cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Alfresco RIA Clients

jpfi
Champ in-the-making
Champ in-the-making
hi Guys,
I'd like to take the launch of docasu (http://code.optaros.com/trac/docasu/) to start a discussion about Alfresco and RIA clients.
I think the first RIA was opsoro (http://opsoro.org & http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Opsoro).
The next was Steve Reiner's FlexSpaces (http://www.integratedsemantics.org/ & http://forge.alfresco.com/projects/flexspaces/)
There are also two guys (Denis Halupa & Daniel Gradecak) who are currently developing another client & framework (http://forums.alfresco.com/en/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=11987&p=41478&hilit=extjs#p41478)

So many projects to, why?
My Answers:
  • There is a need for a simple Alfresco Client where a normal user can do their "homework"

  • WebScripts are a nice technology to solve the prob. on the serverside

  • ExtJS or Flex are apparently the best clientside technology
Ok, but why do we need 4 different approaches (perhaps 3, because steve's Flex client is not based on ExtJs)?
We all want to reach the same, perhaps with a different main focus, but the goal is to provide a simple to use and smart RIA Client for Alfresco, or not?
Why don't we combine our efforts? At least docasu and opsoro appear to me as twins. Opsoro has a preview, tag & category browser and a My Alfresco Portal, docasu has the missing write access methods like createFolder, checkIn, checkOut, a Clipboard, Favorites…
Why doesn't Alfresco jump on the bandwagon?
my 2cents…feedback highly welcome,
Jan
26 REPLIES 26

fselendic
Champ in-the-making
Champ in-the-making
Well, lets not forget about YAAC (yet another Alfresco client  Smiley Very Happy ), Slingshot that Alfresco is developing.

Well, actually, the more, the merrier.
I don't like Flex, so thats one I'll pass. Daniel and Denis are really kick ass programmers, and from what Daniel has told me about their client, they are closest to my ideal, from UI look to architecture. Just don't know if they'll ever go open source, will check that.

Optaros was proof of concept, don't think it went much further than that.
Will try Docasu, looks good.
Can't figure direction Slingshot is taking Alfresco, except it is not direction I need for now  Smiley Very Happy

All in all, after not having usable RIA interface for years, I actually think that several approaches are good in this phase. little competition has never done any harm.

jpfi
Champ in-the-making
Champ in-the-making
hi,
yub, Daniel & Denis take another approach then opsoro and docasu. They don't use plain webscripts, instead of they built their own (nice) framework around webScripts to be more flexbile around actions, roles and configuration.
Ok, form my point of view slingshot isn't comparable with the mentioned RIAs. It has another another goal. It is no more a DMS client it is more collaboaration portal with blogs, wikis, doclibs (the dms part)…like MOSS.
Well, several approaches are always good, because the make things better, but on the other hand there raises the question why don't join forces?
At the End, the customer likes to have a proofed client and not different Proof of Concepts or prototypes.
It is the same thing with java web framework or CMS. There are nearly more web frameworks or CMS than people who care about it.
Cheers,
Jan

fselendic
Champ in-the-making
Champ in-the-making
Yep, Slingshot has abandoned DM path, which I find weird. Unfortunately CIFS access still has problems with Alfresco, so we are kind of stuck with old Alfresco web client.

Took a look at Docasu, getting "Failed to load Data Model" error, did you have any luck with it?

jpfi
Champ in-the-making
Champ in-the-making
hi,
yab, I've installed it successfully. Simply installed the amp.
Cheers, Jan

stevereiner
Champ in-the-making
Champ in-the-making
fselendic,

Even if you don't want to use Flex for development, FlexSpaces+AIR makes a good CIFS substitute with its support for drag / drop into the repository from the desktop. (Cifs doesn't work for me and others after install of vista sp1. So, for example I use FlexSpaces+AIR to drag multiple webscript files into the Data Dictionary / Web Script Extensions area since it takes less steps than using the web client)

(Personally I find flex to be great, productive platform: mxml to do declarative layout, and actionscript  that makes javascript more object oriented, more java like.)

Steve

dhalupa
Champ on-the-rise
Champ on-the-rise
hi,
imo such "large" number of different clients in development is only a proof that Alfresco made a great development platform. It fits equally good for lightweight clients like Opsoro or Docasu and for server side framework like Alfext. However goals of these development efforts are not the same, while Opsoro and Docasu are focusing on improving user experience during repository browsing, the goal of Alfext, I have to say rather ambitious one, is to enable incremental development process while developing complex enterprise applications using Alfresco platform and ExtJs as a view.
Anyone developing anything more than trivial applications which involve fair amount of JavaScript client side development knows that it can be a quite challenging task to manage, especially if you are working in a team. It takes a lot of development discipline and a lot of conventions not to get lost.  What we are trying to achieve with AlfExt is to enable development using reusable components which are configured using Alfresco configuration. This is the same concept found in Alfresco JSF application, the difference is that it is not html which gets produced on the server side, but rather JavaScript.

AlfExt itself will be open sourced eventually, but we can not define the date, yet.. There are so many things to do and so little time Smiley Happy

Best regards,

Denis

fselendic
Champ in-the-making
Champ in-the-making
fselendic,

Even if you don't want to use Flex for development, FlexSpaces+AIR makes a good CIFS substitute with its support for drag / drop into the repository from the desktop. (Cifs doesn't work for me and others after install of vista sp1. So, for example I use FlexSpaces+AIR to drag multiple webscript files into the Data Dictionary / Web Script Extensions area since it takes less steps than using the web client)

(Personally I find flex to be great, productive platform: mxml to do declarative layout, and actionscript  that makes javascript more object oriented, more java like.)

Steve

Fair enough, forgot about that  Smiley Very Happy

fselendic
Champ in-the-making
Champ in-the-making
Hi Denis,

It is hard not to notice (for us that had a chance to see some of your work) that first visible effect of your framework is improving user experience during repository browsing  Smiley Very Happy

And, sooner or later, anyone doing anything even slightly serious with Alfresco, will be in need of some kind of framework like AlfExt. So I find your approach a better way of addressing this particular problem.

Also, having in mind ambitious nature of your project, and benefits it could bring, jpfi is right; joining at least some forces would be great. Of course, after you guys find sustainable business model for financing such amount of work  Smiley Very Happy

Speaking of AlfExt, any plans for i18n and L10n? Or is that already addressed?

louise
Champ in-the-making
Champ in-the-making
So, AlfExt… or ExtAlf (http://louise.bujj.be/poet/?p=753) what is localized and nice… Smiley Happy