Confused about Share

[boden]

I'm a little bit confused here.  I know I asked this question in another form last week, but I'm still at a loss.

Why is Share being recommended for use when it doesn't have the feature set of the JSF client, and worse, modifying Share sites with the JSF client is unsupported and warned against.

How can I make this work for my users when some documents require management using standard-Alfresco features like content rules?  Everyone has to be trained in using both Share and Explorer?  I really don't think they're going to get it.  Is there any way to at least view documents elsewhere in the repository from within Share so that only editors have to learn both interfaces?

Maybe I'm missing something obvious here…

[greenpoise]

Ha, great!!!.. I have tried alot of CMS and this is the best. Thanks for the help.

G

[boden]

I must admit that I'm still a bit confused… perhaps confused isn't the word here.

The portal market has quite a number of players with solid solutions based on standards like JSR-168.  I see Share as being, essentially, a portal product in that it has the same basic must-have feature set as what you would get out of something like Liferay or a commercial offering.  The difference of course, unless I'm completely mistaken, is that Alfresco has chosen their own implementation.

Right now as I am comparing products and have narrowed it down to Alfresco and Liferay, I must say that the basic features I need are available in both.  However, I do need the advanced features of Alfresco document management for certain types of documents.  If I choose Share then I have to wait until the more advanced features are added or use multiple clients, and if I develop any custom applications in Alfresco then I'm tying myself to Alfresco.  If I choose Liferay then I get the same basic features as Alfresco, including the basic document management features, and many more that I might be able to take advantage of.  If I develop custom applications for Liferay then without a terrible amount of work I can always move them to a different JSR portal in the future and I'm not locked in.

Without any sarcasm or ill-intent, can you explain why I would choose Alfresco Share instead of a portal based on standards?  Why did Alfresco choose to take its own direction instead of working on portal integration?  Does Alfresco have any plans to increase portlet support other than providing APIs that we can use to do it ourselves?

[mrogers]

That's added another dimension of confusion by bringing in the portal word :wink:

You will see discussions on Alfresco's and Liferay's forums about running Liferay as a front end and Alfresco as a back end and that is a powerful solution that may be what you requiring.   Alfresco and Liferay are not similar products so its not a question of one or the other, you may need both.

However I think share is for that sizeable majority of people who are not comfortable with JSR-168 or JSF based interfaces.   Share grew out of the Alfresco community's desire for something simpler and easier to customise than the JSF client. 

And remember that although Share seems to be doing very well, it is brand new which is why there are some rough edges.     Take a look at WebStudio to see what the surf interface can do to get some idea of what may come next for Share.

[mikeh]

Does our 2009 Roadmap help confuse the decision?  :wink:

http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/2009_Roadmap#Alfresco_Labs_3e:_Planned_Q2_2009

Enable Share page components to be re-used in OpenSocial, JSR-168 and other web sites

Mike

[boden]

Thanks guys, I appreciate your responses.

[beren]

I'm also stuck in the land of confusion…

It seems to me that if you are already using alfresco, but you want to also do blogs and wikis that there should be some tie between these two even if all it is is a "side panel" widget in share that can be tied back to traditional alfresco spaces.

I also think that the "web 2.0" functions of share are a good start, but are very far behind other tools…I find myself wondering if alfresco is taking its eye off the core and wandering into a space where a lot of catching up is required. Most people serious about blogs and wikis are not going to be satisfied with these tools…they will use wordpress or confluence or twiki.

To me better modules and integration into both JBoss portal and Liferay portal would have been a better way to go.

Truly - I hope no offense to the developers…but I think honest feedback is good. As a fellow developer I know building this stuff is hard work.