topic Re: XML Editor in Alfresco Archive

XML Editor

rdanner — Sat, 12 Nov 2005 00:45:32 GMT

If you are looking for an XML editor that uses a schema to generate a form then this is may be of interest to you.I have been working on a tutorial for adding an inline editor to alfresco. I need to go back and finish that.in the mean time the source for the work can be found athttp://www.posit-gro

Re: XML Editor

rdanner — Sat, 12 Nov 2005 18:51:02 GMT

If you are looking for an XML editor that uses a schema to generate a form then this is may be of interest to you.

I have been working on a tutorial for adding an inline editor to alfresco. I need to go back and finish that.

in the mean time the source for the work can be found at

http://www.posit-group.org/cache/xml-editor.zip

This is only an example. There are a number of issues.

First the example uses a applet (that costs money).

Second the example uses an applet (that causes browsers to flake)

Third,

I used this as an oppertunity to demonstrate how we can put most of the code in alfresco in to uber-configurable patterns.

In the checkinCheckoutbean method editFile you will notice the code has been pulled out and replace with a "pipeline invokation"

The pipeline definition can be found in checkinCheckoutPipelineChains.xml
and the components used by the pipeline in pipeline-context.xml

more on this later… gotta run

Ok so if you want to take a look at this thing, here is how

o Download the version 1 Alfresco Source
o Expand it somewhere
o Download the xml-editor.zip from (http://www.posit-group.org/cache/xml-editor.zip)
o Unzip it inside the projects folder of the alfresco source code (it should be right aside the other projects like repository)
o go inside of the xml-editor project and run build.bat. Build.bat doesnt actual build anything. It just copies the files from the xml-editor over top of the existing projects.
o build afresco war as usual

o upload the sample documents in to a space.
o each file should be "inlineeditable" and of the mimetype XML
o add the Validated XML aspect to the salesreport.xml
o edit the salesreport.xml (properties panel). You will see it has properties for a schema and a xsl. edit them by selecting the xsl and xsd file you just uploaded.

when you click on the pencil for the xsl and xsd you should get the inline text editor. when you click on the pencil for HTML you should get the html editor. When you click on the pencil for the salesreport.xml you should see an applet load, then have a form you can edit which will do validation.

Re: XML Editor

rdanner — Sat, 12 Nov 2005 18:55:00 GMT

If you are looking for an XML editor that uses a schema to generate a form then this is may be of interest to you.

I have been working on a tutorial for adding an inline editor to alfresco. I need to go back and finish that.

in the mean time the source for the work can be found at

http://www.posit-group.org/cache/xml-editor.zip

This is only an example. There are a number of issues.

First the example uses a applet (that costs money).

Second the example uses an applet (that causes browsers to flake)

Third,

I used this as an oppertunity to demonstrate how we can put most of the code in alfresco in to uber-configurable patterns.

In the checkinCheckoutbean method editFile you will notice the code has been pulled out and replace with a "pipeline invokation"

The pipeline definition can be found in checkinCheckoutPipelineChains.xml
and the components used by the pipeline in pipeline-context.xml

more on this later… gotta run

Ok so if you want to take a look at this thing, here is how

o Download the version 1 Alfresco Source
o Expand it somewhere
o Download the xml-editor.zip from (http://www.posit-group.org/cache/xml-editor.zip)
o Unzip it inside the projects folder of the alfresco source code (it should be right aside the other projects like repository)
o go inside of the xml-editor project and run build.bat. Build.bat doesnt actual build anything. It just copies the files from the xml-editor over top of the existing projects.
o build afresco war as usual

o upload the sample documents in to a space.
o each file should be "inlineeditable" and of the mimetype XML
o add the Validated XML aspect to the salesreport.xml
o edit the salesreport.xml (properties panel). You will see it has properties for a schema and a xsl. edit them by selecting the xsl and xsd file you just uploaded.

when you click on the pencil for the xsl and xsd you should get the inline text editor. when you click on the pencil for HTML you should get the html editor. When you click on the pencil for the salesreport.xml you should see an applet load, then have a form you can edit which will do validation.

Now.. the xml editor is not the interesting part in my oppinion. What is interesting is the ability to choose what editor goes with what mimetype and other conditions like the content having a particular aspect without editing any code.

to make logic changes on how the editor is chosen, edit the checkinCheckoutPipelineChains.xml file. to modify what implements each link, modify the pipeline-context.xml.

Now this is all well and good. but where this actually becomes interesting is when we allow plugins to add, subtract, and modify existing links from the chains, or even add new chains.

