Customer Reviews

Alfresco Developer Guide

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While Alfresco by Munwar Shariff got you started with Alfresco, Alfresco Developer Guide by Jeff Potts gets you going. The first book provides good overview of the breadth of features and Alfresco Developer Guide dives deep into customization for Alfresco-based solutions. Content management is a general requirement but its applications vary significantly. Without accommodating the specific needs of the business, a content management system (CMS) would usually be little more than a glorified file system.

As I started reading the book, it quickly became evident that the author had significant hands-on experience with customizing Alfresco. The book has detailed examples with code and screenshots. The step-by-step directions with practical advice and recommendations make it easy to follow. The book uses Alfresco 2.2 Enterprise and 3.0 Labs versions. In one sentence, I would characterize this book as an illustrated handbook for customizing Alfresco.

The book starts with a description of the Alfresco Platform. This includes overview of content management, the architecture of Alfresco-based solutions, the example used throughout the book, and various kinds of customizations that can be done with Alfresco. It is followed by directions for setting up an Alfresco development environment using Eclipse. Detailed discussion of customization starts with creating custom models - which includes types, associations, and aspects. The UI changes and programmatic access to go with custom content model are also discussed. Automated processing of content with actions, behaviors, transformers, and extractors is discussed next. Web client customization discusses how to adapt the UI for specific needs. The book also discusses implementation of RESTful API using Web Scripts. Workflows are an important feature of content management systems. The book discusses implementation of advanced workflows using jBPM. jBPM enables you to implement complex workflows within Alfresco platform. Web Content management is a popular and common application of content management systems. The book discusses web content management on Alfresco using Alfresco WCM. The book concludes with a discussion on security, including incorporating Alfresco in a Single-Sign-On solution. The appendix includes API reference and examples.

Given my experience with EMC Documentum, I couldn't help but compare the details with how I do things with Documentum. This book provided the depth to make such a comparison possible. One would normally use this book as a reference to jump to the task at hand and follow a step-by-step example. If you need to understand the breadth, you can skip over example details and read it in a flow. However, in my opinion, the best value provided by this book is in terms of best practices and practical advice which is hard to find in product documentation.

The author does not skimp on sharing practical advice. A fundamental advice is around separation of solution files from Alfresco files. The author also discusses various options for packaging and deployment of customizations. The troubleshooting tools and practices discussed would benefit any Alfresco developer. Modeling best practices are also very important since the custom content model is usually the foundation of a custom solution on Alfresco. When creating a solution for a large organization, advice about handling large directories for user/group synchronization would be handy. Other tips such as dealing with cross-domain scripting limitation and implementing Single-Sign-On also add value.

I think that it is a great book for people who are already working with Alfresco or another content management system. Readers new to the content management space may need a gentler introduction to the concepts and to Alfresco before they can derive maximum value out of this book.

Conclusion

Even if you had the expertise to write this book, you might want to keep a copy handy if you frequently implement solutions using Alfresco. If you are new to Alfresco this book is even more valuable. If you are new to content management in general then you may want to ramp up with some other resources before making the best use of this book.

You think you are an Alfresco expert ... well, read this book and think again. This is actually my conclusion and I was thinking about only having that sentence in this review, because while reading this you are wasting your precious time as you could read the Alfresco Developer Guide.

For sure this is not a book for "Java enterprise" novice people and some knowledge and understanding of the Java enterprise stack is required to fully enjoy your reading time. Since I am working with Alfresco for more than 3 years now, I had some development habits that sometimes were not that good, which I realized after reading this book.

You know or you heard about JBPM, the workflow engine Alfresco is using, it is not a problem, a complete guide is explaining all you need to know to start writing your own flow and to get it deployed. Creating your application model, customizing actions, localizing your messages ... nothing is a secret any more.

If you want to learn how to get all the benefits out of your "electronical" content then check out the "chapter 4" and see how to add your own content extraction, create business specific content transformation or use Alfresco's Java behavior cut points. After all, an enterprise solution should be able to provide easy integrations with other systems, especially for SSO and LDAP - you want it, Alfresco's has it, Jeff Potts explains it.

If you are still fan of JSF than you could learn how to customize the default Alfresco User Interface, which is JSF based or learn how to write a custom UI using the webscript framework.

Jeff also helps you to bring some best practices in your Alfresco development and deployment lifecycle. However, I would prefer to see some more words about Alfresco Module Packages.

This book was published just before Alfresco 3.0 Enterprise edition was released and is based on Alfresco 2.2 and 3.0 Labs (or community version). Alfresco did some refactoring but nothing was changed that should bother you. Do not be afraid of getting the book as this is probably the best Alfresco book written for developers by a, more than professional, developer.

