Status php library development

[m_mind]

Hi all,

Currently I'm looking into the possibilities of integrating Alfresco into our project environment which is written in PHP.
For this I want to use the remote PHP libraries which I downloaded from the SVN repository (http://svn.alfresco.com/repos/alfresco-open-mirror/alfresco/HEAD/root/modules/php-sdk/source/php/rem...).
As some of the methods mentioned in the PHP api are not available (for example $node->copy()), I checked whether or not I was using the latest version.
It turned out that the last commit has been over a year ago.

Is remote PHP code still developed in some other place, or has it been discontinued?

Thanks in advance,

Peter

[wabson]

On the original issue posted by m_mind, I agree with dwilson that the REST API is almost certainly the way to go. Rather than embedding the PHP client library in your application, you can simply use PHP's CURL functions to call URLs on the Alfresco server to authenticate and perform your work. You could even develop a custom web script of your own and reduce this to a single HTTP call.

I have developed in PHP using both the SOAP client and using CURL functions, and CURL wins every time for me.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,
Will.

[nancyg]

As Alfresco's community manager, I'd like to weigh in on this topic.

It may help to provide you with some stats; we have > 1.5 million downloads, > 90,000 community members and <100 people in our company.

About a year ago, I started a point system to encourage community members to contribute in the forums. You'll notice for instance, that mrodgers has 53 points and he joined Alfresco less than a year ago. MikeH has 94 points, look at the member list and you'll see that all the top contributors are Alfresco engineers. Their commitment is clear but look at the ratio, 90,000 community members to 100 Alfrescans, the burden of community support must be shared by the community.

The success of open source is due to community members contributing back. If just one out of every 100 community members answered a question in the forums even if it was only once or twice a year, think of the impact that would have. 

So I have a different perspective and it is difficult to read the criticism when I know how dedicated our engineers are to the community. I would challenge anyone who is using Alfresco and not paying for it, to schedule a few minutes every day to answer a question.

Nancy

[dwilson]

Thanks very much for the replies.  It's good for us to hear the perspective.  I especially appreciate Mike's point:

The Alfresco Community is at a difficult growing stage: too big for just the Alfresco employees to take care of and too immature for it to be self-sustaining.

Seems quite true.  The community is a bit awkward (like a lanky teenager perhaps) and needs to stabilize.  Will, you're correct that one "community expert" role responding with the appropriate wiki link, faq, editing post titles to help searching, etc. isn't necessarily scalable, but that would be a wonderful kick-start to making the wealth of questions and sometimes buried answers that exist on the forum more accessible.  Building out, organizing, and updating FAQs to truly represent the frequently asked simple questions would be a great boon to frustrated new members. (Instead of stating it has been asked before and just leaving the thread unanswered – as I've actually heard several times.)

I'm certainly not trying to minimize existing employee contributions, but I do maintain that just expecting a group of community champions to come out of the woodwork to respond to the large group of clearly frustrated beginners without any help might simply be too much to expect.  Each of you admitted to responding to this conversation numerous times, so perhaps you will start to see that this issue simply won't fix itself?  

…  Well, please consider it anyway.  Thinking positively, I will try to earn more of my own points going forward though my technical knowledge of Alfresco is limited.

Nancy, as I mentioned earlier I think the points system you turned on a year ago is a great step, and it will be good to hear about other efforts you are making to help nurture the community "into maturity" as they happen…      

Best,
Dave

[nancyg]

One other thing to consider, two times a month Yong Qu hosts Tech Talk Live, http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Live, this is an hour-long session. There is usually a guest speaker on some technical topic but there is almost always time at the end for questions - these questions can be about ANYTHING regarding Alfresco. This is essentially free developer-level support and is a great place to get help.

I'll make just one more stab at explaining my position and again I'll use stats: we have somewhere north of 500 paying customers. Remember that these subscriptions fund the free labs version. Without these paid subscriptions, it would not be possible to fund the improvement of the labs version - no bug fixes, no new features. We have far more people who use the software without paying or contributing back by answering questions in the forums, submitting forge projects, editing wiki pages or any other way.

It comes down to a question of fairness - is it fair to use enterprise-quality software for free and then on top of that, to expect free support? Put another way, how could Alfresco make a case for paid subscriptions if we gave away everything including support?