Re: XML Editor

a5sk4s — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 22:56:21 GMT

Russ:

As part of an evaluation, I am interested in going through the steps of integrating an XML editor. Unfortunately, I could not access the link http://www.posit-group.org/cache/xml-editor.zip mentioned above. Also, the Wiki page at http://www.alfresco.org/mediawiki/index.php/Adding_an_Editor_Guide appears to be work in progress. Is there any better place for me to get jump-started? Could you please make the above resource available? Thank you in advance.

Regards,

Andreas

Re: XML Editor

rdanner — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 22:59:42 GMT

Russ:

As part of an evaluation, I am interested in going through the steps of integrating an XML editor. Unfortunately, I could not access the link http://www.posit-group.org/cache/xml-editor.zip mentioned above. Also, the Wiki page at http://www.alfresco.org/mediawiki/index.php/Adding_an_Editor_Guide appears to be work in progress. Is there any better place for me to get jump-started? Could you please make the above resource available? Thank you in advance.

Regards,

Andreas

Sure I will repost that code on my personal server as the posit server is down at the moment. Check again in a few minutes at URL
http://www.devartisan.org/xml-editor.zip

-R

Re: XML Editor

a5sk4s — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 01:42:25 GMT

Russ, thanks for providing the example. My current understanding is that this is at the proof of concept stage.

I checked the amount of effort, it would take me to merge it into the source code version that I have. Based on the amount of changes and the fact that there are 3rd party libraries that don't appear to be open source, I've decided to stay away from it.

On the other hand, I believe that this or a similar approach would be very useful.

Is there any activity within the Alfresco team to make inline editor integration a more straight-forward process?

Thanks for any feedback.

Andreas

Re: XML Editor

rdanner — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 01:46:00 GMT

It is based on a third party tool, the second drawback is that it is an applet.

There is a section in the wiki I think that helps integrate this code. I am not sure if much has changed but this code was written for the pre 1.0 release.

Sorry it is not more helpful. We just did it to prove to people that you can plug other applications in to alfresco.

You might look at using BXE or something simular.

Re: XML Editor

a5sk4s — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 22:00:18 GMT

Russ, I hope you didn't get me wrong: seeing what you've done was very helpful and I think that it goes into the right direction.

The only part that concerned me a bit was the use of the pipeline framework (which is fine for a proof of concept), as I'm not clear on the availability and licensing ramification. So I decided not to integrate.

I'm still interested in a solution and you pointed me in the right direction.

At the same time, I was just interested in existing activities in that area. Maybe one of the Alfresco developers can speak to that.

Thanks,

Andreas

Re: XML Editor

rdanner — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 22:40:37 GMT

Russ, I hope you didn't get me wrong: seeing what you've done was very helpful and I think that it goes into the right direction.

The only part that concerned me a bit was the use of the pipeline framework (which is fine for a proof of concept), as I'm not clear on the availability and licensing ramification. So I decided not to integrate.

I'm still interested in a solution and you pointed me in the right direction.

At the same time, I was just interested in existing activities in that area. Maybe one of the Alfresco developers can speak to that.

Thanks,

Andreas

Hey Andreas,

No problem what so ever. The pipeline framework was partially to demonstate some of the concepts discussed in other threads where you can basically do inversion of control at the method level.

The pipeline stuff is licensed under the apache license 2.0.

Re: XML Editor

unknown-user — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 19:02:19 GMT

what about http://chiba.sourceforge.net/ from http://www.chibacon.de? It's a server side, but ajax enabled xforms editor. They have an xsd2xforms conversion (bot in java and in xslt). Using xforms for editing xml would be cool.

Re: XML Editor

rdanner — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 20:32:05 GMT

what about http://chiba.sourceforge.net/ from http://www.chibacon.de? It's a server side, but ajax enabled xforms editor. They have an xsd2xforms conversion (bot in java and in xslt). Using xforms for editing xml would be cool.

kukeltje,

This is very interesting. We spent some time looking around at XForms some months back but there was some concern on the team about maturity and our familiarity with it. One of our guys found the applet and we decided that we could put that in place in days (which we did) rather then taking a long time to make a proof of concept.

What is your availability? How comfortable with working on this are you? I do not have time to do much research in this direction (in fact I have none).

I can support yours or anothers efforts in getting this in to alfresco if that is something you want to do. You would have to do the research and make a simple example outside of alfresco. I could probably integrate it very quickly in alfresco or give you guidence on how to do it.

If your interested, lets get things fired up and going. my email is dannerr@csps.com

cheers,
-R

Re: XML Editor

unknown-user — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 23:22:37 GMT

what about http://chiba.sourceforge.net/ from http://www.chibacon.de? It's a server side, but ajax enabled xforms editor. They have an xsd2xforms conversion (bot in java and in xslt). Using xforms for editing xml would be cool.

kukeltje,

Hi Russ, Sorry for not putting my name under this message. I won't forget it this time (it's Ronald)

What is your availability? How comfortable with working on this are you? I do not have time to do much research in this direction (in fact I have none).

