topic Re: Custom Site Properties in Alfresco Archive

Custom Site Properties

punk — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 11:55:43 GMT

How can I add my own custom properties to a Share Site in order to1) Show them into the site-profile dashlet.2) Be able to search for these new properties.Thanks in advance.

Re: Custom Site Properties

billerby — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 13:49:34 GMT

Hi,

I guess this could be done in multiple ways. I would have done it this way:

1. Create a new site preset, for my new "site type". (My intepretation is that you want multiple sites with this configuration since the properties should be searchable)
2. Create an aspect containing your new custom properties.
3. Create a behaviour that listens to onCreateNode when type is st:site and adds the aspect to the node if its of your new presetType.
4. Fork the Site-profile dashlet and append your new properties, and include a link to and edit form for the properties (configure the form for your aspect in share-config-custom.xml)
5. Configure the the advanced search to have a form for your aspects with your custom properties.

Good luck
/Erik

Re: Custom Site Properties

punk — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 17:11:21 GMT

Thank you for the reply.
Now I am able to add custom properties because Alfresco provide support for this.
If you look at
<alfresco-root>\tomcat\webapps\share\WEB-INF\classes\alfresco\site-webscripts\org\alfresco\components\dashlets\site-profile.get.html.ftl
can you see that the template handle custom property.

It is possible to customize the advanced search results so that they link directly to the site dashboard and not at the site folder into the repository?

Or I have to write a webscript for doing that?

Re: Custom Site Properties

billerby — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 17:56:59 GMT

Hi,

The custom properties you are referring to seems undocumented and if you look into the model file siteModel.xml you will find that there is a need to define the properties explicity in a model anyway. Look at the example aspect:


        <!– Example Custom Site Properties Aspect –>
      <aspect name="st:customSiteProperties">
        <title>Custom Site Properties</title>          
         <properties>
            <property name="stcp:additionalInformation">
               <title>Additional Site Information</title>
               <type>d:text</type>        
            </property>
         </properties>
        </aspect>
‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

So you will have to make an aspect anyway, and add this aspect to the sites you want to have it (or all sites if thats your need). The advanced search will return the site as a folder, so you will probably need to make a custom implementation for the search as well. The upside in all this is the Site profile Dashlet which seems prepared to render your properties

Thanks
/Erik

Re: Custom Site Properties

punk — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 21:48:10 GMT

exactly. you just have to add the aspect st:customSiteProperties to the site and the example works.
but I have no idea on how to customize advanced search in this way.
I think it is easier to write my own webscript or dashlet but i have no experience.

Re: Custom Site Properties

monkeydl — Wed, 02 May 2012 10:58:09 GMT

Hi guys,

I've been wandering around finding a way to add custom properties into Alfresco Share site… with little success so far.

Basically I want to be able to add an extra property call "custom properties" for the user to fill in when they create a site / edit site properties.

So far I noticed that the aspect for custom properties is there (many thanks to punk), I also managed to modify the create / edit form with the custom properties text fields…

Question is how do I save the extra form data?… I've tried adding aspect using javascript in the create-site.js but doesn't yield any result.

I'm obviously new to alfresco share and have no clue what to do next so I'd appreciate any help I can get.

Cheers,
Hung

Re: Custom Site Properties

monkeydl — Mon, 07 May 2012 03:38:13 GMT

Hello… umm just wonder if anybody read my previous post?

Can anybody please help me? Many thanks

Re: Custom Site Properties

punk — Wed, 09 May 2012 08:02:15 GMT

Hi monkeydl.
If you want to add custom property to your site,that will be visible on the Site Profile Dashlet you have to add the "st:customSiteProperties" aspect (or another custom aspect made by yourself) to your site.
In order to do this you can
a) add st:customSiteProperties on the visible aspects (working into the web-extension folder) and than add it by hand(or with a rule) to your site home-folder space using share interface.
b) modify the type "st:site" into the siteModel.xml adding "st:customSiteProperties" to the mandatory aspects.

I hope this is helpful.
It 's been a long time when I did.
Unfortunately I see that in this forum you can not get no help, even at smart requests. No one ever responds.

Good luck.

