Alfresco 3 Cookbook

Table of Contents

Alfresco 3 Cookbook

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewers

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Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Downloading the example code

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Getting Started

Introduction

Alfresco products

Alfresco Explorer

Alfresco Share

Setting up a database for Alfresco

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Installing Alfresco on Windows

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

Installing Alfresco on Linux

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

Running Alfresco for the first time

Getting ready

How to do it...

There's more

Toolbar

Sidebar

Breadcrumb

Current space information

Actions Links

Sub-spaces panel

Content items panel

Footer

2. Creating and Organizing Contents

Introduction

Content metadata

Creating a space

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

See also

Creating content

How to do it...

There's more...

See also

Uploading a document

How to do it...

There's more...

Viewing content details

Getting ready...

How to do it...

There's more...

Tagging a document

How to do it...

There's more...

Detaching a tag

Categorizing content

Getting ready

How to do it...

Making a document versionable

How to do it...

How it works...

3. Securing and Searching Contents

Introduction

The Alfresco security model

Creating users

How to do it...

There's more...

Creating groups

How to do it...

Adding users into groups

How to do it...

There's more...

Securing your folders

How to do it...

How it works...

Securing your files

How to do it...

How it works...

Searching in Alfresco

Performing normal search

How to do it...

Performing advanced search

How to do it...

Using saved search

How to do it...

See also

4. Rules—the Smart Spaces

Introduction

Understanding the components of a rule

How to do it...

How it works...

Creating and applying rules

How to do it...

How it works...

Understanding conditions of a rule

Understanding possible actions of a rule

How it works...

There’s more...

Rule inheritance

Asynchronous rule

Disabled rule

Editing rule

Permissions

5. Alfresco Administration Console

Introduction

Managing system users

Getting ready

How to do it...

There's more...

Changing the user password

See also

Managing user groups

Getting ready

How to do it...

Managing categories

How to do it...

See also

Exporting Alfresco content packages

How to do it...

There's more...

Importing content items

Using Administration Console

Using Import Action

Using the Alfresco Node Browser

Getting ready

How to do it...

There's more

Configuring the Alfresco Dashboard

How to do it...

There's more...

6. Customizing Alfresco Web Client

Introduction

Getting ready...

Changing the default view of Items in Space contents

How to do it...

Changing languages in the Login page

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Changing textbox length and text area size

How to do it...

How it works...

Controlling the Date Picker

Getting ready

How to do it ...

How it works...

Controlling the sidebar display

How to do it...

Including custom Icons in your Spaces

How to do it...

Changing the default font and color

How to do it...

How it works...

7. Alfresco Content Model

Introduction

Content Type

Content Aspect

Creating new custom content type

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

See also

Displaying custom Content Type while content uploading

How to do it...

How it works...

Showing custom properties

How to do it...

How it works...

Creating custom aspects and associations

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

Showing custom Aspects and Associations

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

Displaying custom type in Type Specialization

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Customizing Advanced Search to include custom content types

Getting started

How to do it...

How it works...

8. Alfresco JavaScript API

Introduction

Available JavaScript APIs

The JavaScript API model

Writing and executing scripts

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

ScriptNode API

People API

Search API

See also

Add/Change contents of a document

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Creating a backup copy of a document

How to do it...

How it works...

See also

Adding a tag to a document

How to do it...

How it works...

Assigning permissions to a user

How to do it...

How it works...

Debugging Alfresco JavaScript

How to do it...

How it works...

9. FreeMarker Templates

Introduction

FreeMarker templates in Alfresco

Template models

There's more...

Creating a FreeMarker template

How to do it...

How it works...

Displaying all documents in current space

How to do it...

How it works...

Displaying all versions of a particular document

How to do it...

How it works...

Displaying all assigned tasks of the current user

How to do it...

How it works...

See also

Displaying all spaces and sub-spaces recursively

How to do it...

How it works...

10. Web Scripts

Introduction

What is a Web Script?

Web Script architecture

Types of Web Scripts

Web Script files

Web Script parameters

Writing and deploying Web Scripts

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

Using the Alfresco Web Script browser

Displaying details of documents

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

Sending e-mails using a mail template

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

11. Working with Workflows

Introduction

Workflow components

Invoking a workflow

How to do it...

How it works...

Creating and deploying custom workflows

How to do it...

How it works...

Using the Alfresco Workflow Console

How to do it...

12. Integrating with MS Outlook and MS Office

Introduction

Why integration is required

Integrating Alfresco with Microsoft Outlook

Getting ready...

How to do it...

There’s more...

Integrating Alfresco with MS Outlook

Getting ready...

How to do it...

How it works...

13. Configuring Alfresco E-Mail and File Servers

Introduction

Configuring Alfresco to send e-mails

Getting started

How to do it...

How it works...

See also

Sending e-mails via JavaScript API

How to do it...

