Web Quick Start Installation and Configuration

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The official documentation is at: http://docs.alfresco.com

Back to Web Quick Start
This page is a TEMPORARY location for the Web Quick Start Installation and Configuration Guide while the initial draft is written by Alfresco. The content of this page (and Quick Start application) is work in progress and is subject to regular change.

This page will be removed once complete as the contents will be migrated in to the formal Quick Start documentation.

Table of Contents

• 1 Install Web Quick Start
  
  
  
  • 1.1 Prerequisites
  
  
  • 1.2 Installing full Alfresco Community 3.4.b and Web Quick Start
  
  
  • 1.3 Manually installing Web Quick Start
  
  
  • 1.4 Installing Web Quick Start on an existing Alfresco Enterprise 3.3.3
  
  


• 2 Use Alfresco's Web Editor with Different HTTP Port Number


• 3 Create the Web Quick Start site


• 4 Import Web Quick Start Demo Data


• 5 Configuring Web Quick Start
  
  
  
  • 5.1 Configuring the Web Application hostname, port and context
  
  
  • 5.2 Disabling AWE on the Live environment
  
  
  • 5.3 Configuring and Accessing Multiple WebQS Sites
  
  


• 6 Accessing the Web Quick Start online help

Install Web Quick Start

The following methods are available for installing Web Quick Start:

• Installer for full Alfresco Community 3.4.b and Web Quick Start
  
• Manual install of Web Quick Start using the AMP and WAR files
  
• Installer for Web Quick Start on an existing Alfresco Enterprise 3.3.3 installation
  

Prerequisites

To use Web Quick Start, you must install and configure the following components:

• OpenOffice for office document to pdf conversions
  
• Alfresco Web Editor
  

Installing full Alfresco Community 3.4.b and Web Quick Start

Web Quick Start installs by default as a selected component during the Alfresco Community 3.4.b installation wizard. For more information on installing Alfresco and the Web Quick Start, refer to the simple install pages for
Windows,
Linux, and
Mac.

Manually installing Web Quick Start

If you have an existing Alfresco installation and prefer to install Web Quick Start manually, you can apply the relevant AMP files to your application. This method is suitable for customized or integrated Alfresco installations.

This procedure describes how to copy the AMP files into their appropriate AMP directories and uses the apply_amps.bat or .sh file to apply them.

1. Download the Web Quick Start zip bundle file:
   

   alfresco-community-wcmqs-3.4.b.zip
   

   
   
2. Unzip the file into a temporary location. The artifacts supplied with Web Quick Start are:
   
   • alfresco-community-wcmqs-3.4.b.amp (AMP file for Alfresco)
     
   • alfresco-community-wcmqs-share-3.4.b.amp (AMP file for Share)
     
   • awe.war (Web Editor)
     
   • wcmqs.war (Spring-based Web Quick Start application)
     
   • awe-config-custom.xml
     
3. Locate your Alfresco installation directory.
   
4. Copy the AMP files into the relevant amps directories for Alfresco and Share:
   
   
   
   1. Copy the alfresco-community-wcmqs-3.4.amp file to the amps directory.
      
   2. Copy the alfresco-community-wcmqs-share-3.4.amp file to the amps-share directory.
      
5. Apply the AMP files using the Module Management Tool (MMT) or for the Tomcat application server, use the apply_amps command.
   
6. Copy the website WAR (wcmqs.war) into the webapps directory of your existing Alfresco installation. For example, on Windows with a Tomcat application server, this is C:\Alfresco\tomcat\webapps.
   
7. Copy the Alfresco Web Editor file (awe.war) into the webapps directory to replace the existing awe.war file.
   
8. Delete the existing alfresco and share directories.
   
9. Restart the Alfresco server.
   

Installing Web Quick Start on an existing Alfresco Enterprise 3.3.3

If you have an existing Alfresco Enterprise 3.3.3 installation, you can use the standalone installation wizard for installing Web Quick Start.

Ensure that Alfresco is not running before you start the WQS installer.

