alfresco- catering to a rapidly increasing demand of the enterprise content management solutions which is built over the open source technologies such as Spring, Hibernate, and Lucene platforms. Having done years of Documentum development and several Alfresco projects of late, I think there are some interesting overlaps and differences of approach that I feel would make the developers get adapted quicker.

With the wiki site overwhelmed with Introduction, API’s, Development, Deployment and the Forums to answer all the questions regarding the issues faced during the project phase, I am here to talk purely from the developers perspective on what’s the key areas that I happen to witness the difference from the Documentum space.

The road map for my next series of blog is going to cover each of the areas mentioned below in more detailed, code abundant and developer centric approach which will answer the questions:

  • Does this feature exist in Documentum or Alfresco or both?
  • If yes, how different is the approach?

So with that preamble, and in no particular order, I give you my list of the key areas I got hands on and learnt how different Alfresco is:

Custom data model is the core for any enterprise content management solution. The use of “Aspects” as its core is the fundamental concept for content modeling in Alfresco. Although in the form D6, aspects was introduced, how different is the use and approach in Alfresco is something I will take a deep dive in my next blog.

Alfresco Web Scripts brings together the world of content repository and the web. Being a Documentum developer earlier ways of interaction with the repository have been either using DFC API’s or DQL. In Alfresco, Web Scripts provide RESTful access to content within the repository and we can build our own interface using java script. A custom move operation is implemented using the Web Scripts and the comparison of the implementation with the Documentum would be a something to be noted.

On my last project, we had requirements for the customers to be able to permanently redact Personally Identifiable Information (PII) from existing documents stored in the repository and version the original document upon save. For various reasons, we decided to integrate the 3rd party tool Daeja ViewOne module to provide this capability. I will discuss the topic as part of this blog series.

I started this series based on my experience implementing Alfresco projects and I invite you to share any of your experiences with any part of the road map wherein you run into interesting twists and turns? Did you drive off the road to get some help? I welcome your feedback as the blog takes its shape. See you all soon in Take 2.

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Posted in Alfresco, Alfresco Development, Aspects, Documentum, Documentum Development, Drupal, Enterprise Content Management, Export, Solutions, Web Content Management, Webscripts | 8 Comments »

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