Liferay is the world's leading open source enterprise portal. Corporations use it to provide a unified web interface to data and tools scattered across many sources. Within Liferay portal, a portal interface is composed of a number of portlets—self-contained, interactive elements written to a particular standard. For more information, refer to the Liferay web site at http://www.liferay.com.

Liferay provides Alfresco Portlets, which can be connected to your existing Alfresco repository. The Liferay framework supports web services, and thus offers various integration options.

String _urlString=ResourceBundle.getBundle(REST_BUNDLE).getString(URL);

System.out.println("This is the url correct: " + _urlString);
String _content = null;

Request _request = new Request(Method.GET, _urlString);
_request.setChallengeResponse(new ChallengeResponse(ChallengeScheme.HTTP_BASIC, ResourceBundle.getBundle(REST_BUNDLE).getString(USER_NAME), ResourceBundle.getBundle(REST_BUNDLE).getString(PASSWORD)));

Response _response = new Client(Protocol.HTTP).handle(_request);
          if(_request.getChallengeResponse() != null)
          System.out.println("request.getChallengeResponse().getCredentials()  "+_request.getChallengeResponse().getCredentials());

          if (_response.getStatus().isSuccess()) 
          {
             if(_response!=null)
              _content=_response.getEntity().getText();
          	else
              System.out.println("CONTENT :" + _content);
          }

Liferay built-in Portlet for Alfresco

Liferay is a portal server in which we can include our portlet, in order to call the Alfresco Web Script.

You will find your Web Script's screen on the portlet page, as shown in the immediately preceding screenshot.

Drupal is a very powerful open source web content management framework. It is developed using the PHP language. More information about Drupal can be found at http://www.drupal.org.

A combination of Drupal and Alfresco is a good choice in scenarios where there is a significant amount of file-based content that requires services such as workflow, versioning, security, check-in/check-out, but needs to be shared in the context of a community. Alfresco acts as a back-end content repository, and Drupal acts as a front-end presentation layer. Here, Drupal really becomes equivalent, in terms of where it sits in the architecture and the role it plays, to traditional portals such as Liferay or JBoss Portal.

It is difficult for other systems to access content in Drupal when it is running on a separate machine, as compared to when it sits in Alfresco. There are Drupal modules that make it easier to syndicate, but Alfresco is designed to expose content in this way. Once it is in Alfresco, content can be routed through Alfresco workflows, and then be approved so that it is available to one or more front-end Drupal sites. Content could come from a Drupal site, be persisted to Alfresco, routed around for editorial review, and then made available.

Not all Drupal modules need to persist their data back to Alfresco. Things such as comments and ratings will probably never need to be treated as real content. Instead of trying to persist everything, you could either modify selected modules to integrate with Alfresco, or create new ones that work with Alfresco. For example, you might want to have Drupal put file uploads in Alfresco instead of the local file system. Or, it might make sense to have a "send to Alfresco" button that would send the current node to Alfresco that is visible to certain roles.

You may also want to get some Drupal data from within Alfresco, or may want to tag objects using the same set of tags that Drupal knows about, or may want to perform a mass import of Drupal objects into the Alfresco repository. All of this is possible by integrating Alfresco and Drupal.

The following code snippet can be used to access your Alfresco library through Drupal.

Helloworld is a simple Web Script created in Alfresco to test the Drupal alfresco integration. The code for this is as follows:

function data_from_webscript_block1() {
  $output = '';
  $url = 'http://<server_name>:<port>/alfresco/service/ 
   /facebook/helloworld';
  $http_result = drupal_http_request($url);
  if ($http_result->code == 200) {
    $doc = $http_result->data;
    $output .= $doc;
  }
  else {
    $msg = 'No content from %url.';
    $vars = array('%url' => $url);
    watchdog('data_from_webscript', $msg, $vars, WATCHDOG_WARNING);
    return t("The webscript is not accessible.");
  }
  return $output;
}

Joomla! is a very popular open source-based dynamic portal and web Content Management System. For more information, visit the Joomla! web site at http://www.joomla.org.

Joomla! tools and Alfresco can be integrated based on the CMIS standard that allows Alfresco repositories to act as backend for Joomla! web sites. Because the integration was developed using CMIS and not a proprietary API, it can be used to access content stored in either an Alfresco repository or any other CMIS-compliant repository.

The Joomla! module for Alfresco was built using the draft CMIS REST API, to allow organizations running Joomla-based web sites to access Alfresco's robust open source content management repository. This integration is a perfect example of how cooperation between open source projects can yield innovative solutions more rapidly as compared to a proprietary model.

This integration, built using the CMIS REST API, will enable millions of Joomla! web sites to access the powerful backend content repository services of Alfresco, ensuring security, compliance, and auditability.  Users will be able to effectively manage, preview, and track increasing volumes of content and digital assets on collaborative Joomla! web sites using Alfresco's content library. Similarly, Alfresco users will be able to search, publish, share, download, and edit content directly on Joomla! sites.

