Workdesk Development Docs Missing

[jodo]

There are great resources available for developing with Alfresco, except for customizing and programming the Alfresco Workdesk.

I've found a wiki at: https://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Alfresco_Workdesk

The PDFs I downloaded for Workdesk at: http://www.alfresco.com/resources/documentation include end-user support docs, but no programming docs.

What I am working on: I would like to create Forms in Workdesk that update XML documents stored in Workdesk. I would also like to create screens to 'Show Records' based on Alfresco-stored XML documents, but only portions of the XML data, not the docs themselves.  Saving changes on the Form in Workdesk should use Alfresco's Revisions system to store the changes to the XML documents.  The new Roles I create would never see the XML documents stored on Alfresco, just the Forms in Workdesk.

Based on the limited Java Programming references available on customizing Alfresco Workdesk, I am recommending PHP+SOA/Web Service, instead of customizing Workdesk forms.  I did find this, but without documentation, it might not be feasible to roll it out: http://addons.alfresco.com/addons/alfresco-form-model-management

Thanks for your time!

- Jodo 

[jodo]

I found some good documentation here:
https://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Web_Scripts

[jodo]

This looks great!  http://docs.alfresco.com/4.0/topic/com.alfresco.enterprise.doc/tasks/ws-forms-process.html 

My question would be: Can this be done on Alfresco Workdesk?

[d_evil]

Well Wordesk is an UI where you can retrieve the result of a WebScript and  display it.
Unfortunately you will need Java programming knowledge to do so.

A quick differentiation of Workdesk and WebScript solution is that Workdesk is accessing the
Alfresco Repository through CMIS and WebScripts are based on a native Alfresco API.

<blockquote>I would like to create Forms in Workdesk that update XML documents stored in Workdesk.</blockquote>
Alfresco Workdesk is an UI which can be configured (XML files which are contained in Workdesk represents the configuration), WebScripts is a feature of Alfresco Repository to provide extensibility (UI representation, Service Access).
<blockquote>
I would also like to create screens to 'Show Records' based on Alfresco-stored XML documents, but only portions of the XML data, not the docs themselves. Saving changes on the Form in Workdesk should use Alfresco's Revisions system to store the changes to the XML documents.
</blockquote>
As I understand Workdesk already provide such feature, it is named "virtual structures" (maybe I misunderstood your requirement). But they are not saved/contained in the Alfresco repository, if you look into the Workdesk deplyoment under <em>/WEB-INF/opencmis</em> you will see folders with names like "owsearchtempaltes", "owpreferences" and "others" where XML files are contained.

To answer your question, WebScripts are not part of Alfresco Workdesk, even though you still
can access them from Workdesk.