I can be happy with the new WCM repository as long as it gives me all the basic CM features I need: flexible, configurable meta-data, versioning, the ability to get the stuff in and out in my own terms.
I am less comfortable with the virtualization piece, and also what appears to boil down to "you have to learn to do things the Alfresco way".
Consider:
In the WCM tutorial, there are some basic content management tasks, and some nice sandbox experiments, etc.
But there are two areas where "magic" happens.
1. When you enter a press release, if you have things just right, you will get a set of radio buttons that allow you to choose among the "company footers" that you have already set up. This is very cool, but how does it work? It appears that it somehow depends on virtualization! The document even says something like "if you don't see the check boxes, use the virtualization server to preview a particular jsp file". If you look carefully at the schema, you'll see that the list of available footers comes from a chunk of XSD that is generated on the fly via special URL. And behind that there appears to be some java bean that is part of alfresco source. I haven't even seen it, since I haven't gotten around to getting the full source. This is very interesting, but what a lot of learning I've got to do here! And must I use a virtualization server to accomplish this?
2. Later, when you have entered your press releases, there is a sample jsp that will give you a list of them. Exactly the sort of thing we need, right? We need clever ways to USE this structured data that we've entered. Well, again, it turns out that the mechanism for this is a special bean that is deployed with the rest of alfresco, so I have no idea how simple or complex this might be. I will look there next.
I realize there's lots of work to be done here, and these examples are just a first look at this technology, but I, like many, have complex sites to build with their own constraints and technology requirements. There's no way I can adopt alfresco as a "cradle to grave" system and build ALL of the logic of my sites the alfresco way. At this point, I can't see having the alfresco API involved in my final delivery engine.
As I've posted here before, what if I'm building a PHP site? Or a Rails site? (I'm not, but you get the idea.) I still need world-class CM, but there's no way I can use an Alfresco API bean to list my press releases.
So, I'm not giving up on WCM, but I'm being very cautious, and I'm using only the alfresco features that I understand, and only those that don't force me to create basic sites using all new technology that may or may not paint me into a corner.
Thanks,
Fred