The Joomla! module for Alfresco perfectly illustrates the promise of CMIS with this integration. Joomla! users can now leverage Alfresco's scalable document repository to manage content on Joomla! sites in a secure, compliant, and audited environment. The Joomla! module for Alfresco can be downloaded from http://www.alfresco.com/products/platform/try/.

Providing a Flex-based client to access an Alfresco content repository can improve user experience by delivering an easily customizable and highly-interactive interface, seamless integration in the user desktop, and cross-platform integration.

There can be two approaches to this. The first approach uses custom Java services and the second one uses Alfresco Web Scripts (REST).

LiveCycle DATA SERVICES is Adobe server-side component that allows communication between the Flex client and a Java application. There are several options to create an Alfresco client:

The next steps could be to create an AIR application to leverage the following:

For more details on Alfresco and Flex integration, refer Chapter 11.

Alfresco can be configured as a Mail Server or a Mail Client Application using a third party product. This makes for effective email management for users, who will benefit from the convenience and speed. Users can simply drag-and-drop emails directly into the Alfresco repository for automatic filing. Familiarity with the tools makes the interaction easy. Users can find and view documents and emails from the email client or file system view. The document search is regardless of the document format. A user can configure rules, based on which they can store and share outgoing emails.

This can allow the organization to create a secure and auditable, central store of information and correspondence, which can easily demonstrate compliance with regulatory requirements and respond to requests for information. Information can be made available to everyone and duplication of data avoided. Enhanced productivity, along with facilitated and improved knowledge sharing and collaboration, are all byproducts. Even if a staff member leaves, key information is readily available within the organization. A cross-team or cross-project view of all communications, internally, along with customers or other external parties, is readily available.

We built a simple Alfresco navigator for iPhone. In fact, it is an iPhone-friendly web client. This navigator is backed by three Web Scripts—for DM space/doc navigation, for WCM navigation, and the third one for searching—and leverages the open source iUI package to provide the look and feel. The performance of the navigator is quite good on an iPhone. The script shows different branches of a single DOM tree based on where you are. When you navigate down to a new space or web project directory, it will add new nodes to the tree. The capabilities of the navigator include:

To install the package on your Alfresco, simply follow the steps described below:

With this new release of Alfresco 3.0, you can now have access your content repository, and Alfresco as a Gadget, on the iGoogle webpage. This allows you to manage, create, and edit the content stored in the repository from your iGoogle homepage. Also, you can integrate internal and external content and services. The Gadgets are basically interactive mini-applications, which you can place on your iGoogle homepage, and use them to search and manage your personalized information.

Alfresco provides three easy-to-use Google Gadgets by default. These are:

Besides of these out of the box, provided by Alfresco Gadgets, you can also create your own Web Scripts and can use them as Gadgets in the iGoogle.

Steps to integrate iGoogle Gadgets with Alfresco

Alfresco Google Gadgets are completely powered by Web Scripts.

1. If you have already installed ZIP file for Google Gadgets, move to the next step. Otherwise, download the aggadget.zip file from the Packt Publisher's official web site inside the module directory.
2. Log in to Alfresco with admin as username and password.
3. Browse to Company Home | Data Dictionary | Web Scripts Extensions.
4. Click on More Actions | Import. Upload the aggadget.zip file (which contains he required files for Web Scripts), to import those Web Scripts.
5. Now, the space named aggadget will be created containing all the related Web Script files provided by Alfresco.
6. The next step is to register these Web Scripts with the Alfresco server to activate it. To register, browse to http://<server_name>:<port_number>/alfresco/service/index and click on the Refresh list of Web Scripts button to register these new Web Scripts. You will be able to see a message telling with how many web scripts were found and registered recently.
7. Now, these Web Scripts are ready to be used in your iGoogle webpage.
8. Some of the sample URLs are given below to create folder , search any text, or to see the task list:
   • http://localhost:8080/alfresco/wcservice/aggadget/search?dummy=1
   • http://localhost:8080/alfresco/wcservice/aggadget/folder/?dummy=1
   • http://localhost:8080/alfresco/wcservice/aggadget/tasks?dummy=1

The following screenshot will give you a brief idea of what we have just seen:

Using iGoogle Gadgets

The following steps will guide you when using iGoogle Gadgets.

1. You can use Gadgets Editor to add your own Gadget. Click on File, select Upload option. You will see the following screen:
   
2. Browse to the XML file for the module that you want to have as a Google Gadget, and upload it. You will be able to see the file in the Google Gadget Editor, as shown in the following screenshot. Here, we have used Alfresco_Search.xml for search the module.
   
