topic Re: Accessing Aspects with JavaScript in Alfresco Archive

Accessing Aspects with JavaScript

slothrop — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 00:16:50 GMT

I have a custom aspect defined as follows: <aspects> <aspect name="custom:Reviewers"> <title>Reviewers</title> <properties> <property name="custom:Reviewer1"> <title>Reviewer1</title> <ty

Re: Accessing Aspects with JavaScript

davidc — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 10:15:59 GMT

Are you using Alfresco 2.1?

Re: Accessing Aspects with JavaScript

slothrop — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 13:43:13 GMT

Are you using Alfresco 2.1?

Yes.

It looks like document.aspects returns a Java HashSet but the objects returned by an iterator do not have the properties defined in the aspect, Reviewers. There is no such thing as casting in JavaScript, right?

Re: Accessing Aspects with JavaScript

davidc — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 14:52:02 GMT

The aspects property just returns the names of the aspects applied to the node.

You can retrieve properties (defined by an aspect) using the standard doc.properties collection.

e.g. reviewer = document.properties["custom:Reviewers"];

Re: Accessing Aspects with JavaScript

slothrop — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 16:48:59 GMT

document.properties["custom:Reviewers"] returns null even though "if(document.hasAspect("custom:Reviewers"))" returns true.

document.properties returns an array of length 17. When I step through the array:

var propertyAccumulator;
for(i=0; i<l; i++)
{
   s = new String(document.properties);
   if(s != null && s.indexOf("Reviewer") >= 0)
   {
      name = s;
   }
   propertyAccumulator = propertyAccumulator + " " + s;
}

where l = document.properties.length, s is always null. If instead of s = new String(document.properties) I do s = document.properties.toString() I get an error that says "can't call method toString() on null," of course (just trying to cover all bases here).

Re: Accessing Aspects with JavaScript

slothrop — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 00:08:00 GMT

After trying everything I can think of, I am forced to conclude that document aspects cannot be accessed by JavaScript. This includes not just custom aspects but also the Alfresco-defined aspects like inlineeditable, copiedfrom, etc. I have tried every variation of document.properties["custom:Reviewers"] that I can imagine. I can access Alfresco-defined properties like name, creator, title, etc but no others.

Re: Accessing Aspects with JavaScript

davidc — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 10:23:24 GMT

Let me try here.

Re: Accessing Aspects with JavaScript

davidc — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 13:27:47 GMT

Document aspect properties can be get & set with Javascript - I've just tested - it's working fine.

Although the aspect may be applied, it's possible the property has not been set. You can inspect any node in the repository using the node browser (http://localhost:8080/alfresco/faces/jsp/admin/store-browser.jsp) - take a look at your node in question.

In the content model you can assign a default value to any property - if you do, the property is set on the node at creation time.

Re: Accessing Aspects with JavaScript

slothrop — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 23:59:00 GMT

I don't know if the property (which property?) has been set. What I know is that "Company Home > Pending Publication > Submissions" space has a content rule that adds the custom aspect "Reviewers" added to incoming documents. I can open up the Details page on the documents and add values for the 3 properties of the Reviewers aspect, Reviewer1, Reviewer2 and Reviewer3. This aspect and its property values persist when the document is copied or moved into other spaces.

I have defined a content rule for the "Company Home > Pending Publication > Submissions > In Progress > Under Review" space that is applied to incoming documents that have the Reviewers aspect. This rule executes a JavaScript file. However, when I copy a document which has the "Reviewers" aspect and has had values entered for the Reviewer1, Reviewer2 and Reviewer3 properties into the "Under Review" space, in this JavaScript code even though document.hasAspect("custom.Reviewers") returns true, document.properties["custom:Reviewers"] returns null and document.aspects["custom:Reviewers"] is undefined.

If I need to set the property, how do I do it? The Node Browser has been of no help. Its results are pretty much meaningless to me.

Re: Accessing Aspects with JavaScript

davidc — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 10:52:09 GMT

I don't know if the property (which property?) has been set.

The property you're trying to access!!!

What are the names of your properties?

custom:Reviewer1
custom:Reviewer2
custom:Reviewer3

So, try

document.properties["custom:Reviewer1"]

or

document.properties["custom:Reviewer2"]

or

document.properties["custom:Reviewer3"]

Re: Accessing Aspects with JavaScript

slothrop — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 16:38:16 GMT

This worked! It's hard to believe that I haven't tried that before. But it worked.

Thank you for your assistance.