Bunch of Questions before I start!

[cutout33]

Hello All,

Am a newbie in Alfresco, am about two days old and I have a bunch of question on using Alfresco to make sure that am in the right direction :mrgreen: :
1. Am using the labs version, can I use for production(i.e. is it stable, and free)?
2. I need it for dynamic content that is fed directly to the DB or by email(or what ever Alfresco uses )… is this applicable?
3. Is there Access permissions to the content and for the registration(i.e. it needs to be accepted by admin before it is published/accepted), and is this done on DB level?
4. How much is it performance efficient (comparing to Joomla and other php CMSs)?
5. Is it very hard to administer, is there extensions to be added like Joomla (i.e. how hard to deploy a help desk, or online support)??
6. Is it easy to create Multi-language websites?
7. Does it use DB for storing content (Articles especially)?

Thats it for now, sorry for the long post  ops:

Thanks in advance

[mrogers]

Some quick answers to your long list of questions. :wink:
1. Labs 3 Stable,  is free can be used for production and many do,   however many people also want the guarantees and support that comes with Alfresco enterprise.
2. Not fully sure what you mean by "dynamic content" but alfresco has a range of interfaces for adding content including by email.
3. Alfresco has its own permissions model.   Permissions are not at the database level.   There are also rules and workflows which can control how content is apprroved or publised.
4. Alfresco is a high performance CMS.    Its not really comparable to Joomla (in fact there is an integration between Joomal and Alfresco.)    And is not a php CMS either.
5. Alfresco is easy to administer once you understand it.     There are many extensions and add ons.
6. Alfresco is multi-lingual and has a bunch of language packs.   However if you are creating a website using Alfresco WCM you are free to use whatever technology suits.   Alfresco WCM does not tie you into any technology.
7. Meta data is stored in a DB.  Content is stored on a file system.

[cutout33]

Thanks for your quick answer, but still I need to be sure of a couple of points:

Alfresco is a high performance CMS. Its not really comparable to Joomla (in fact there is an integration between Joomal and Alfresco.) And is not a php CMS either.

Am a joomla user my self but am a JAVA developer too  , Now Joomla is very easy to administer, content is easily published but it only uses mysql and has somehow long loading time for pages, if I want to move to Alfrsco can I do every thing I did with joomla(i.e. templates, Categories and sections, backups …etc). and why are joomla and alfrsco can not be compared?

And what do you mean by integration between joomla and alfresco?
does alfresco support right-to-left languages??
What is the best place to start learning about alfresco knowing that I already have it up and running  :mrgreen:

[mrogers]

:mrgreen:  My knowledge of Joomla is not detailed so I'll just get flamed if I try to compare the two.

If you are interested in building web sites there's some folks who use Joomla's web site building tools with Alfresco as the back end or Drupal  or Microsoft .Net as a front end.      Or if you want to use Alfresco as your web site infrastucture there's share and studio to provide the nuts and bolts.    You choose whatever suits.  

For Joomal / Alfresco there is an integration called "Joosco".   http://forums.alfresco.com/en/viewforum.php?f=49

Alfresco supports many languages.      Java and various scripting languages on the server (ECMA script and PHP first).   And a large set of remote interfaces (CIFS/RMI/SOAP/JCR/FTP/Web Script/SharePoint).

[cutout33]

Thanks for the great help

Or if you want to use Alfresco as your web site infrastucture there's share and studio to provide the nuts and bolts.

now do you mean what I installed is the backend for my website and if I want to build a website I can use studio tool!

I really think alfresco is a little bit complex, but also I think it worth trying it out :wink: