topic Re: Adding an aspect to Alfresco node comments? in Alfresco Forum

Adding an aspect to Alfresco node comments?

sepgs2004 — Fri, 14 Sep 2018 19:03:22 GMT

BackgroundWe are using node/alfresco comments feature.What is the comment feature that I am referring to?If we go to Share UI, and go to edit a document, we will see comments way below. There, we can add, edit or delete comments of a document.For now, our application communicates with (or accesses d

Re: Adding an aspect to Alfresco node comments?

jpotts — Fri, 21 Sep 2018 03:50:10 GMT

It looks like you may have decided to use the REST API to add the aspect to your comment node based on this question: Adding an aspect to a comment node has error

If you haven't already, you should read my tutorial on Web Scripts. It includes an example that uses the NodeService to add an aspect to a node with an addAspect method call.

If you decide to use a JavaScript controller you should read the JavaScript API documentation. Here is one of the docs that discusses addAspect.

Regarding whether you use a Java or a JavaScript controller, it really doesn't matter much. You should probably use whichever you are more comfortable developing with.

You might some day find API's that are easier to work with in one versus the other, but simple stuff like addAspect is well-covered in both Java and JavaScript.

Re: Adding an aspect to Alfresco node comments?

sepgs2004 — Thu, 27 Sep 2018 18:45:32 GMT

Thank you very much for giving pointers on the Web Scripts and JavaScript API. Sometimes, in the crunch of time based work, it is hard to search online and land on a good article or resource.

Yes, I went ahead with the "Alfresco Content Services REST API" (not the web-script one) to add the aspect to the comment. This is the method. This value c6c9e3af-6e0b-46ad-8e11-648e1a27e7e6 is the comment node id. The comment must have been created already using a prior Rest API call.

HTTP PUT (for attaching aspect with its value to a comment node)
<AlfrescoServerPort>/alfresco/api/-default-/public/alfresco/versions/1/nodes/c6c9e3af-6e0b-46ad-8e11-648e1a27e7e6

HTTP Body
{
"aspectNames":[
"sloperationInfo"
],
"properties": {
"sloperation_user":"Goose",
"sloperation_info":"A comment is added"
}
}

In my code, I do like shown below. The variable restApiUrl contains the PUT url as given above, and the variable jsonString contains the above HttpBody Json content.

CloseableHttpResponse response = null;
URL restApiUrl = null;

CredentialsProvider provider = new BasicCredentialsProvider();
UsernamePasswordCredentials creds = new UsernamePasswordCredentials(this.configUser, this.configUserPassword);
provider.setCredentials(AuthScope.ANY, creds);
CloseableHttpClient httpClient = HttpClientBuilder.create().setDefaultCredentialsProvider(provider).build();

HttpPut putFunction = new HttpPut(restApiUrl.toString());

try {
StringEntity entity = new StringEntity(jsonString);
putFunction.setEntity(entity);
putFunction.setHeader("Accept", "application/json");
putFunction.setHeader("Content-type", "application/json");
response = httpClient.execute(putFunction);

}
catch (Exception e) {}
finally {
if (response != null) { try { response.close(); } catch (Exception ignore) {} }
}

As you have mentioned before, I see that this is a two call approach. First there is a Rest API call to create the comment (node). Then we have a Rest API call to attach/create the custom aspect.

For now, since this is purely user (navigation) action driven, there is only a remote possibility that it would pose scaling problem.

In future version of our application, I would certainly consider a Web Script approach, where I can achieve all this in a single call.