1. Download the Web Quick Start 3.3.3 installer.
   
   (Windows) alfresco-enterprise-wcmqs-3.3.3-win-installer.exe
   
   (Linux) alfresco-enterprise-wcmqs-3.3.3-linux-installer.bin
   
   (Mac) alfresco-enterprise-wcmqs-3.3.3-osx-installer.app.tar.gz (the uncompressed file is alfresco-enterprise-wcmqs-3.3.3-osx-installer)
   
2. Run the installation wizard.
   
3. In the Setup – Alfresco Enterprise Quick Start window, click Next.
   
4. In the Installation Directory window, enter the directory where Alfresco Enterprise 3.3.3 is installed, and then click Next.
   
   The installer checks the default installation directories:
   
   (Windows) C:\Alfresco
   
   (Linux) /op/alfresco
   
   (Mac) /Applications/alfresco-3.3.3
   The installation starts.
   
5. In the Completing the Alfresco Enterprise Quick Start Setup Wizard window, ensure that you deselect the checkbox to automatically launch Share, and then click Finish.
   
6. Delete the existing alfresco and share directories.
   
7. Restart the Alfresco server.
   

Use Alfresco's Web Editor with Different HTTP Port Number

Alfresco's Web Editor is a Spring Surf application that can deployed next to an Java application that uses Alfresco's Web Quick Start. The Java application must be configured correctly to allow inline editing of content with the Web Editor. But also the Web Editor application must be configured to make it all work.
If we have installed Alfresco and set the HTTP port for Alfresco to something else than port 8080, then we must also change the configuration for the Web Editor application. We can find the configuration in the following file: $ALFRESCO_HOME/tomcat/shared/classes/alfresco/web-extension/awe-config-custom.xml. We must open this file and add the following to the alfresco-config root element:

<config evaluator='string-compare' condition='Remote'>

   <remote>
       <endpoint>
           <id>alfresco</id>
           <name>Alfresco - user access</name>
           <description>Access to Alfresco Repository WebScripts that require user authentication</description>
           <connector-id>alfresco</connector-id>
           <endpoint-url>http://server:port/alfresco/s</endpoint-url>
           <identity>user</identity>
       </endpoint>
   </remote>

</config>

We must set a correct value for the endpoint-url element to reflect the servername and port number of our Alfresco installation. Once we have changed the file and saved our modifications we can restart the application server and we should be able to login in to Alfresco and use the Web Editor in our Java application.
e.g. <endpoint-url>http://localhost:9090/alfresco/s</endpoint-url> for configured HTTP port 9090.

Create the Web Quick Start site

A Web Quick Start site is simply a default Share Collaboration site, with the sample Quick Start data imported. A Share dashlet is provided to import the sample data. To create a Share site and add the Quick Start import dashlet: 

1. Open Share.
   
2. Click Create Site.
   
   This creates a new collaboration site.
   
3. Type a name for the site, for example, Web Quick Start.
   
4. Type a URL name for the site, for example wcmqs.
   
5. Click OK.
   
   The new site displays in your My Sites dashlet.
   
6. Open the new site.
   
7. Click Customize Dashboard.
   
8. Click Add Dashlets.
   
9. Drag the Web Quick Start dashlet to your dashboard layout.
   
10. Click OK.
    
    The Web Quick Start dashlet displays in the site dashboard.
    

Import Web Quick Start Demo Data

When you initially add the Web Quick Start dashlet into the site dashboard, the dashlet displays a link that enables you to import the Web Quick Start demo data.

1. Click Import Website Data.
   
   The system imports the data for the demo website.
   
2. Refresh the browser running Share.
   
   Note that the Web Quick Start dashlet now displays a link to the Web Quick Start Help.
   

As default, the Web QS is configured to be accessed at “localhost” on port 8080. If these settings are relevant for your installation and the wcmqs.war web application is running in the same container as Alfresco, you will now be able to access the Web QS editorial website on http://localhost:8080/wcmqs.
If you need to change the server host name, port or web application context from the default values, please see the section below on 'Configuring Web Quick Start'.

Configuring Web Quick Start

After you have imported the Web Quick Start website data, when you have refreshed Share, or the next time you log on, you can access the Web Quick Start site for configuration.

1. Open the Web Quick Start site.
   
2. Navigate to the Document Library.
   
   The default site structure will have the following structure:
   
   Wcm-qs-01.png
   
   The site structure contains two folders: Quick Start Editorial and Quick Start Live. These folders represent a separation between the work in progress content, and the finished, reviewed, editorially complete content that is then published to the “Live” environment.
   

