Architecture

[kaerdsar]

Hi,
  We need to learn how works the Alfresco's architecture. The main topic we need to study is the layer of presentation and how to work with the beans and jsp pages.
 
  Who knows something?

[rivarola]

Hello,

I think the best starting point to understand Alfresco's webapp is to have a deep knowledge of JSF. Alrfresco engineers applied JSF concepts in a very clean way and added their own set of components and renderers. They also extended key JSF mechanisms like the navigation handler (to introduce their dialog and wizard framework like explained in the Wiki) or the variable resolver (to link JSF backing beans and Spring configuration).
The configuration layer Alfresco added on top of this is less documented from an architecture point of view (more examples, less schemas).

[rdanner]

Hello,

I think the best starting point to understand Alfresco's webapp is to have a deep knowledge of JSF. Alrfresco engineers applied JSF concepts in a very clean way and added their own set of components and renderers. They also extended key JSF mechanisms like the navigation handler (to introduce their dialog and wizard framework like explained in the Wiki) or the variable resolver (to link JSF backing beans and Spring configuration).
The configuration layer Alfresco added on top of this is less documented from an architecture point of view (more examples, less schemas).

Rivarola gives some hints in understanding the framework from a application perspective.  Another good place to look is in the content community – Sumer Jabri and Jeff Potts have contributed presentations which help to parse the architecture. These presentations can be found under user groups.  There are several other presentations and whitepapers in other areas of the community which are also helpful.

http://www.alfresco.com/products/whitepapers/

[sacco]

There are several other presentations and whitepapers in other areas of the community which are also helpful.

Ahem.  This rather gives an example of what is, for me, an enormous problem with Alfresco's use of JSF: by the time I've followed that link and logged in, JSF/Alfresco has no idea where I wanted to be in the first place.

As for ordinary users being able to exchange bookmarks … I'm really not convinced that I can deploy a system where training is required to do something so basic!