Interesting Project: BigBlueButton open source web conferencing system (with a Flex UI)
BigBlueButton google code project
Although Blindside Networks (who provides commercial support) focuses on the distance learning / higher education market, it looks like it could be a general purpose open source alternative to other products.
FlexibleDashboard (new google code project)
1. Has both Flex+Browser and Flex+AIR versions
2. Based on the non doc mgt code from FlexibleShare
3. Based on esria dashboard / adobe flex devnet dashboard sample with added flexmdi cascade/tile (esria pod drag/drop in tile mode)
4. Flex+Browser pods: line, bar, pie charts, form, todo list, JasperReports viewer, Pentaho dashboard, BlazeDS samples, external Flex app SWFLoader, calendar, iframe html (iframe has not hiding issues)
5. Flex+AIR additional pods: webkit HTML, web browser, Google gadgets, Liferay portlets, local files browser
FlexibleShare
1. Now has Flex+Browser in addition to Flex+AIR
2. Adds Alfresco, Alfresco Share, LiveCycle Content Services features to FlexibleDashboard
FlexibleLiferay (new google code project)
(Flex+AIR based portal container application for Liferay)
1. Can display regular Liferay portlets (JSR-168, JSR-286, HTML/Ajax etc.)
2. All of Liferay backend, standards it supports can be leveraged
3. Can display Flex portlets (swfs) without html wrapper (no need for special handling of restarting when resize portlet) from within a portlet war
4. Leverage Liferay app catalog to also manage Flex portlets
5. Leverage Liferay security / authentication (ldap, sso, etc.) to also manage Flex portlets
6. Flex portlets can take advantage of AIR specific features (native desktop file drag / drop, native clipboard, local files, offline db)
7. No Flex+Browser version yet due to iframe issues
FlexibleLiferay Implementation:
1. Uses BlazeDS to remote to some Java Apis added via Liferay Ext environment (used Liferay 5.2.3)
2. Built on top of FlexibleDashboard
FlexibleLiferay Implemented:
1. Sign in (Login dialog), Sign out
2. My Places menu
3. Display of tabs for pages in selected place
4. Display of a Liferay pod (uses HTML with Liferay widget) for each portlet in selected page
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).
I recently added both a FlexSpaces/Alfresco Gadget (Google) and a Portlet for the new GateIn (eXo+JBoss) Portal. See Alfresco Forge for downloads, Google Code for source. See previous posts on other portlets ( Liferay Portal portlet , JBoss Portal portlet).
The gadget and the portlet work on both app server versions (Tomcat, JBoss AS) of the GateIn beta1. (I had to add a tld file to get the portlet to work on JBoss).
The gadget can be used on dashboard layouts. The portlet can be used in other layouts. In the screenshot, the FlexSpaces gadget is maximized, so it doesn’t look like the usual gadget layout. The beta1 seemed to not allow saving an edit to change from a 3 column to a 1 or 2 column. (FlexSpaces can made to take up less space by setting the show header area preference to false, and hiding the tree with the show / tree menu). Also the beta1 didn’t display default values for the FlexSpaces gadget when the edit UI mode is used, so editng the gadget xml is easier (This is only on gadgets, regular portet preferences UI edit mode was fine).
See the readmes in the flexspaces-gadget.zip file and the flexspacesGateInPortlet.zip file for setup instructions.
In addition to a Liferay portlet, I recently added a JBoss Portal portlet for FlexSpaces (Alfresco Forge, Google Code). See previous post about the Liferay portlet since some of the same things apply (setting up two app servers, pointers to SSO info, etc.).
How to setup:
1. Install Alfresco community or enterprise (I used Alfresco 3.2 community bundled with Tomcat)
2. Start alfresco user admin pw admin, install flexspaces 0.91+ webscripts, see readmeWebScripts.txt
3. shutdown Alfresco
4. Install a JBoss Portal community or enterprise (I used 2.7.2 community bundled with a 4.2.3 JBoss app server)
5. Change port 8080 to 9080 and port 8009 to 9009 in jboss-portal-2.7.2/server/default/deploy/jboss-web.deployer/server.xml
to not conflict with ports in alfresco running in a separate app server
6. Copy flexspaces-jboss-portlet.war to jboss-portal-2.7.2/server/default/deploy/
7. start jboss portal with jboss-portal-2.7.2\bin\run.bat
8. run http://localhost:9080/portal and log in with admin/admin (so portlet edit UI will be enabled)
9. startup alfresco
10. in jboss portal switch to FlexSpaces tab, click on “Edit” on the flexspaces portlet and setup alfresco url if needed and other options and click update.
11. log into FlexSpaces portlet (admin/admin or other user/pw)
JBoss+eXo GateIn Portal (See GateIn website)
I tried the FlexSpaces JBoss portlet with the beta1 of GateIn and it didn’t work. I am looking into creating a FlexSpaces portlet and a gadget for this new portal)
Steve
FlexSpaces 0.93 was recent released (Alfresco Forge, Google Code). This now includes a Liferay portlet (runs FlexSpaces inside a portlet), fixes progress bar color in new styling/skinning from 0.92, adds short-term state save for portlet resize / browser refresh (config only enabled in portlet pkg), adds additional parms/flashvars to support config in portlet preferences dialogs, adds parms to enable adding sso. A JBoss Portal portlet will be available later. Also will have portlets for CMIS Spaces.
