I am new to Alfresco. I have an existing Share site and would like to create a new site that is a copy of the existing one. It should have the same layout, documents, etc. I haven't found a way to do this through the interface or it mentioned in the documentation. Creating a new site only creates a new blank one. Am I missing something? If a duplicate can't be made, can I import from one site to another afterwards?
the thread you linked to is more about fixing an incorrectly duplicated site than properly duplicating sites. Duplicating sites is not trivial and can not be achieved by any one default feature of Alfresco. Depending on the Alfresco version in use, some things may be simpler than in previous ones, e.g. Alfresco 4 now contains the Share / Surf site configuration in the DM repository, which can simply be copied along with the rest of the site content.
In order to duplicate a site you would need to:
duplicate the site content - easy via CopyService
duplicate the Share / Surf site configuration - easy in 4.0, rather difficult in earlier versions (at least in JavaScript)
duplicate the roles / groups of a Share site - relatively easy (create a new site and synchronize the roles / groups)
transfer permissions on the copied content onto the duplicate roles / groups - moderately complex to get correct
Please note that even a simple thing as "copying content" can be problematic when you have complex context with rules / policies or some uniqueness constraints…
Most of the time, it is sufficient - and the easiest solution without implementation - to create a new site, customise the layout to fit the original and then copy the folders / documents via the "Copy To" action…
