Alfresco Share UI: How can i start and from where?

[al-mothafar]

Hi

I just Alfresco Beginner , I read "Alfresco 3 Enterprise Content Management Implementation" book and almost I understood Alfresco and working with alfresco and everything OK. 

But, I working now on "Share" specially on theme, I Just don't know from where start, how can I create a theme and custom the layout of Share Dashboard and Sites, actually, i found Poor documentation about it, like : http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Share#Themes

I need a rich documentation, that can i read it and understand what I must do and everything about Share UI customization, with the following point:

How can I start from right way to Customize UI of Share ?!

Can I Integrate Alfresco with Eclipse and create theme through it !???

I don't need to open hundreds (ftl,xml,js,css,images) files with tens of different folder to change UI, is there any easy method !??

Please I need detailed things (Articles, Blogs, Books, Wikis, .. etc)  :!:

Just thing I'm dumber !!!!!!???? 

Thanks,

[michaelc]

A slow reply as I had never seen this item, but I figure to answer because others may have the same question.

  You will find the books limited on share, the wrok book is about the best, but it is still very very limited in the area of share, but its a places to start.

  I found the startup learning curve because of this to be higher then expected, but you will find once you get a handle on the framework it's a bit easyer.

I run using eclipse in the following way, others my have better methods.
  I have an apache front end with a mod-sk to allow it to work with tomcat.

  I have a deploy script that will move my webscripts to the share folder under tomcat.
  the Javascript I modify are under Apache and don't need to be moved.

  it would be better to run it all under eclipse so you can start and debug within eclipse but I have not done that yet as I expect it might take me about 3-4 days to figure it all out as I have several alfrescos on my machine 3.3.3 and 3.4.0 one modified and one out of the box so I can see when my change bollixed the thing up.

all the share parts your going to twek will be in /tomcat/webapps/share/web-inf/classes/alfresco/
you can change it here and restart, but that's not the correct way to do it.
copy the file to
tomcat/shared/classes/alfresco/ restart
after the first time you can change and you don't need to restart, just do share/service/index and refresh the scripts.

  Hope that help.
  hope others will tag on to this with better ideas, because we could all use a hand.

[marco_altieri]

I found the following very useful article:
http://code.google.com/p/share-extras/wiki/RedTheme

It describes how to deploy a share theme.
It is suggested to use a jar file with the new versions of Alfresco. It's the best way to do it if you want to distribute your theme as an open source project.

During the development, I think that it's better to use the old amp package because the deployed files can be modified directly: you don't need to redeploy the theme and to restart Alfresco if you need to change only a css…
What I would suggest is to create an ant task to create the amp file and another ant task to deploy the modified files directly to the destination folders: during the development, on your local machine, you can use the second task to deploy, for example, a small change in a css file with no need to restart alfresco.

Of course you can also create an ant task to package the theme as a jar, but I don't think that it's convenient to use this packaging during the development.

[michaelc]

Marco
I took a different route.
I front end with Apache with the mod_jk module so tomcat can run under Apache.

When I modify javascript or a css, I modify the header file 
so that ${page.url.context} becomes /js or /css.

  I then deploy my js and css files to my Apache server in production.
  this is done via a script in the production spaces and in development it's done using an alias in apache to the space in eclipse so I don't have any deployment there.

[marco_altieri]

Marco
When I modify javascript or a css, I modify the header file 
so that ${page.url.context} becomes /js or /css.

In which files are you chainging the urls ? Standard share files or your extensions?

[michaelc]

Marco
When I modify javascript or a css, I modify the header file 
so that ${page.url.context} becomes /js or /css.

In which files are you chainging the urls ? Standard share files or your extensions?

I have a very standard method, identify the file that needs to change in the war file.
let's say I am changing the javascript in the userprofile. 
I would copy the header C:\Alfresco\V334Mod\tomcat\webapps\share\WEB-INF\classes\alfresco\site-webscripts\org\alfresco\components\profile\userprofile.get.head.ftl to C:\Alfresco\V334Mod\tomcat\shared\classes\alfresco\web-extension\site-webscripts\org\alfresco\components\profile that is in my class path.

then change src="${page.url.context}/js/components/profile/profile.js" to src="/js/components/profile/profile.js"
the directory js in in my Apache root folder.

next I would copy the javascript file ( or css )  out of the war to the location on the Apache server.
C:\Alfresco\V334Mod\tomcat\webapps\share\components\profile goes to "/js/components/profile/"

Now I can modify the file to fit my needs. All of the changes are outside the war file, the only change I have in the war file is some minor theme tweeks and the preferences because I could not get that to take.

When the next release comes, I know what files must be crosschecked as there all in the shared directory.
I also figure I can change the classpath to my eclipse share directory and then I don't need to deploy on my test box.

[billalbert]

I just downloaded 3.4d for web content management, I have been reading this forum and wiki for info on configuring and customizing alfresco, but I was wondering if there is a recommended book out there so I can get away from the computer and read up on the subject. I am worried the book will be outdated by the time I get to it. "Alfresco 3 Enterprise Content Management Implementation" has been recommended, and I believe wrock, anything specifically for a new guy, other wise I will get alfresco 3 book.
Thanks and wish me luck.

[michaelc]

If your interest is in customizing Share the wrox is about the best I have seen but it's still pretty lame.
Problem is with 3.x and surf, things changed a lot and most books are written about the older alfresco interface.

I would think we should see a few good book soon that covers share in more then a single chapter.
My hope is that the community gets more active also and information is decimated in a better manor or the next wave my come along and this could get left behind.
until a new book shows here are a few links I found of value

    Kevins blog http://blogs.alfresco.com/wp/kevinr/
    Zazi http://zaizi.wordpress.com/
    ixxus http://www.ixxus.com/blog/2009/04/dashlet-tips/
    restful services http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Repository_RESTful_API_Reference
    webscripts http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Web_Scripts#Web_Script_Configuration

  hope that helps.
   Michael C Ford