Re: Custom Site Properties

afaust — Wed, 09 May 2012 08:31:48 GMT

Unfortunately I see that in this forum you can not get no help, even at smart requests. No one ever responds.

I find that hard to believe. There are a lot of people - Alfresco staff, partners and community members - who are actively trying to keep up with new questions / posts as best as possible. Sometimes - since answering posts is not our primary profession - there may be a delay of a few days until an answer is provided, and in other instances, a topic may be rather fart from the common practice, so that the people coming accross a post had not had to deal with such a request / use case before and thus can't give advice from the top of their hats.

Regarding this thread, a general tip I would give is to not post new / additional questions in a thread / conversation that is older than a couple of days. As stated above, the focus is on new posts / threads for which there is a special filter. No one can be expected to go through all threads / conversations that already had a lively exchange and look for follow-ups. There is simply to much going on in the forum.

Back to topic:

From my experience - I implemented custom site properties for a customer a while ago - you need to enhance your data model, for which punk has already provided the necessary steps. When we implemented custom properties, we chose to adapt the create-site.get.html.ftl, edit-site.get.html.ftl, sites.post.json.js and site.put.json.js to provide the necessary UI additons in the established UI dialogs as well as actually maintain the properties. This was needed for the seamless inclusion our customer at that time required.

You could also - as a) and b) of punks last post hinted at - use the Repository view in Share and your configured edit-form for st:site to edit these properties. This should work without any modification to a web script as the Forms API takes care of all load / persistence automatically based on your configuration. All you need to do is to ensure the aspect is already applied or force the aspect related properties to be shown in the form via the force attribute in field-visibility.

Re: Custom Site Properties

punk — Wed, 09 May 2012 09:36:23 GMT

It was not a criticism to the Alfresco staff.
Just an observation: is often frustrating examine the problems of the community version. This is the official forum and given the high diffusion of Alfresco I would expect a greater contribution by all, not only by staff members.
I see many topic where users demand, but few answers.
The Italian community then is completely absent.

I did not know it was good practice to avoid the old topics, I apologize.
Normally in the forums I used to avoid doing this to avoid the proliferation of the same topic. So I used the same approach.

I really appreciate your suggestions.
Thank you very much Alex.

David.

Re: Custom Site Properties

afaust — Wed, 09 May 2012 10:45:41 GMT

Regarding your points of "greater contribution by all" I have to agree - considering how many people actually use Alfresco (based on the numbers of installation / downloads given in official Alfresco reports), one would expect more activity and interaction of users. And indeed, some local communities appear to be stillborn despite having a lot of installations - I think the German community is not much better off than the Italian one on this one…

Regarding the topic proliferation - I usually try to avoid that too. As long as you feel a conversation is still relevant or without conclusion, I would do that in these forums as well. But monkeys follow-up post was two months after the last entry - chances are, the participants have since moved on. A new thread immediately pops up as "unanswered" in the global filter some community members like myself use to identify as "open questions".

Re: Custom Site Properties

mincd_evolpe — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 11:42:34 GMT

I trying to extend the site properties and so far I customised:

-siteModel.xml with additional properties aspect
-create-site.get.html.ftl and edit-site.get.html.ftl with new text fields
-create-site.js and edit-site.js

The problem is that I can't save my custom properties in sites.post.json.js and site.put.json.js - org.alfresco.repo.site.SiteService and other classes from org.alfresco.repo.site package don't support saving this custom properties.
I tried to extend the SiteServiceImpl class with my own createSite(…) method, but I'm getting an error when starting alfresco:

ERROR [web.context.ContextLoader] [Thread-1] Context initialization failed
org.springframework.beans.factory.CannotLoadBeanClassException: Error loading class [com.someco.site.SomecoSiteService] for bean with name 'webscript.com.someco.site.SomecoSiteService' defined in file [C:\Alfresco\tomcat\shared\classes\alfresco\web-extension\custom-site-context.xml]: problem with class file or dependent class; nested exception is java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/alfresco/repo/site/SiteServiceImpl

the context file :
…

    <bean id="webscript.com.someco.site.SomecoSiteService" class="com.someco.site.SomecoSiteService"
      parent="webscript">
            <property name="siteService">
            <ref bean="SiteService" />
         </property>
   </bean>‍‍‍‍‍‍

…
What am I doing wrong?

