RIA for Enterprise 3.0

The Alfresco OpenCalais Integration now has UI (Spring Surf / HTML /JavaScript / YUI)  for Alfresco Share in addition to the support in FlexSpaces (Flex/Flash).  The Share UI has a semantic tag cloud dashlet, a geo-tagged (Google map based) semantic map dashlet, and an auto-tagging action.  The Share UI is for Alfresco 3.3 and 3.4.

The dashlets will show semantic tags in all share sites when added to the overall Share dashboard, and show site specific semantic tags when added to site dashboards.  Clicking on a tag in the semantic tag cloud or on a semantic tag map marker will take you to a search results list of documents with the semantic tag.  The semantic tag cloud dashlet can be changed to show semantic tags for a specific category or all categories.

The semantic tag cloud dashlet is based on  Will Abson’s tag cloud dashlet in the Alfresco Share Extras collection. Will now also has a Google map dashlet in this collection showing geo-location of photo files using Tika extracted metadata available in Alfresco 3.4.

The added auto-tag action menu (in more menu and details page) can be used to auto tag the selected document with the OpenCalais service. This action is added to both site document libraries and repository document library page menu.The auto-tagging action can also be setup in a content rule to auto-tag all documents in a folder in the rule UI of Alfresco Explorer or in Share (choose to perfom the action “Auto-tag with Calais”).

Note that semantic tags are implemented with categories with a custom root category. They won’t show up in regular Alfresco tag or category UI.  Currently only the Alfresco Explorer details page will list semantic tags (update 3/30/2011: will now show up the Share doc details page too in the 1.3.1 version of the OpenCalais integration).

FlexSpaces, in addition to having the semantic tag clouds, semantic map, and auto-tag action features in the Share UI, also has support for suggesting semantic tags and for editing what semantic tags are assigned to a document.  See the semantic features in action in this screen-cam of an older version of FlexSpaces.

FlexSpaces 0.95  (for Alfresco and for Adobe LiveCycle Content Services ES2)

• Added AIR multi-file drag out to desktop (in addition to existing multi-file drag in)
• Calais semantic tag clouds and Calais semantic tag / Google Map are back in (in addition to auto tagging and tag suggest) (if configured in FlexSpaces with free Calais / Google Map keys, and have Calais Alfresco Integration installed)
• FlexSpaces on Google Code
• FlexSpaces on Alfresco Forge
• Calais Alfresco Integration on Alfresco Forge
  

CMIS Spaces (based on FlexSpaces, for content servers supporting the CMIS standard)

• Build 17 Added multi-file drag out to desktop in AIR version (in addition to existing multi-file drag in)
• Build 16 Added fixes to get navigation/browsing and upload to work on Day Software CRX 2.1 + CMIS package (issues remaining with Day CRX: upload doesn’t show up, 0 search results).
• Tested with Alfresco 3.3g and Day CRX 2.1. Previously have tested with Alfresco 3.2/3.3, EMC Documentum, IBM FileNet, Nuxeo. Haven’t tried with new CMIS support for SharePoint Microsoft has.
• CMIS Spaces on Google Code
• CMIS Spaces on Alfresco Forge

FlexibleDashboard

• Build 2:  Added BIRT report viewer pod
• Build 2: Added pivotable OLAP grid with XMLA datasource support (Mondrian, Pentaho, etc.)
• FlexibleDashboard on Google Code

FlexSpaces Easier To Use With LiveCycle Content Services ES

I finally updated FlexSpaces  (version 0.931) to not need a recompile for a server URL change with LiveCycle Content Sevices ES (changes to FlexSpacesConfig.xml and to server side services-config.xml still required).

Calais Integration

I tested with LiveCycle ContentSevices ES 8.2.1  and also with the LiveCycle ES2 M3 R3 beta. On ES2, I also tested with the Alfresco Calais Integration and it works fine via the FlexSpaces Calais UI (auto semantic tagging, tag suggestion, google map geo-tagging).  Nice thing about the ES2 installer is it allows you to include custom AMP files. I used the turnkey install, selected the custom option when the Configuration Manager ran.  I had the calaisIntegration.amp release 1.1  in c:\amps.  When the config mgr is deploying content services, check the include custom amps checkbox, and browse to choose c:\amps.