Availability: Depends, Via the company I work for: none, scarce priate time: a few minutes a day, Freelance: if it pays enough 😉 No seriously.
Familiar: I'm quite familiar with chiba and jBPM and the combination. Although I never seem to find the time to realy finish it. I'm totaly unfamiliar with alfresco and it's editors. Since I do not want to start working on another opensource project if I did not even finish my tasks with jBPM and Chiba….. sorry… but the freelance option is always open 😉

I can support yours or anothers efforts in getting this in to alfresco if that is something you want to do. You would have to do the research and make a simple example outside of alfresco.

This I do not quite get. what do you mean by 'simple'. The default chiba usage is not complex. Adding some connectors to it to get the data out of the repository and put it back in should be straight-forward. The plugable architecture of chiba allows replacing a webservice call with a native java call for optimal performance.

I could probably integrate it very quickly in alfresco or give you guidence on how to do it.

This is (imo) more work than the simple example, but mayby my understanding of simple differs from yours.

If your interested, lets get things fired up and going. my email is dannerr@csps.com

Always, but you know….. time….

Ronald

Re: XML Editor

paulhh — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 10:08:58 GMT

Guys - this is very interesting to us, since we've also looked at Chiba in the past and thought that it was a prime candidate for integration with Alfresco. Once 1.2 is out, Chiba and jBPM are some of the immediate things we wanted to get hooked in.

How can we make use of your experience without taking up too much of your time? If you were to do it or assist (freelance or out of the goodness of your heart), what's your instinct on effort required to integrate Chiba into a Java CMS and what approach would you take?

Cheers
Paul.

Re: XML Editor

unknown-user — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 12:08:34 GMT

you guys convinced me.. (enthousiasm always does). I think I can contribute 5-10 hours per week currently. I even try to convince my boss, well his boss in fact, to start using Alfresco, maybe even internal developers can be involved then.

Maybe there could be even more synergy.
- JBoss Portal has CMS (are you guys looking at that ore something new?)
- jBPM is looking at supporting minimalistic document management (JCR based)
- Chiba gains by this (exposure via Alfresco and JBoss)

With regard to the freelance/goodness of my heart, I'll initially go for the latter, but maybe the chiba guys can get commercially involved and do things much quicker.

Re: XML Editor

rdanner — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 15:35:45 GMT

you guys convinced me.. (enthousiasm always does). I think I can contribute 5-10 hours per week currently. I even try to convince my boss, well his boss in fact, to start using Alfresco, maybe even internal developers can be involved then.

Maybe there could be even more synergy.
- JBoss Portal has CMS (are you guys looking at that ore something new?)
- jBPM is looking at supporting minimalistic document management (JCR based)
- Chiba gains by this (exposure via Alfresco and JBoss)

With regard to the freelance/goodness of my heart, I'll initially go for the latter, but maybe the chiba guys can get commercially involved and do things much quicker.

Thats great ronald, let me know if you need some help. I am happy to offer any support.

Re: XML Editor

kvc — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 01:14:41 GMT

you guys convinced me.. (enthousiasm always does). I think I can contribute 5-10 hours per week currently. I even try to convince my boss, well his boss in fact, to start using Alfresco, maybe even internal developers can be involved then.

Maybe there could be even more synergy.
- JBoss Portal has CMS (are you guys looking at that ore something new?)
- jBPM is looking at supporting minimalistic document management (JCR based)
- Chiba gains by this (exposure via Alfresco and JBoss)

With regard to the freelance/goodness of my heart, I'll initially go for the latter, but maybe the chiba guys can get commercially involved and do things much quicker.

Sorry for jumping on this many months late, but I am new to Alfresco and working on our web content management extensions, which will include use of chiba to provide an xforms implementation for browser-based XML content creation, editing, storage, and transformation (key to publish a single source of content to multiple websites sites and web pages within a site).

I'd be interested to know what if any work happened here. A high-level set of targets for our WCM initiative can be found here:

http://www.alfresco.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=947

… and details on the upcoming xforms implementation will be forthcoming on our wiki towards the end of March.

Cheers.

Kevin

Thats great ronald, let me know if you need some help. I am happy to offer any support.

Re: XML Editor

ronb — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 07:31:05 GMT

Hi,

I am currently evaluating the possibility to implement (embed) a flash based inline XML editor in Alfresco.
I found this thread extremely interesting, but the samples are no longer available online. Realizing that this thread is now two years old, I'm afraid that even if they were, it may not be applicable to current code. So far I have not found much discussion on this issue in other places.

Can someone please point me in the right direction on this? Does the sample code still exist? Has there been any work done in embedding inline editors under more recent versions of Alfresco? Do you know of any discussion on this subject that can help?

Thanks,
Ron