Re: Custom Site Properties

afaust — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 11:50:21 GMT

Hello,

I guess you have put your custom class in a JAR in /shared/lib or something similar, right? This won't work due to classloading rules. Any custom code that has dependencies on Alfresco components needs to be put in /webapps/alfresco/WEB-INF/lib (or exploded in /webapps/alfresco/WEB-INF/classes).

But you should not need to extend the SiteServiceImpl (I would even say this is discouraged) - you can save your custom properties in sites.post.json.js and site.put.json.js. Just use the ScriptNode instance you get via "site.node" and simply modify its properties before calling "save()".

Example for sites.post.json.js:


var site = null;   
if (sitetype == null)
{
  site = siteService.createSite(sitePreset, shortName, title, description, visibility);
}
else
{
  site = siteService.createSite(sitePreset, shortName, title, description, visibility, sitetype);
}

site.node.properties["some:prop"] = "someValue";
site.node.save();
‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

Since I have recently done this kind of customization on the newest Alfresco version, I'll try to find some time to blog about a possible generic approach (that maybe could be provided out-of-the-box).

Regards
Axel

Re: Custom Site Properties

mincd_evolpe — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 13:20:15 GMT

Thanks for help, It looks simpler, but it still doesn't work (Sorry if this is silly question but I'm new to Alfresco)
When my model look like this:

   <type name="st:site">
         <title>Site</title>
         <parent>cm:folder</parent>         
         <properties>
            <property name="st:sitePreset">
               <title>Site Preset</title>
               <type>d:text</type>        
            </property>
            <property name="st:siteVisibility">
               <title>Site Visibility</title>
               <type>d:text</type>        
            </property>
         </properties>
         <mandatory-aspects>
            <aspect>cm:titled</aspect>
            <!– Sites are by default undeletable. Only deletable through the SiteService. –>
            <aspect>sys:undeletable</aspect>
            <aspect>st:customSiteProperties</aspect>
         </mandatory-aspects>
      </type>

     <!– Site Root Folder:                                                               –>
     <!–    - all sites are stored beneath the site root folder                           –>
      <type name="st:sites">
         <title>Sites</title>
         <parent>cm:folder</parent>         
      </type>    
     
   </types>
   
   <aspects>
   
      <!– Site Container Aspect –>
      <aspect name="st:siteContainer">
        <title>Site Container</title>          
         <properties>
            <property name="st:componentId">
               <title>Component Id</title>
               <type>d:text</type>        
            </property>
         </properties>
        </aspect>
        
        <!– Example Custom Site Properties Aspect –>
      <aspect name="st:customSiteProperties">
        <title>Custom Site Properties</title>          
         <properties>
            <property name="stcp:siteComment">
               <title>Site Comment</title>
               <type>d:text</type>        
            </property>
            <property name="stcp:matureOnly">
               <title>For mature only</title>
               <type>d:text</type>        
            </property>
         </properties>
        </aspect>
   
   </aspects>‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

In sites.post.json.js I use this kind of reference to properties?:

site.node.properties["stcp:siteComment"] = json.get("siteComment");
  site.node.save();‍‍

Re: Custom Site Properties

afaust — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 15:25:28 GMT

Hello,

the usage is correct. Are any errors reported? What is the state of the node in the NodeBrowser?

By the way - what kind of site needs a "matureOnly" flag / text? :wink:

Regards
Axel

Re: Custom Site Properties

mincd_evolpe — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 08:07:11 GMT

I've got problem with script/template:

2012-07-19 09:45:25,656 ERROR [freemarker.runtime] [http-8080-4] Template processing error: "on line 1, column 1 in org/alfresco/modules/edit-site.get.html.ftl script not found."

on line 1, column 1 in org/alfresco/modules/edit-site.get.html.ftl script not found.
The problematic instruction:
———-
==> user-directive script [on line 1, column 1 in org/alfresco/modules/edit-site.get.html.ftl]
———-

