Access physical location of a document

[peterk]

Hey everybody,

we aim to use Alfresco as much as we can only via CIFS. We want to make the user assign certain document properties only via putting it into the appropriate smart folder. And of course, a document should be allowed to appear on multiple locations all over the share.

I recognized, that unfortunately in alfresco I cannot remove a file from a smart folder.

And the user cannot see in CIFS, whether he is on a smart folder or a physical folder. (And it shouldn't make a difference to him.)

But now, when he tries to delete a file from a (smart) folder, he is suddenly confronted with a "not allowed" without knowing why. I would wish, that the file gets deleted from the physical location then, whereever that may be.

And, further on: Even if he goes to the webclient: Still he is in the smart folder, cannot delete the file there, and has no information at all, where the file really resides. He is in a dead end.

I'm really disappointed, that such a simple and common use case is not accounted for.

So, my question: How Do You / Your users deal with that problem?

How can a user delete a file that he found in a smart folder? Or how can he find the physical location? Du You use any extension/modification in alfresco? Or did I miss something?

[mrks_js1]

Hi

I think you misunderstood what smart folders are for. They are basically a saved search and search results typically are read-only items.

The documentation clearly states:
Smart Folders have a limited set of actions:

Add/ Create: You can add files to a Smart Folder. The file is put into a physical folder, as specified by the filing rule.

Update: You can update files in a Smart Folder. Updating a property might result in a file being removed from the current Smart Folder (because it no longer meets the query criteria).

Delete, Edit Properties, Unzip To, Sync, Locate To, Move, and Copy actions for files are not supported.

http://docs.alfresco.com/5.1/concepts/sf-whatis.html

You probably should have used links for what you were trying to achieve. 

[peterk]

Hallo,

I know the restrictions, as I wrote. But I showed a use case, where these restrictions are annoying. Again, our aim is "We want to make the user assign certain document properties only via putting it into the appropriate smart folder." And I showed the problem we run into by using smart folders for this. So, how can I use links for this?

"You can add files to a Smart Folder. The file is put into a physical folder"

This already clearly contradicts to

"They are basically a saved search"

Also

search results typically are read-only items

is not true for smart folders - I can ed   it, update/overwrite documents in a smart folder, as Your citation from the documentation    shows.   

So, smart folders are far more than a search and give a lot of opportunities with the filing rules. So, why not think through to the end and make smart folders as much as You can to what they are called: folders.

And again the question: If I "found" a document in a smart folder, how can I retrieve the physical location? In this point smart folders to me are less than a normal search, in which I'd expect to be able to go to the location, where the document was found.

[peterk]

I'd like to push this up: Is there any (easy) way for a user to get the physical location of a document he found in a smart folder?