Remaining Problems

Still have two remaining problems with FlexSpaces on LC Content Services.  Get an authentication prompt on upload that can cause the first upload not work on AIR/Windows (on Mac/AIR, Windows/Mac/browser get errors on upload). Alfresco has an alf_ticket URL arg that makes it easy to authenticate with. You can’t use this with LiveCycle ContentServices. You have to use authentication headers. Flex doesn’t let you use  headers with FileReference.upload()   or navigateToURL()   (view a file given an Alfresco download URL).    For navigateToURL, it works other than getting an authentication prompt the first time using file viewing.For uploading, I think by switching to upload to  /remoting/lcfileupload  instead directly to a webscript url will be the part of the solution. This will get files into the LiveCycle “Repository”.  Just need to get files from there to the LiveCycle Content Services repository.  Unlike this ADC article I don’t want to have to require the LC Process Mgt option. If anybody has some suggested APIs or sample code, let me know. Don’t think there is a work around for the navigateToURL issue.

Details

1. Changed to new up a ChannelSet with channel URLs coming from the FlexSpaceConfig.xml Spring ActionScript file instead of compiling in a services-config.xml.2. See doc\livecycle\readmeLiveCycleContentServices.txt for FlexSpacesConfig.xml LC CS specific changes, and server side services-config.xml changes still required.3. Note FlexSpaces needs its FlexSpacesConfig.xml configured with a Calais key and a Google Map api key to get UI for the Calais Integration enabled (see doc\flexspacesAir\readmeFlexSpacesForAIR.txt)4. For instructions on adding an amp to an existing install (of 8.2.1, dir name, deploy areas different on ES2) see Dr Flex & Dr LiveCycle. (Haven’t tried the Calais Integration on LC CS 8.2.1. It should work since it works with Alfresco 2.1).

Here are some links to screencam demos, previous posts about FlexSpaces (both Flex+Browser and Flex+AIR), an open source RIA client for Alfresco ECM (and for Adobe LiveCycle Content Services ES too).  FlexSpaces has many features including multiple views (icon/thumbnail/grid/coverflow),  doclib, search, workflow,  and wcm. The AIR version has desktop native drag/drop/clipboard support. These clients also have UI (auto-tagging, tag suggesting, geo-location tag google map) for the Alfresco Calais integration.  FlexSpaces uses Cairngorm and has been refactored to use the presentation model pattern.

FlexSpaces showing Calais Integration features

FlexSpaces Downloads

Additionally,  prototype work has started on FlexibleShare, which leverages FlexSpaces components in an open source Flex based portal container / dashboard with Flex based pods for open source enterprise software (Alfresco ECM, Alfresco Share,  reporting/BI, BPM, Liferay portal backend) and also LiveCycle. Also plan to enable the pods to be used as Adobe Genesis Tiles.

FlexibleShare prototype

Other FlexSpaces Screenshots / Screencams
Liferay + FlexSpaces + Alfresco
Alfresco Share 3.0 Integration, Thumbnail, CoverFlow View, Advanced Search
Tagging, Categorization, WCM
General Features and AIR specific features
Start workflow, Tasks dashboard tab,  preview, dual pane drag/drop

Integrated Semantics
Integrated Semantics Blog
FlexSpaces Forum Topic
FlexSpaces on Google Code
Follow on Twitter

Steve

Here is a screencam video of FlexSpaces 0.8 (which is ready for release). This new screencam shows auto-tagging, semi-automatic tag suggesting,  multiple semantic tag clouds, and automatic geo-location tagging (displayed on a Google map). It uses the Calais Integration  forge project for Alfresco and the Open Calais service.

This map, uses the Google Map Flash API (Flex), displays markers where there is location info provided in the semantic tags  (location info from Calais via the Calais integration).  When you click on a marker, it works just like a tag cloud,  and drives search results.

(Note: the previous part 1 post  also showed showed auto-tagging and multiple semantic tag clouds in FlexSpaces).

FlexSpaces with the semantic tagging / Calais features can be run in 4 different ways:

• FlexSpaces+AIR with Adobe AIR (1.1, 1.5)
• FlexSpaces+Browser in FireFox, IE, Chrome browsers (with Flash 9.x, 10.x)
• FlexSpaces site page components inside Alfresco Share
• FlexSpaces views as portlets in a portal (such as Liferay, JBoss, etc.)

FlexSpaces supports Alfresco Enterprise/Labs 2.x/3.x, Adobe LiveCycle Content Services ES (currently have just been testing FlexSpaces 0.8 and the semantic / Calais features with Alfresco Enterprise 3.0).

FlexSpaces 0.8 will have the following new Flex based components (and Cairngorm non ui apis): node semantic tag properties editor, auto-tag action, tag suggestion dialog, semantic tag cloud, semantic tag category tree, general Google map, semantic geo-tag map.

Steve