How it works...

Configuring Alfresco to receive e-mails

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Configure and use Alfresco file servers

How to do it...

How it works...

14. Building Alfresco

Introduction

Installing Subversion client - TortoiseSVN

Getting ready

How to do it...

Downloading Alfresco's source code

How to do it...

How it works...

Compiling and building Alfresco

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Running Alfresco on your machine

How to do it...

How it works...

Index

Alfresco 3 Cookbook

Alfresco 3 Cookbook

Copyright © 2011 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: July 2011

Production Reference: 1180711

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

32 Lincoln Road

Olton

Birmingham, B27 6PA, UK.

ISBN 978-1-849511-08-7

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Cover Image by Duraid Fatouhi (<duraidfatouhi@yahoo.com>)

Credits

Author

Snig Bhaumik

Reviewers

Piergiorgio Lucidi

Adit Patel

Khazret Sapenov

Snehal Shah

Acquisition Editor

Steven Wilding

Development Editor

Alina Lewis

Technical Editor

Gauri Iyer

Copy Editor

Leonard D'Silva

Project Coordinator

Shubhanjan Chatterjee

Proofreader

Mario Cecere

Indexer

Tejal Daruwale

Graphics

Nilesh.R.Mohite

Production Coordinators

Adline Swetha Jesuthas

Arvindkumar Gupta

Cover Work

Adline Swetha Jesuthas

Arvindkumar Gupta

About the Author

Snig Bhaumik is the Technical Director at InfoAxon Technologies Ltd, based in India. He is also the Director of Open Source Innovation and heads the Knowledge Management Practice at InfoAxon—India's first and pioneer Open Source Integration Company.

A computer engineer by education and developer at heart, Snigdhendu has in total ten years of experience in various technologies such as Alfresco, Liferay, Pentaho, and Microsoft .NET. An open source enthusiast and regular community participant, Snigdhendu was the original contributor of Alfresco Calendar component. He specializes in Knowledge Management and Business Intelligence domains, and is responsible for designing and architecting KM and BI solution offerings.

My sweet wife Chaitali was so patient with my late nights, and I want to thank her for her faithful support while writing this book.

I would also like to thank my mother for everything. She has always been the guiding force for me.

Writing of this book could not have been possible but for the ungrudging support from my colleagues at InfoAxon.

Finally, I sincerely thank Packt Publishing for giving me the opportunity to write this book.

About the Reviewers

Piergiorgio Lucidi is an Open Source Product Specialist and a certified Alfresco Trainer at Sourcesense. Sourcesense is a European Open Source systems integrator providing consultancy, support, and services around key open source technologies.

He works as a software engineer and has seven years of experience in the areas of Enterprise Content Management (ECM), system integrations, and web and mobile applications.

He is an expert in integrating ECM solutions in web and portal applications. He regularly contributes to the Alfresco Community Forum supporting newbie and expert users.

He is a project leader and committer of the JBoss Community; he contributes to some of the projects of the JBoss portal platform. He is a speaker at conferences dedicated to Java, Spring Framework, open source products, and technologies.

He is an author and an affiliate partner at Packt Publishing, he has written the technical book Alfresco 3 Web Services in collaboration with Ugo Cei. He also writes and publishes book reviews on his website Open4Dev (http://www.open4dev.com/).

I would like to thank Packt Publishing for this great opportunity to work again in a very interesting project about Alfresco.

Adit Patel has done his Master's in Computer Applications. He started his career with CIGNEX Technologies in the year 2004. He has successfully handled complex projects for enterprise customers for implementing enterprise content management systems. He has helped many enterprise customers migrate from proprietary content management systems to more efficient and scalable content management systems—like Alfresco. He holds in-depth knowledge and experience of Alfresco architecture and implementations.

I would like to thank and dedicate my contribution to this book to my guru H.D.H. Pramukh Swami Maharaj.

Khazret Sapenov, a 20-year veteran of ICT, is the founder and chief technology officer of Cloudcor, which serves hundreds of enterprise clients and works closely with a set of managed partners and independent software vendors. In this role, Sapenov is responsible for leading overall strategy and technology direction across the United States and Canada, including employees in IT, partner, marketing, operations, and vertical industry teams.

Sapenov previously served as the corporate director of research and development at Enomaly, where he was responsible for growing the company's virtualization solutions business, including development and service delivery.

Prior to working with Enomaly, Sapenov held positions in technology solutions development in various Fortune 100 companies where he was responsible for global network, data centers, and information security, help desk, core IT services, and enterprise line-of-business applications.

Cloudcor's organizations under Sapenov's leadership have developed into one market and gained wide recognition as thought leader in cloud computing.

Sapenov founded Cloudcor in 2008. Before that, he was in corporate and academic research roles, covering oil and gas resources prospecting and development. Sapenov is a graduate of the University of Karaganda, where he received his Master's degree in Applied Mathematics.

