Web site with static content--best method?

[rodenbaugh]

Hi everyone,

I'm using Alfresco to manage static website content (JPGs, SWFs) so that I can also search the content via Alfresco's engine to return certain sets of files that meet search criteria.  As part of my application, I need to publish the static content for serving by Apache.

I'm stuck between the two WCM models right now–the Web Project is more suited for dynamic sites and not my situation, although it seems the easiest way to "spit out" files into a similar structure that exists from within Alfresco.

The other method is to use a regular workspace to store the content, but then exporting it to a file system doesn't seem possible without doing additional work to pull files manually from CIFS.

Am I missing something very obvious here that I should be doing to simply publish the static content out to a web server?  If so, can you point me to the Wiki article or a forum post explaining how to configure it?

Thanks for your help,
-Dave

[rodenbaugh]

Oh, forgot important details:

Alfresco Community 2.1, with WCM.  Oracle DB.  RHEL 4.  I'm using web services to upload the content into Alfresco right now and have been able to successfully load it into the Web Project and the Workspace with equal ease…Getting it back out for my Apache server is the problem.

Thanks,
-D

[pmonks]

The WCM functionality includes deployment facilities for exactly this purpose - details are at http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Deployment.

Typically you'd deploy your dynamic content to an Alfresco runtime (basically another copy of Alfresco that serves as kind of content database for your web application) and deploy your static content (images, CSS, etc.) to a vanilla filesystem (often a web server docroot) via a FileSystem Receiver.

Cheers,
Peter

[rodenbaugh]

Hi Peter,

Thanks for the redirect…however, I've seen that page several dozen times through research, cross-links, etc.  The screen shots posted there are NOT for 2.1, they're for the newest version.  Furthermore, the Deployment wiki is VERY short on details.  It's more like a high-level overview.

I'm looking for something for 2.1, more nitty-gritty…Any help there?

Thanks,
-D

[pmonks]

Alfresco -> Alfresco deployment has been available since the first WCM release (Alfresco 2.0), with Alfresco -> Filesystem deployment added in 2.1.  The deployment related changes in 2.2 are mostly minor tweaks / refinements to that existing functionality - a more user-friendly configuration UI, the ability to differentiate test and live servers, deployment from any sandbox (not just the staging sandbox), etc.

The upshot is that the vast bulk of the deployment functionality is in 2.1 and should allow you to do the kinds of things you describe.

Cheers,
Peter