I've been tasked with creating a documentation website for some services that we expose externally. Part of my task is to find out what the best base software would be to build this site. One of my specific objectives is to determine whether or not the Liferay Portal software or its plugins are suitable for building what is primarily functioning as an API documentation website. It seems like Liferay is meant for more content-driving applications, such as news, wikis, blogs, etc.
If Liferay is suitable for this task, are there any pointers on what the general layout should be for the site?
Liferay itself is proving to be rather complicated to learn, so I figured that it'd be better to figure out if I'm wasting my time or not before really diving into learning how to use it.
At the same time, are there any better, non-commercial alternatives?
Thanks!
I am creating web portal using Liferay and I implemented a simple document browsing page. I was using amazon java libraries to accomplish that and it was quite easy(just download all of the jars, include them in your portlet library folder and AWS(AmazonS3) is ready to use). On the other, the programmatic part of creating this portals with Liferay is quite a lot. I suggest you if you don't like programming to chose another software :)
I hope this was helpful! Its just an advice not a concrete answer.
Good luck with developing your website :)
Related
I need to create advanced search functionality for my Alfresco website to search by custom metadata.
Does Alfresco provide existing functionality for an advanced search or will I have to code this using a new WQS page with a search form and webscripts?
If anyone knows this it would be a great help, don't want to reinvent the wheel and all that :) Thanks.
Given this information it is hard to tell how much effort it is to implement, but it sounds this could be done in a few hours - assuming you have a skilled developer.
Anyways, I would definitely not recommend to build a website based on quickstart unless you really feel comfortable coding "the Alfresco way" - that is Spring Surf and Alfresco Share. Of course you'll need some knowledge about how to code for the Repo as well. Keep in mind that quickstart as a best practice example is meant for educational purposes. Building on top of it most likely involves forking and starting your customization from there on. Before you decide to go this route, make sure a decent amount of your requirements are covered by quickstart.
I am now developing a workflow search in alfresco. For me, I have to create a new page like alfresco advanced search. Here is Share Advanced Search http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Share_Advanced_Search customizing sample.
Here is explanation about alfresco search. http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Search
I hope this may help you.
I want to create an enterprise intranet , that provides authentication of employees and management profiles, messaging, calendar, document management...
I think I can use php or java CMS , for the moment after some research I decided to use Liferay or Alfresco. The problem is that I don't really know the difference between them , and what I have to choose .
They're quite different products, solving different business needs.
Liferay
It's a Java Portal. It focuses on creating web sites that are able to integrate data coming from different sources and applications in the same page. Using portlets, you compose a page to enrich it with such mini applications. It's mostly used to create web sites that aggregate information and contain interactive features such as online chat, blogs and the like. It also provides document management as part of its features, with the possibility of integrating Alfresco as a backend.
Alfresco
It's an Enterprise Content Management system. It revolves around documents, their lifecycle and collaboration capabilities over such documents. With the advent of Share, Alfresco now offers a lightweight portal-like application that lets you place "dashlets" in both an User Dashboard and a Site Dashboard (sites are shared workspaces).
While you can have non-document centric dashlets, blogs and wikis, they're not extremely sophisticated, and most of Alfresco features focus on document management and online collaboration.
I have not worked with portals for quite a while, but I guess the answer is : It really depends. :)
Seriously, in your requirements context I would compare Alfresco Share with Liferay. Both compose pages in a similiar fashion with Webscripts/Portlets components and have security baked in.
I think the most important factor to consider is your skill set.
If you feel at home with Java, the Portlet spec and server side logic : Lean towards Liferay. Alfresco Share/Spring Surf should serve you better if you prefer Javascript in the browser and JSON/REST style programming.
Besides, validate how strong your document management requirements are.
Do you really need super sophisticated search, workflow, versioning, security and the like ?
Sophistication increases complexity. That is also why I would be careful before introducing them both at the same time.
Another point to have in mind may be documentation - guess this point goes to Liferay.
Liferay's primary strength is as a portal where you use existing "applications" to fit your need, or create your own using the Portlet spec. Alfresco is a CMS, so it focuses on content management.
Why not use both?
Does anyone have tips or an ebook that can give me a good foundation on how to create applications in lotus notes using web browsers instead of clients. Links or tips are much appreciated.
Thanks!
Books are a good starter. But you'll find there is alot more to it than you see in books. So, here is a quick list of places to look.
