topic Re: aikau upgrade in Alfresco Archive

aikau upgrade

vincent-kali — Thu, 19 Nov 2015 19:55:18 GMT

Hi all,I'm using Alfresco 5.0.d and I'd like to upgrade aikau to the latest 1.0.44 version.I've downloaded/compiled it from github, but I don't know the best way to upgrade current aikau version in share.Could somebody advise on the properly way to upgrade aikau version ?Thanks,Vincent

Re: aikau upgrade

afaust — Mon, 23 Nov 2015 12:10:16 GMT

Hello,

the standard way to update Aikau is by simply including the newer JAR with the Share web application, e.g. placing it in /WEB-INF/lib or including it as a dependency in a Maven build. Aikau is set up to automatically use the newer version when more than one version are included.

Regards
Axel

Re: aikau upgrade

vincent-kali — Wed, 25 Nov 2015 13:14:44 GMT

Hi Axel,
This is indeed what is did (replace aikau.jar in share war package). I was wondering if there was a way to update more 'cleanly' using amp package….

Regards,
VIncent

Re: aikau upgrade

ddraper — Thu, 26 Nov 2015 13:26:27 GMT

It's worth noting here that you can't upgrade Aikau like this on 5.0.d because it won't include updates to the Surf framework that are required. It is only possible to upgrade Aikau like this from 5.0.1 onwards.

Regards,
Dave

Re: aikau upgrade

afaust — Thu, 26 Nov 2015 15:28:24 GMT

Dave, just to be sure: The statements in <a href="https://www.alfresco.com/blogs/developer/2015/03/24/why-alfresco-5-0-d-will-be-a-game-changer-for-ui-development/">your blog entry from March this year</a> that Aikau can be updated in 5.0.d by dropping in a new Aikau JAR no longer apply since too much has changed in Surf now? Is this stated somewhere else (except here) and to wich Aikau versions does this restriction apply?
If this is the case, maybe there should be an update to the blog post to avoid people running into issues when trying to update Aikau on 5.0.d.

Re: aikau upgrade

vincent-kali — Fri, 27 Nov 2015 22:15:29 GMT

I should have read your post before posting this topic. Anyway I did what you described in your blog (dropping in a new Aikau JAR) and I did not detect any issues, but major aikau improvements !
Could you please give us some details about the possible issues ?
Thanks,
VIncent

Re: aikau upgrade

vincent-kali — Tue, 01 Dec 2015 10:56:54 GMT

I understood that Surf Framework was based on freemarker and YUI (nothing to do with Aikau).
Is this correct ?
In this case, what are the possible interactions between surf and aikau ?
Is it planned to replace surf with aikau at the end ?

Thanks for your clarification
Vincent

Re: aikau upgrade

afaust — Tue, 01 Dec 2015 13:39:41 GMT

Hello,

the Surf framework is a view composition framework. By default it includes the capability to write components using server-side scripting (Rhino / JavaScript) and templating (FreeMarker). It is neither based on YUI nor forces the use of it. It does include some tooling for Dojo as well as a JS compressor using a YUI tool.

Aikau is a widget library and testing framework built on top of the Surf framework. It primarily includes the Dojo library / widgets, but also makes use of other frameworks / tools (i.e. jQuery).
Aikau cannot replace Surf. It is intended to help developers build applications on top of the Surf framework. It is also a tool to simplify customization of the Alfresco Share client.
The Alfresco Share client currently primarily uses YUI as its JavaScript library. Aikau is also intended to help gradually move Share away from YUI when new pages are added or existing ones refactored.

Regards
Axel

Re: aikau upgrade

ddraper — Tue, 01 Dec 2015 16:53:07 GMT

Apologies… Axel is completely correct - this will work on 5.0.d… I'd lost track of which release occurred when… so you can't used the Aikau JARs with Enterprise 5.0.0 or Community 5.0.c (or earlier) but you can with 5.0.d Community and 5.0.1 Enterprise.

Thanks for correcting me on this Axel.

Re: aikau upgrade

vincent-kali — Wed, 02 Dec 2015 14:12:53 GMT

Thanks a lot for your clear and comprehensive response !
I confirm that aikau upgrade on 5.0d seems to work perfectly.

Axel, another clarification: I understood that aikau doesn't need templating functionnality anymore (.ftl is only used to load main widgets model).
Am'I correct ?

Vincent

Re: aikau upgrade

afaust — Wed, 02 Dec 2015 16:50:13 GMT

Hello,

yes and no.
Aikau still needs templating but as you point out, the role of server-side FreeMarker templating is really limited to rendering the widgets / JSON model. But the individual widgets typically have HTML template fragments associated with them, so in a sense you still have to use templating when you implement new types of widgets. Some knowledge of FreeMarker might be required if you can't work witht the default full / hybrid page templates and might want to create your own (i.e. in my current project, we use a custom variant of the Aikau / Share full page template).

Regards
Axel

Re: aikau upgrade

vincent-kali — Fri, 04 Dec 2015 14:16:48 GMT

Clear. Thanks Axel.