Java backtrace for programmers:
———-
freemarker.core.InvalidReferenceException: on line 1, column 1 in org/alfresco/modules/edit-site.get.html.ftl script not found.
at freemarker.core.UnifiedCall.accept(UnifiedCall.java:134)
at freemarker.core.Environment.visit(Environment.java:221)

edit-site.get.html.ftl:

<@script type="text/javascript" src="${page.url.context}/extension/modules/edit-site.js"></@script>

<script type="text/javascript">//<![CDATA[
   var profile = new SomeCo.UserSite("${args.htmlid}").setOptions(
   {
      userId: "${user.name}",
      profile: {
          shortName: "<#if profile.shortName??>${profile.shortName?js_string}</#if>",
          title: "<#if profile.title??>${profile.title?js_string}</#if>",
          description: "<#if profile.description??>${profile.description?js_string}</#if>",
         visibility: "<#if profile.visibility??>${profile.visibility?js_string}</#if>",
         siteComment: "<#if profile.properties.siteComment??>${profile.properties.siteComment?js_string}</#if>",
         matureOnly: "<#if profile.properties.matureOnly??>${profile.properties.matureOnly?js_string}</#if>"
      }
   }).setMessages(
      ${messages}
   );
//]]></script>

#assign el=args.htmlid?html>
…‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

The file is in C:\Alfresco\tomcat\webapps\share\extension\modules\edit-site.js
Is there a different method to get the value like this?:

<div class="yui-u">
         <input id="${el}-siteComment" type="text" name="siteComment" tabindex="0" maxlength="255" value="${(profile.siteComment)?html}" /><br>
</div>‍‍‍

Do I have to modify edit-site.js?
Btw. matureOnly is just temporary name, that was first thing that came to my mind ;]

Re: Custom Site Properties

afaust — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 08:36:05 GMT

Hello,

"@script" does not belong in the .html.ftl, but the .head.ftl. Only the most recent HEAD has the ability for script includes to reside in .html.ftl, but this is not yet Alfresco standard and not available in current releases.

Regards
Axel

Re: Custom Site Properties

mincd_evolpe — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 10:05:45 GMT

I've discovered that in share repository I can edit custom properties and they are saved, do you know which files are responsible for the repo "edit properties? Is it possible to add only the *.head.ftl and *.html.ftl code from original "edit properties" files to "edit-site" code?

Re: Custom Site Properties

mincd_evolpe — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 09:35:12 GMT

Hello,

the usage is correct. Are any errors reported? What is the state of the node in the NodeBrowser?

By the way - what kind of site needs a "matureOnly" flag / text? :wink:

Regards
Axel

There is no error in logs. In NodeBrowser I see that there is st:customSiteProperties aspect in the site and I can edit and save my custom properties via Share->Repository, but it looks like sites.post.json.js and site.put.json.js doesn't work properly, there's the whole codes:
site.put.json.js:

function main()
{
   // Get the site
   var shortName = url.extension;
   var site = siteService.getSite(shortName);
   
   if (site != null)
   {   
      // Updafte the sites details
      if (json.has("title") == true)
      {
         site.title = json.get("title");
      }
      if (json.has("description") == true)
      {
         site.description = json.get("description");
      }
      if (json.has("siteComment"))
      {
        site.node.properties["stcp:siteComment"] = json.get("siteComment");
      }

      if (json.has("matureOnly"))
      {
        site.node.properties["stcp:matureOnly"] = json.get("matureOnly");
      }
      
      // Use the visibility flag before the isPublic flag
      if (json.has("visibility") == true)
      {
         site.visibility = json.get("visibility");
      }
      else if (json.has("isPublic") == true)
      {
         // Deal with deprecated isPublic flag accordingly
         var isPublic = json.getBoolean("isPublic");
         if (isPublic == true)
         {
            site.visibility = siteService.PUBLIC_SITE;
         }
         else
         {
            site.visibility = siteService.PRIVATE_SITE;
         }
       }
      
      site.node.save();
      
      // Save the site
      site.save();
      
      // Pass the model to the template
      model.site = site;
   }
   else
   {
      // Return 404
      status.setCode(status.STATUS_NOT_FOUND, "Site " + shortName + " does not exist");
      return;
   }
}

main();‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

sites.post.json.js:

function main()
{
   // The commented out code below checks if the current user has the necessary permissions to
   // create a site and retrns a 401 status if they do not.
   //
   // However, the presentation tier currently handles 500 errors, but not 400 errors.
   // Therefore the UNAUTHORIZED status is not currently returned.
   // If a user who does not have permission to create a site tries to do so, a dialog
   // appears in Share telling them AccessDenied. You do not have the appropriate permissions
   // to perform this operation.
   // TODO If we can fix up create-site.js in Slingshot to handle 401s, we can comment this back in.


