Surf and Relational Databases

[rmfought]

I'm looking into Surf as a generic web application framework for creating dynamic web sites backed by a relational database.  From what I've seen so far, this is not Surf's "bread and butter" but it should be possible.  I don't see any standard mechanisms for communicating to relational databases - am I missing something, or is this going to be a function of a custom Java renderer?  Any examples out there?

Thanks!

[mrogers]

Surf is view tier technology so does not have functionality for database access or other support services for buisness tier.

In share's case it calls webscripts hosted by the alfresco repository that serve up the data.

[rmfought]

Thank you for the response.

One more question; does the Surf platform include the Alfresco form processing/rendering engines?  Specifically, support for XForms?

[mrogers]

There is a forms service which debuted in the surf framework in 3.1. 

However it's still being activly developed.    I understand that support for xforms is on the plan for implementation but its not there yet.     http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Forms

Perhaps someone else could coment?

[rmfought]

Great, thanks again.  I wasn't sure what was included in the Surf platform.  In general, in browsing the site for information, I have found it can be difficult to determine what is part of the Surf platform, and what is specific to the Alfresco products.

The Wiki you referenced asserts that Xforms is current technology in Alfresco, and was/is going to be replaced by XML Schema or other technologies.  Any clarification would be appreciated.

[gavinc]

As Mark mentions a new Forms Service was added to the 3.1 release, this has been implemented to take advantage of the benefits of the Surf platform. The Forms Service in it's current state is a replacement for the property sheet component in the Alfresco Explorer (JSF based) client i.e. the ability to view and edit metadata.

XForms/XML Schema is indeed currently used by Alfresco in the older Alfresco Explorer client, we use it to generate a form which in turn generates an XML file conforming to the XML Schema. The current plan is for the new Forms Service to replace this so that we have just one common form generation mechanism i.e. a custom control can be used in both scenarios.

For another overview see: http://forums.alfresco.com/en/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=20807#p67997

[jck]

Hi,
the SIDE-Labs open source project (http://www.side-labs.org) provides an abstraction layer to separate forms definition to their implementation.

In short, SIDE-Labs provides a kind of UML class diagram (in fact based on a DSL) to design your content types. Then, you can design your forms through a form diagram and generate the corresponding XForms binding and templates. SIDE-Labs currently use a slightly updated Chiba Xforms runner,  based on Chiba 2 for the moment.

Considering Alfresco Forms Service, the SIDE-Labs open source project aims at providing an implementation ASAP so you can choose the technology suiting your needs.

JC