Configuring the Web Application hostname, port and context

As noted above, the default Quick Start installation assumes that the web application has been deployed to localhost on port 8080 using the context of 'wcmqs' meaning that the 'editorial' website can be accessed at http://localhost:8080/wcmqs. The 'live' website can be accessed as default on http://127.0.0.1:8080/wcmqs.

To change any of these defaults:

1. In the Web Quick Start site, navigate to the Document Library.
   
2. Click Edit Metadata on either the Quick Start Editorial or Quick Start Live folder.
   
3. Configure the Host Name, Port, and Web App Context fields to point to the location your web application (wcmqs.war).
   
4. Click Submit.
   

WebQS-editorial-metadata-properties.png

Disabling AWE on the Live environment

The Web Editor (AWE) is configured to be enabled on the Editorial content, and disabled on the Live. This is controlled by the isEditorial flag on the Quick Start Editorial metadata. This also (when complete) dictates what can be viewed via the live web application with regards to publishing go live and expiry dates.

To configure the web application to view the “Live” site structure:

1. Edit the metadata properties on the “Quick Start Live” folder.
   
2. In the Site Configuration field, enter the isEditorial=true flag.
   
3. Click Submit.
   

The default configuration sets the host address to 127.0.0.1, so if you are running the Quick Start locally, you can view the editorial environment on http://localhost:8080/wcmqs and the live on http://127.0.0.1:8080/wcmqs.

Configuring and Accessing Multiple WebQS Sites

This section describes the configuration options around running multiple Web QS sites using a single Alfresco environment.

Given a requested URL  'http://my.example.com:80/wcmqs/news/global/article1' that has been routed to the QS web application, first we find the corresponding website in the  repository. The website is represented by a node of type ws:website in the repository, and the standard WQS installation has two of these by  default: 'Quick Start Editorial' and 'Quick Start Live' (See
#Configuring the Web Application hostname, port and context above). These nodes have a few special properties including host name, port number, and web context.

With our example URL, assuming that the webapp itself is located at '/wcmqs', we try to find a website node with a host name of 'my.example.com', a port number of 80, and a web context of '/wcmqs'. If we manage to find such a website node in the repository, then we use the rest of the URL ('/news/global/article1') to find the asset. This  corresponds to the path 'root/news/global/article1' below the website node that was found in the repository. So, therefore, you can have as many websites held in the repository as you wish. The only caveat is that the combination of host name, port, and web context must be unique across all of them. If you want to share all the page templates and webapp logic across your sites, then I would suggest that you use different host names to distinguish between them. For example:

http://finance.example.com/wcmqs/path/in/the/finance/site
http://innovation.example.com/wcmqs/path/in/the/innovation/site

With the example above, the same webapp will be used, but different  website data will be selected from the repository to be rendered. You will need to ensure that DNS resolves both host names to the same IP. A CNAME record with a wild card will provide that. In the repository you will have two website nodes:

Finance Website
host name = 'finance.example.com'
port number = 80
web context = '/wcmqs'

Innovation Website   
host name = 'innovation.example.com' 
port number = 80
web context = '/wcmqs'

If, however, you want different webapps to render your different websites then use the web context to distinguish between them:

http://www.example.com/finance/path/in/the/finance/site
http://www.example.com/innovation/path/in/the/innovation/site

In this case, you deploy two webapps in your web container (such as  Tomcat) named 'finance.war' and 'innovation.war'. In the repository your  two website nodes look a little different:

Finance Website
host name = 'www.example.com'
port number = 80
web context = '/finance'

Innovation Website
host name = 'www.example.com'
port number = 80
web context = '/innovation'

Finally, if neither of those options work, you can use the port number  to distinguish between the sites. This is unlikely to be particularly useful except for, perhaps, distinguishing between editorial and live versions of a site. Naturally you can mix and match these techniques in a single repository if you wish, distinguishing some websites by host name, others by web context, and yet more by port number.

Accessing the Web Quick Start online help

For online help, click Web Quick Start Help in the Web Quick Start dashlet.
Web Content Management
Web Quick Start
3.3
3.4
Community Edition