Books
You've got these options for books (all downloadable as eBooks to)
Classic Web development prior to Notes 8.5 -- Reviews here and here
Latest Web stuff with Xpages if you have Notes 8.5+ (kindle/paper)
There are IBM wiki's (html). But have found the IBM wiki experience underwhelming. (The adjectives "half-ar$ed" and "piece-meal" comes to mind alot when reading these.)
IBM's redbook site (pdf/html) has better produced content than the wiki's.
Sites
One of the best web development tip/technique sites for the trickier problems is codestore.net and nsftools.com
OpenNtf a well used site for free code and solutions written by alot of smart people.
Quite a few good bloggers have "coagulated" on planetLotus
Try Searching for XPages in Google. Or start here
If you enable http on the server, you should be able to see your domino applications from the web. You then need to modify them to make them a bit more web friendly. The basic technique for this is to have 2 design elements with the same alias, hide one from notes and the other from the web. This will make it a bit easier to make it functional from both the client and the web browser.
Other functionality which makes this a bit easier would be 'Pass through HTML', the Domino CGI Variables and the 'WebQueryOpen' and 'WebQuerySave' events. As Jasper points out, XPages is the new sparkling way to do this, but it might not be an option for existing systems (It requires the latest version of Domino server). Good Luck!
What version of Domino are you running? If it's an 8.5 variant, I would suggest you use XPages to bring your old client apps to the web (XPages are not an option in releases prior to 8.5).
As to how you go about this, that's well beyond the scope of an answer on Stack Overflow: it's a book in and of itself! To learn about web development with XPages, I suggest visiting some of the well-known sites out there, and perhaps picking up a course or two. Here are some links:
http://xpages101.net
http://www.qtzar.com/blogs/qtzar.nsf/htdocs/LearningXPages.htm
http://notesin9.com/
(Also, IBM publish a book on XPages development, although I've not read it).
With regards "classic" Domino development, your best bet is to view your existing Notes app in a web browser and then start hacking on the default HTML generated (which is nasty). The best single resource out there for classic Domino web development tips and hacks is Jake Howlett's Codestore
Start small, build yourself a small database with a subset of data and explore what you can do. I've been a notes client developer for 10+ years and doing domino web work for last three or four years and still on steep learning curve. Its a very powerful platform but you also need to know html as on many occasions the html that you see in the browser helped me pin down the faults in my application code.
I was wondering if there is a website that helps with giving you a checklist for your web app, to make sure you don't miss anything!! It could be very tedious when building a large project by yourself! obviously nothing specific, just a guideline for a web app. thanks
This doesn't necessarily work for all projects, but it's a great start!
http://launchlist.net/
In light of your comment below, I recommend
http://goplanapp.net
it's free and open-source and allows you to create project milestones, have ongoing discussions on various issues, and alot more.
Trac is a website driven software that allows you to set milestones, reports, svn browsing, priorities, bug tracking, and wiki's. A lot of active open source projects use it to host their software. I use it extensively for each client project I start.
I like http://kanbanery.com/ alot.
It allows you to have tasks with subtasks, add info, attachments, comments, etc to a task and you can arrange those in multiple columns.
(I know it is targeted at scrum / kanban teams, but the app can be tailored to make it fit for your workflow)
I was wondering if anyone has built or know of a decent forum package for Umbraco 4.03??
I've had a little play with this but its a bit basic
http://our.umbraco.org/projects/umbraco-forum-package
and
http://our.umbraco.org/projects/uforum-basics
I've found this article on how to integrate YAF forum but would rather have one which fits a bit better..
http://dawoe.blogspot.com/2009/02/intergrate-yet-another-forum-193rc2.html
Of course I know one answer, write or extend one of the above :) Any help would be gratefully received.
uForum is used to power the Our Umbraco community - so that's the current recommended forum package.
YAF is a fully-featured forum/bulletin-board web-application, which can be integrated with Umbraco (using an ASP.NET Membership Provider). Aside from that YAF is standalone.
Update: There is a new package called nForum.
I guess it depends on your requirements.
What features are lacking, clearly you know what you want so any guidance on what the forum should include will help.
Pretty much any asp.net based forum software would work with Umbraco. I guess the main thing would be the integration with the Membership provider in Umbraco. In this case Any forum software that could use a custom ASP.NET membership provider would integrate pretty much seamlessly.
There are plenty of opensource and commercial forum packages available for ASP.NET, just find one that matches your requirements and look at integrating it or running it alongside Umbraco.