So, give Tech Talk Live a try, it really is a great resource and take a few moments, consider the above and if you have any other ideas that we can implement like the points system, I am all ears.

Nancy

[irene88]

Hi,
I have similar problem:
I'm trying to update an account status with the Abraham's PHP Library,
but I'm getting the generic levitra following exception message:

Bad request / Your browser sent a request that this server could not
understand.

I've already authorized my application to connect with my test account
and I saved the authentication data in constants. I'm using the code
bellow to do the update:

try {
  $twitter = new EpiTwitter(Config::TWITTER_APP_TOKEN,
Config::TWITTER_APP_SECRET, Config::TWITTER_OAUTH_TOKEN,
Config::TWITTER_OAUTH_SECRET);
  $return = $twitter->post('/statuses/update.json', array ( 'status'
=> 'TEST' ));
  echo $return->response;
} catch (Exception $e) {

  echo $e->getMessage();

}

API methods that uses 'get' instead of 'post' (e.g. account/
verify_credentials) works without problem.

or I can use everything you've already adviced?
Thanks in advance.

[ddanninger]

Hi there,

i would like to say some words too. (even it is a outdated topic) Actually i attended the developer conference in paris 2010 and i asked what will be the future about the PHP Library. On my question i got an answer that the PHP Library is quite outdated but actually it will not be developed anymore and the community should contribute on it. Alfresco is trying to change from MediaWiki (which is written in PHP to another java based Wiki and the Developer also told me he would be quite happy to get a new forum too.)

I told the Developer that i'll contribute a extended PHP Library soon. which i already did http://forge.alfresco.com/projects/ifresco-phplib (btw the reason why i moved my project to google code is, because the news get updated maybe once every two months. )

Also i send a mail to you Nancy with my contributions of an PHP written Client and PHP Library. But never got a response on that. (I sent it to you on 28.03.2011)

It is also not in my interest to offend you guys 😃 You did some great job with alfresco and it was for sure a really long way to go and i can understand that you cant support all the topics in the forum other wise we would have to wait for a new release for maybe 2 years 😃

But i think also non enterprise partner contributions should be published in the wiki or stuff like that.


@m_mind ->
at the moment i can just recommend you to use my extended PHP library.
I implemented a class called "RESTTransport.php" in there and it is possible to copy and move some nodes in there.
http://code.google.com/p/ifresco-php-library/


best regards
dominik

[ddanninger]

Hi,
I have similar problem:
I'm trying to update an account status with the Abraham's PHP Library,
but I'm getting the following exception message:

Bad request / Your browser sent a request that this server could not
understand.

I've already authorized my application to connect with my test account
and I saved the authentication data in constants. I'm using the code
bellow to do the update:

try {
  $twitter = new EpiTwitter(Config::TWITTER_APP_TOKEN,
Config::TWITTER_APP_SECRET, Config::TWITTER_OAUTH_TOKEN,
Config::TWITTER_OAUTH_SECRET);
  $return = $twitter->post('/statuses/update.json', array ( 'status'
=> 'TEST' ));
  echo $return->response;
} catch (Exception $e) {

  echo $e->getMessage();

}

API methods that uses 'get' instead of 'post' (e.g. account/
verify_credentials) works without problem.

or I can use everything you've already adviced?
Thanks in advance.

I forgot to say actually this forum is not about the "Abrahams Twitter PHP Library" 😃 it is about the PHP Library of Alfresco.
So actually it is not a "similar problem" it is totally different , and you are totally wrong in this forum with this question.

[mikeh]

The correct way to move forward with this is to raise a JIRA ticket and detail what your contribution is. We will then get you to sign a Contributors Agreement and take it from there.

Many thanks,
Mike

P.S. Nancy is no longer with Alfresco, which might be why you didn't get a response.

[ddanninger]

Thank you for your fast response 😃

i raised a jira ticket -> http://issues.alfresco.com/jira/browse/ALF-9819.

Didnt know that nancy is no long with Alfresco. So whos now the contact person for the community - Jeff Potts?

best regards
dominik

[mikeh]

So whos now the contact person for the community - Jeff Potts?

Yep, spot on.

Thanks,
Mike