3. You can edit the file if you want. Here, you just need to modify the href. Make it pointing to your alfresco server, which is already running.
4. To preview this gadget, click on the Preview tab. You can enter any keyword you want to search from Alfresco's repository, and you will be able to see the results with pagination support, as shown in the next figure:

FFMPEG is a popular video and audio transcoder having a high degree of performance. It is widely used in various commercial tools, to convert audio and video files from one format to another. It is basically a command line interface. We can easily integrate any such command-line application with Alfresco.

Let's take an example of one television company named STV. We assume they have Asset Repository System (ARS), which is a centralized repository for all of the media content and serves the media packages to the customers of STV, who are spread all over the world. The company always uploads the video in Quick time (.mov) format. However, CMS system requires the video to be transformed to 3G (for cell phones), MPEG4 (for iPod), and Flash (the default format for the web site).

You need to download FFMPEG binary version for Windows and put into <alfresco_install>/bin directory. The command used for transformation is:

ffmpeg.exe -i [input_file.extension] [options] [output_file.extension]

ViewOnePro is the world's first java applet image viewer to be extendable with additional modules without user installation, and that offers support for additional file formats (PDF Module, Universal Viewing Module), and for additional viewer functionality (Annotations Module, Permanent Redaction Server Module, Document Streaming Server Module, and the Print Accelerator Module). ViewOnePro is a powerful in-browser viewer with the ability to extend an applet's capabilities. This represents a major breakthrough for web-based document management users.

To protect the integrity of your records for compliance, ViewOnePro provides viewing (and crucially not editing) access to the wide range of documents stored in your repository. To integrate ViewOnePro with Alfresco, follow the steps given below:

Facebook is the most popular social network, where people share content, and connect with their friends, family, and businesses.

This integration will enable users of the Alfresco Enterprise Content Network to use Facebook to publish content. It is Alfresco's aim to make publishing and sharing enterprise content as simple and as familiar as possible.

A large enough segment of any workforce is active on one web-based social network or the other—if not Facebook, then MySpace, or LinkedIn, or one of the myriad boutique networks out there—to compel corporations to take them seriously as communication platforms.

Through the Facebook integration, Alfresco users can upload and share enterprise content with customers, fellow employees, and partners, in a secure and audited way. Platform functionality includes application registration, Facebook authorization and single sign-on, FBML support, and Facebook model support. The tools that are available to employees using the platform will be familiar if they are or have ever been users of Facebook. In a secure environment, the employees can upload documents. They can view My Documents, All Documents, or Recently Added Documents, along with documents owned or uploaded by colleagues and friends, through the Facebook newsfeed.

Now, social networks web sites such as Facebook can easily be built up with Alfresco's REST-based web services. This results into emerging the enterprise content management capabilities with the social graph of facebook integration. In this case study, we will see how we can develop Alfresco Facebook application with the help of Web Scripts. We will extend Web Scripts to support Facebook capabilities. As we are suing Web Script Framework, we don't use any core development with Java, but will just use the scripting language.

Creating a new Facebook application

The following are the steps for creating a new Facebook application:

1. Acquire the Alfresco Facebook package:

   Download the doclib folder that contains the required files from the Packt web site. Create the folders if they don't already exist, and copy the files from the following path: tomcatwebappsalfrescoWEB-INFclassesalfresco emplateswebscriptsorgalfrescofacebookdoclib

2. Set up the Facebook application

   Go to http://developers.facebook.com/, and then click on the Start Now, button as shown below:

   
3. Next, you need to set up the application. You will see the Go to the Facebook Developer App, as shown in the figure below. Click on the link.
   
4. Now, log in to your Facebook account, as prompted.
5. Click on the link, as shown in the next figure:
   
6. Next, you will see the various settings that you need to configure for your application.
   
7. Enter the appropriate data and save. Provide proper application name that you can easily identify. Here, the Developer Contact Email and User Support Email is automatically filled up by Facebook (which is user who currently logged in Facebook). Callback URL is required for forwarding requests to Alfresco from Facebook. Provide unique Canvas URL. Provide Post-Add URL, which is mostly same as the Canvas URL. Once you complete all the necessary fields and submit, you will get screen like following:

Note

Here, the generated API key, Secret key, and Application ID are randomly generated each time, so these will not be the same as those shown in the above screenshot.

In addition, /facebook/alfrescobook/ should match with the URL provided for Alfresco. Therefore, the syntax would be http://<HOST>:<PORT>/alfresco/<WEBSCRIPT URL>

Once you have set up your application and submitted it, you can see your own application, as shown in the screenshot below

It is important to note that we need to pay more attention to the following property—Application Name, Callback URL, Canvas URL, and Post Add URL. Select the option Yes for the field Add application to Facebook, and select the Developer Mode checkbox.