   // Irrespective of the checks below, the currently authenticated user needs to have
   // permission to create a site.
//   if (siteService.hasCreateSitePermissions() == false)
//   {
//      status.setCode(status.STATUS_UNAUTHORIZED, "User does not have permission to create sites.");
//      return;
//   }
   
   // Get the details of the site
   if (json.has("shortName") == false || json.get("shortName").length == 0)
   {
      status.setCode(status.STATUS_BAD_REQUEST, "Short name missing when creating site");
      return;
   }
   var shortName = json.get("shortName");
   
   // See if the shortName is available
   var site = siteService.getSite(shortName);
   if (site != null)
   {
      status.setCode(status.STATUS_INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR, "error.duplicateShortName");
      return;
   }
   
   if (json.has("sitePreset") == false || json.get("sitePreset").length == 0)
   {
      status.setCode(status.STATUS_BAD_REQUEST, "Site preset missing when creating site");
      return;
   }
   var sitePreset = json.get("sitePreset");
   
   var title = null;
   if (json.has("title"))
   {
      title = json.get("title");
   }
      
   var description = null;
   if (json.has("description"))
   {
      description = json.get("description");
   }

   var siteComment = null;
   if (json.has("siteComment"))
   {
      siteComment = json.get("siteComment");
   }
   
   var matureOnly = null;
   if (json.has("matureOnly"))
   {
      matureOnly = json.get("matureOnly");
   }
   
   var sitetype = null;
   if (json.has("type") == true)
   {
      sitetype = json.get("type");
   }
   
   // Use the visibility flag before the isPublic flag
   var visibility = siteService.PUBLIC_SITE;
   if (json.has("visibility"))
   {
      visibility = json.get("visibility");
   }
   else if (json.has("isPublic"))
   {
      var isPublic = json.getBoolean("isPublic");
      if (isPublic == true)
      {
         visibility = siteService.PUBLIC_SITE;
      }
      else
      {
         visibility = siteService.PRIVATE_SITE;
      }
   }
   
   // Create the site 
   var site = null;   
   if (sitetype == null)
   {
      site = siteService.createSite(sitePreset, shortName, title, description, visibility);
   }
   else
   {
      site = siteService.createSite(sitePreset, shortName, title, description, visibility, sitetype);
   }
   
   site.node.properties["stcp:siteComment"] = siteComment;
   site.node.properties["stcp:matureOnly"] = matureOnly;
   site.node.save();
   // Put the created site into the model
   model.site = site;
}

main();‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

In the create-site.get.html.ftl I added:

<div class="yui-gd">
            <div class="yui-u first"><label for="${el}-siteComment">${msg("label.siteComment")}:</label></div>
            <div class="yui-u">
               <input id="${el}-siteComment" type="text" name="siteComment" tabindex="0" maxlength="255" /><br>
            </div>
         </div>
         <div class="yui-gd">
            <div class="yui-u first"><label for="${el}-matureOnly">${msg("label.matureOnly")}:</label></div>
            <div class="yui-u">
               <select id="${el}-matureOnly" name="matureOnly" tabindex="0">
                     <option value="no">no</option>
                     <option value="yes">yes</option>                  
               </select>
            </div>
         </div>‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

Please help

Re: Custom Site Properties

afaust — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 09:47:26 GMT

Hello,

have you verified that your custom data is actually submitted to the web scripts? The modified web scripts are practically identical to the ones used in our projects and they all work like a charm, so I''d expect a problem somewhere else when there are no errors reported in any logs.

Regards
Axel