topic Re: Prefill data, rules and/or execute actions on Site Creation in Alfresco Archive

Prefill data, rules and/or execute actions on Site Creation

iblanco — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 13:58:10 GMT

I'm developing a custom Site preset. I've already defined the preset and the "placeholders" for the future custom components and dashlets, as well as the "out of the box" ones required in the site. So far so good.Now I would like some data and some behaviour or rules automatically applied to some of

Re: Prefill data, rules and/or execute actions on Site Creation

zbennett — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 21:19:11 GMT

Hi iblanco,

I'm running 3.3, but I'm looking to do the same thing. Have you found good documentation on creating new presets? I've been staring at presets.xml, slack-jawed and not sure what to do with it.

As for your proposed approaches… Your first approach makes the most sense to me and your second approach does smell like a dirty hack.

What do you think about creating a private site and making sure the required folders exist in there (ie, discussions, etc…), then applying a rule to folders created in the main Sites folder that executes a script? The script could copy the desired folders from your template site into the newly created site.

I'm just about to leave the office for the day, but I'll try this approach tomorrow and I'll post my results!

Re: Prefill data, rules and/or execute actions on Site Creation

stevegreenbaum — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 22:10:09 GMT

I like your first approach. You've hit on a topic that I have also been giving some thought to, but I have been holding off on digging in since I've seen references in the roadmap to the inclusion of site templates - Q211. I can live without this feature for now, so I have the option of waiting. If you have wants/needs in this area that aren't covered by what is mentioned below you might want to get that entered into Jira for consideration. This is from the roadmap wiki:

Site/Space Templates

Simplify creation of application specific sites and spaces and enforce standards though site and space templates. Create Sites based site templates to allow sites to include predefine spaces, content and rules. Allow spaces in the document library to be created from space templates that include other spaces, content, rules etc.

Re: Prefill data, rules and/or execute actions on Site Creation

iblanco — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 16:30:04 GMT

Hi both,

I have developed the first approach. I made a behaviour that hooks to the creation of a site and at execution time it checks the preset. If the preset is not the desired one it just skips execution.

The behaviour configuration bean receives several parameters mos notably the preset name, that is checked on creation time and an action. I wanted the behaviour to be generic and reusable so I decided not to put in it what to do on creation time, instead it gets a "standard" Alfresco action.

So now I can develop Java actions and hook them using configuration, or use an already existing action or even better, hook the ScriptActionExecuter passing a script location to it, so I can execute a javascript executed in the claspath. I had some problem with this las step but I managed to achieve it.

Then I have created a script that fills some discussions topics and creates and fills a new datalist on creation time. It seemed quite complex at first as each application (discussions, datalist…) is differente from each other but by checking with Firebug the scripts Share itself calls I managed to find "the correct way" of doing its thing. Using the Alfresco Javascript Debugger in the repository, and looking to share code also was key, as I was able to inspect the siteService object and discover some API calls that are not present or correct in the wiki yet, for example getContainer does not seem to create a container if it does not exist, but you can check for existence with hasContainer and create it with createContainer.

Obviously having a prefilled site template would be a nicer option, and probably easier to maintain but for now I'm reasonably happy with the solution.

The idea of the rule in Company Home/Sites sounds good also and easier, but how is a rule bootstrapped from the classpath ? Sure there is an option but I'm not very experimented with this part of Alfresco.

Concerning documentation about defining a predefined site template, I used the Professional Alfresco. The book is not as good as I expected from the people in Alfresco Company but it was a quite good starting point for share, so although it's not a book you'll enjoy much it's at least worth the money. But don't take it as a complain about the book, we must admit that it is very very hard to write a better book about such a solution when it still is in fast evolution.

So far the best Alfresco development book I've read is Jeff Pott's Alfresco Developer Guide, but it doesn't talk about share, is older than that. I hope Jeff writes a second edition or a new book about share.

Re: Prefill data, rules and/or execute actions on Site Creation

stevegreenbaum — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 17:23:36 GMT

Look at Alfresco Developer Guide - page 106 and 107 to see if that gives what you are looking for regarding deploying your rule action.

Re: Prefill data, rules and/or execute actions on Site Creation

iblanco — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 06:24:53 GMT

Not really, that example registers and action and then sets a rule that runs that action, but doesn't solve the problem of setting the rule on extension's installation time.

Re: Prefill data, rules and/or execute actions on Site Creation

stevegreenbaum — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 19:43:47 GMT

Sorry, I was referring to the line in the book saying use Ant Deploy script. I've never looked at those scripts, but I wonder if they contain what you are looking for. There are supposed to be sample scripts that come with the book.

Re: Prefill data, rules and/or execute actions on Site Creation

zbennett — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 12:23:08 GMT

Hi all,

I've accomplished much of this using JavaScript and rules. I wrote up some tutorials about it last week and posted them on a new blog. The tutorials include all of the code you need to accomplish what I've accomplished and they should be easy enough for anyone to follow (even non-programmer Alfresco newbies, for the most part).

Here are some links you may find useful:

How to add custom Site dashboard preset types to Alfresco Share: http://zandadev.com/zach/alf/?p=21
Creating a Site Template, Part 1: Folders, Files, and Rules: http://zandadev.com/zach/alf/?p=37

I plan to post more tutorials as I solidify the processes I develop, as the blog is going to serve as documentation for my current project.

Re: Prefill data, rules and/or execute actions on Site Creation

stevegreenbaum — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 12:46:36 GMT

Thank you for posting this solution.

Re: Prefill data, rules and/or execute actions on Site Creation

nikes — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 13:31:23 GMT

deep copy javascript function doesn't copy the permissions assigned to the source folder.

it was available in 3.1 community edition but not available in 3.3g.

I copied copyPermissons in CopyServiceImpl from 3.1 to 3.3g, now permissions are getting copied but Share manage permissions pop up shows default permissions only.

any idea why Share interface is not showing copied permissions?

thanks for any help.

@iblanco
I hope I haven't hijacked your post, since its related to custom site template solution 🙂

Re: Prefill data, rules and/or execute actions on Site Creation

iblanco — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 15:42:16 GMT

, You're welcome Nikes.