I'd like to thank my parents for giving me life and supporting all my initiatives, my wife Saule and sons Asan and Aidos for being tactful and quiet when working on this book.

Snehal Shah has served as the manager and architect of the engineering teams for seven years in the area of internet applications, system software, and legal applications for customers in the United States, UK, and India.

He is an expert in Content Management Systems (CMS). At CIGNEX, he has successfully delivered various CMS applications using various open source technologies. Snehal earned his Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering from DDIT, India.

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Preface

Alfresco is the renowned and multiple award-winning open source Enterprise content management system which allows you to build, design, and implement your very own ECM solutions.

You have read a number of tutorials, blogs, and books on Alfresco. Now you're in the real world, trying to use Alfresco, but you're running into problems with it. This is the book you want, packed full of solutions that can be instantly applied to this cookbook with its practical-based recipes and minimal explanation meets that demand.

This Alfresco 3 Cookbook boasts a comprehensive selection of recipes covering everything from the basics to the advanced. The book has recipes for quickly installing Alfresco in Windows and Linux and helping you use custom content model, rules, and search. There is also a collection of recipes focused on creating Scripts, Freemarker templates, Web Scripts, and new workflow definitions. Steps to integrate Alfresco with other systems like MS-Office are also included. You will be able to use Alfresco's File and e-mail servers. Finally, step-by-step recipes are presented to create an Alfresco build environment and compile the source code. This Alfresco 3 Cookbook is perfect for developers looking to start working on Alfresco quickly, gain complete understanding, write custom implementations, and achieve expertise very easily.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Getting Started: It introduces Alfresco with brief demonstration of the Alfresco Explorer application. Get Alfresco downloaded and installed on your machine, and finally be acquainted with the default distribution and architecture of Alfresco.

Chapter 2, Creating and Organizing Contents: It explains how to use Alfresco as Content Management System, how to upload or create contents, how to apply tagging or categorization of content, understand content metadata, use the document versioning capability of Alfresco.

Chapter 3, Securing and Searching Contents: It is about another important aspect of the Content Management System—Security. It helps you understand how to secure your contents and folders. How to create users and user groups—and assign permissions for who can do what. You will also know about the search capabilities offered by Alfresco, how to search contents and how search works in Alfresco.

Chapter 4, Rules—the Smart Spaces: It will help you learn how to make your Alfresco repository dynamic, how to implement your business requirements that works automatically in the repository. You will understand how to create and apply rules in the repository; you will also be familiar with different actions that can be performed via a rule.

Chapter 5, Administering Alfresco: It contains recipes for administering Alfresco, demonstrating how to manage users, user groups, create taxonomies, manage content categories. You will also be aware of how to use the Alfresco Node Browser to view and search contents stored in the repository. You will also know how to manage your Alfresco explorer dashboard.

Chapter 6, Customizing Alfresco Web Client: Alfresco offers customization of the Web Client application via a number of XML configuration files. This chapter elaborates various recipes for changing the view and appearance of the web client, customizing the application as per your requirements, and so on.

Chapter 7, Alfresco Content Model: Designing and modeling the content properties and architecture is one of the most important requirements in a content management system. Alfresco offers dynamic capabilities for designing the content models. Using these recipes you will be able to understand the core architecture of Alfresco content models, create your own custom content models, use your custom models in the Alfresco explorer application.

Chapter 8, Alfresco JavaScript API: Alfresco offers the repository functionalities in form of JavaScript APIs. In this chapter, you will understand the API structure and features offered. Several example recipes help you implement various functionalities. You will also learn how to write, execute, and debug scripts written using the APIs.

Chapter 9, Freemarker Templates: Freemarker Template is the presentation layer technology used in Alfresco applications. The recipes of this chapter would help you understand the technologies and model behind the Freemarker templates in Alfresco. Several template examples are included for commonly-used functions such as displaying folder contents, showing workflow tasks, showing contents recursively, displaying content properties and details, and so on.

Chapter 10, Web Scripts : Alfresco Web Scripts provide RESTful APIs of the repository services and functions. The chapter elaborates all related concepts, knowledge and how-to do it recipes that would help you write, deploy and debug web scripts. You will also understand the usage of default web scripts library that come with Alfresco. Several sample web scripts are included, for example sending e-mails using templates, searching and displaying documents, and so on.

Chapter 11, Working with Workflows: Workflow implementation is one of the major requirements in a content management system in a business. This chapter would help you understand the Alfresco business process engine in detail. You will understand how the workflows are implemented in Alfresco repository along with various components of the workflow engine. Several detailed examples and recipes are included to guide you create custom workflows, custom task models, specific resource bundles, customizing the web client to render the custom tasks and workflows properly. You will also be able to use the Alfresco workflow console interface which is useful for debugging the task execution within the BPM