topic Re: Importing an existing website in Alfresco Archive

Importing an existing website

andylivsey — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 09:29:24 GMT

Hi I have successfully downloaded and installed Alfresco 2.0 on JBoss Portal 2.4.1 and configured WCM as per intructions.We are looking to use the WCM for our intranet / website.How do i go about importing an existing website into Alfresco ?ThanksAndy

Re: Importing an existing website

kvc — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 10:09:38 GMT

Good question!

There are two ways to import an existing site or web application:

1. Use Bulk Import. In the web client, navigate into a sandbox. Under the Actions menu, select Bulk Import. You can then upload an existing zip or tar file (if a static HTML site or PHP or .NET or other type of site) or WAR file (if a JSP-driven site). Alfresco will automatically unpack this uploaded file and return the list of newly created files and directories to your Modified Items list where some or all of the assets can be submitted to staging and snapshoted.

Note that if a WAR file specifically is expanded, the virtualization server will be notified and automatically load a new preview context for your sandbox (and similarly do so when those assets are committed to staging).

2. Use CIFS. You can mount your web projects - including all sandboxes and staging snapshots - via CIFS (\\servermachine_a\avm). There, you can simple drag-and-drop any existing site or web app directly into your sandbox, where once again it will show up on your modified items list and be available for preview and/or submission.

The CIFS interface in particular makes using Alfresco good for an existing site. Really, we can manage any type of site, regardless of whether it's PHP-driven, .NET, etc. Also, you don't have to change the tools your developers or business users are using (though likely you should over time cut them over to use web forms to create structured XML for purposes of content reuse and multi-channel publishing) and - most importantly - you don't need to recode any asset references.

Let us know how you get on.

Kevin

Re: Importing an existing website

jcox — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 21:51:11 GMT

Note that if you create a web project then
import vis CIFS (rather than the GUI), you'll
need to hit "refresh sandbox" in the sandbox
you un-jared your warfile into.

That will tell the virtualization server that the
contents of your WEB-INF dir has changed,
and will allow it to reload your webapps libs.

Note that if you change files directly via CIFS
you only need to do this if you modify the
contents of WEB-INF… so changing normal
files such as html, jsp, etc.. just works without
an explicit sandbox refresh action. If you use
the builk import via the GUI, the entire thing
is automatic.