Alfresco's ECM capabilities are explained by example but you would like to see Alfesco's WCM possibilities, simply check the "chapter 8" and you will find anything you need to start using it.

Do you still think you are an expert ? :) I do not ...

If you have been looking for a technical book on how to develop applications on top of the Alfresco platform, this is it. Jeff wastes little time introducing abstract content management concepts or explaining the user interface, he digs right into setting up your local development environment. I like this approach but it assumes a solid foundation in both ECM and Java - if you don't have one, there are plenty of other books to start with. The expectation of some baseline knowledge saves the book from getting bogged down with introducing Spring, jBPM, and many of the other popular Java frameworks and components that make up Alfresco.

The book is written with a bias toward the document management end of the ECM spectrum but that makes sense for a book about Alfresco. Only one chapter (out of 9) is devoted to Alfresco's WCM component. The core strength of book is how it teaches developer to build <em>dynamic web applications and services that access documents from the Alfresco repository</em> (which may be the core strength of Alfresco too). There is great coverage on Alfresco's Web Scripts framework with plenty of interesting examples that showcase the flexibility of the platform. For example, there is a nice description of how to create an AJAX document rating widget you could put on another website.

Jeff's writing style is both thorough and readable. He has a nice technique of pulling up and explaining details in "What Just Happened?" sections. This allows him to run cleanly through a topic and then summarize and discuss some of the nuances of the steps.

Unfortunately for Jeff, his book (which covers 2.2 of the Enterprise Edition) came out right around the time version 3.0 was released. However, since he writes mainly about the API level, the book will stay relevant and accurate longer (Luckily API's can't change as fast as user interfaces). So, if you are a Java developer and are considering using Alfresco for building a "document centric web application," this book will help.

"Alfresco Developer Guide", by Jeff Potts, is the second title about Alfresco recently published by Packt Publishing, after Alfresco Enterprise Content Management Implementation, by Munwar Shariff, that was published almost two years ago.

For those who don't know, Alfresco is the leading Open Source Enterprise Content Management system and is rapidly gaining acceptance in many enterprises, thanks to its rich feature set and ease of implementation.

Given the brisk pace of development of the product over the recent months, a new volume on Alfresco was eagerly awaited by many. This one mostly covers Alfresco 2.2, with some mentions about the new features introduced in version 3.0, whose official release happened shortly after the book was published. So it hit the shelves with a bit of unfortunate timing, but luckily none of the content of the book is to be considered obsolete, as all the APIs that used to work with 2.2 still work with 3.0. Still, a bit more coverage of 3.0 would have been great, but we can hope that maybe more will be added in a second edition.

Speaking of the content that is in this edition, readers will be able to find in-depth coverage of almost all aspects of the Alfresco platform, from a developer point of view. The target audience of the book is indeed developers who want to customize and extend Alfresco, and create new applications on top of it. Good overviews of content modeling, Web Client (Alfresco's own web-based management console) customizations, behaviors, transformers and extractors, Web Scripts, advanced workflows, and security are provided, with plenty of detailed examples of configurations and API usage.

A long chapter is dedicated to the Web Content Management (WCM) add-on product and the book closes with appendixes containing a concise reference of APIs and configuration properties. Thankfully, the author and the publisher did not opt for including a complete reprint of the APIs in order to beef up the page count. Instead, a list of the main Java classes and Javascript root objects is provided, but developers will have to refer to the online documentation for a complete reference.

A section of this reference that many readers will find to be extremely useful is a detailed description of the Lucene search syntax. On the other hand, page 271 talks about a Surf API reference to be found in the appendix, but there isn't one there. Surf is the new web application framework included in version 3, so they probably couldn't find the time to provide some documentation for it in time for publishing. As I wrote above, this is understandable, given the timing, but let's hope the second edition amends these shortcomings.

My overall judgment of the book is definitely positive, anyway. The author does an excellent job of maintaining a good balance between breadth and depth, and the narrative of each chapter manages to capture well the attention of the reader, guiding him from simple concepts to more complex scenarios in a very natural progression. Readers are expected to have a good working knowledge of Java, XML, and Java web application development. Some basic knowledge of Javascript will be useful too.

If I have a specific complaint about the content is that the index is too thin and many concepts are not referenced there. This is a defect that does not compromise the overall usefulness of the book, however.

The author, Jeff Potts, is an accomplished ECM consultant and long-time Alfresco expert. You can read more from him at his website [...]

This book is fantastic. The amount of information and examples is overwelming. I think is the best book I have ever read. A must-have