How to start developing in Alfresco

[vbutacu]

Hello guys,

I just started messing around with alfresco and I read some documentation about developing extra stuff but I find it a little overwhelming as I'm not a professional developer and I really don't know what I'm going to need in order to accomplish my goal.

I would basically want to develop an additional module for alfresco that would allow me to manage employees permits requests for the HR office. What I'm asking from you is a quick "How To" on how to interact with alfresco in order to create this additional feature. I will try to explain as clearly as possibile my situation:

I installed alfresco my Windows computer and I followed the tutorial to setup Maven SDK, Java jdk and Eclipse IDE. I also managed to create the example amp project for alfresco-share. At this point I get stuck on how to integrate what I develop with my existing alfresco deployment and once I eventually develop something how to integrate the web part.

I tried to explain as clearly as possible, If you think I should provide extra information please tell. Thank you in advance for you comments.

Kind regards.

[hdalang]

Hi, you can contact me about alfresco and I'll work with you on this, just contact me using my skype id hishamfire.

[jneeve]

From what you've mentioned, it's not 100% clear what 'thing' you want to store. If it's a document that's filled out externally (Ie: word/pdf) and then you want to upload that into Alfresco with extra metadata that describes the form information (dates, days off) , then that's fairly easy to do. (Create a custom model/aspect, workflow as Kayne mentioned, extend share to display this metadata,etc)

Normally when I think of Alfresco, I think of storing folders/documents, so if you want an Alfresco form to store custom data just in Alfresco (without a document/folder) , I'm not sure how to do that other than say Alfresco data lists.

The maven sdk can build custom amps that you then apply to your war manually, or it can build the entire war for you. It does take some reading and playing around to get comfortable with it .

The good thing with Alfresco is there's lots of ways to customize and extend, but at the same time there can be too many options that arent always clear which is the best route. (cmis, webscripts, java, share, angular, etc)

[fcorti]

Hi Vlad,

Did you had the chance to take a look at the link below about the Developer guide from the Alfresco Documentation?

I think it could help you.

Developer guide | Alfresco Documentation

[vbutacu]

Hi Francesco,

that is exactly where I started and then I came here asking for help because I couldn't find a straigthforward answer. Bindu Wavell​ gave me a bunch of good hints and I'm leaning towards his solution. At the moment I'm reading some documentation about the smart folders and custom models.