PHP usability over Freemarker

[simon]

Alfresco users,

We are now using Freemarker templates on top of the Alfresco repository to show a custom website to our customers with Alfresco as the backend system.

Now… I'm not statisfied with this as Freemarker is too limited, it's a templating language, not a programming language and I'm looking for other solutions.

Maybe the PHP interface can help here? Does anyone has some experience with the PHP SDK? Is this mature enough to build production ready website interfaces on top of Alfresco? What about performance and authentication?

In short: what is your advice for custom layouts on top of the Alfresco repository? Freemarker, PHP, JavaScript,..?

Thanks!

[kevinr]

There is some good news coming your way In Alfresco 2.1 we have extended both the TemplateService and ScriptService to support additional processing languages as well as FreeMarker/JavaScript. PHP is the first additional language that will be supported - and you will be able to use PHP as either a Template language for building pages or a script processing language for rules etc. We are using a PHP engine that runs in the JavaVM on the server. It is now also possible to add additional language processor beans via config - so in theory Ruby, Python or other languages can be added to those services in the future.

Hope this is useful,

Kevin

[simon]

Thanks Kevin, this is indeed good news. This is defenitly the right way to go. Freemaker is nice, it's even powerfull enought to build some basic layouts but it isn't a programming language. Will wait for the 2.1.