The Liferay portlet is also available from the Liferay website community plugins download area and also from within Liferay itself: Add Application / Install More Applications (use refresh button at bottom to refresh plugin list) (Note: installing the integratedsemantics.zip web scripts in Alfresco is still required, see readmeWebScripts.txt)
The FlexSpaces Liferay portlet configuration UI allows setting what views to show (doclib, search, tasks, wcm) and the Alfresco web script URL.
This portlet was developed/tested with Liferay 5.2.3 and Alfresco 3.2 running in separate Tomcats. Running Liferay and Alfresco in separate Tomcats is recommended (easier, can switch to new versions independently, and is more scalable). To adapt the FlexSpaces portlet to Liferay 5.1.x, etc. look at the source inside the Liferay Flash portlet war for your version of Liferay and adapt the jsps (different dtds) and maybe the java file of the FlexSpaces portlet.
How to setup:
1. Install Alfresco enterprise or community
2. Start alfresco user admin pw admin, install flexspaces 0.91+ webscripts, see readmeWebScripts.txt
3. Install a separate Liferay 5.2.x tomcat bundle from liferay.com
4. I changed all the ports in <liferay>/<tomcat>/conf/server.xml to start with 9 instead of 8 (8005->9005, 8080->9080 twice, 8009->9009) to not conflict with tomcat running alfresco
5. Start liferay tomcat and login bruno@7cogs.com (password: bruno)
6. Within Liferay install the FlexSpaces portlet: Add Application / Install More Applications (use refresh button at bottom to refresh plugin list) and click add on FlexSpaces item from the Alfresco or Flex category
7. Configure the portlet in its configuration UI to have the views wanted and for your Alfresco web script URL (may need different host,port), and save.
8. Login to the FlexSpaces portlet (user: admin, pw: admin)
9. The FlexSpaces portlet also works with LiveCycle Content Services ES:
a. in the portlet configuration UI set the Alfresco webscript URL in to http://localhost:8080/contentspace/service and set show tasks to false
b. in FlexSpacesConfig.xml set is LiveCycleContentServices to true, serverVersion to 2.1 for LC 8.2.1, and set useSessionData to false (need to do some more work to get the short term state save to work with LC CS, and avoid the re-login on portlet resize)
Haven’t tried using SSO approaches yet:
1. Rivet Logic STAr (Secure Token Authentication rivet amp for Alfresco) used with AWPr
2. Jonas Yuan / Cignex LDAP ADS and SSO CAS and also blog post on a combined install
3. Sourcesense Alfresco OpenSSO integration
Other references
1. Luis Sala’s portlet dev wiki page and blog
2. Jeff Pott’s blog
Steve
I released new builds of FlexSpaces, CMIS Spaces, and FlexibleShare. These have a new ‘look” (with added skinning of menus/tabs, and expanded/changed style files):
FlexSpaces+AIR 0.92 ( Alfresco Forge , Google Code ) (Tested with Alfresco 3.2, Adobe LiveCycle Content Services ES 8.2.1)
CMIS Spaces +AIR build 8 ( Alfresco Forge , Google Code ) (Tested with Alfresco 3.2)
Note: CMIS Spaces build 8 is for the CMIS 0.61 spec. I will do a new build soon for the CMIS 0.62 spec.
FlexibleShare +AIR build 2 ( Alfresco Forge , Google Code ) (Tested with Alfresco 3.2, Adobe LiveCycle Content Services ES 8.2.1)
I was able to get FlexSpaces UI for document management with Adobe LiveCycle Content Services ES integrated with LiveCycle Workspace UI for starting processes/forms/task-lists. The workspace start process, to-do, and tracking are in tabs. The workspace preferences, messages, help are available from menus. It works on Flex+Browser. Also will SSO from/to other LC apps. (I can’t make this available as open source).
For an integration of FlexSpaces+AIR with Workspace, getting PDF Form controlling code to work in Flex+AIR looks challenging. I could also create some Workspace pods for FlexibleShare (although FlexibleShare is Flex+AIR currently, could also do a +Browser version)
Document Library Tab (click image twice for larger):
Workspace Tab / start process (click image twice for larger):
A first build and source for FlexibleShare+AIR, an open source, Flex based dashboard/portal container focused on document management (Alfresco, Adobe LiveCycle Content Services ES), collaboration (Alfresco Share), and BI/charting/reporting, is now available on the Alfresco Forge and on Google Code.
As a Flex based dashboard for FlexSpaces view pods (doc mgt, wcm, search, workflow tasks), its further along. (Note that the WCM pod is commented out in data/pods.xml).
The Flex based pods (blog, wiki, discussions, doclib, calendar) for Share back-end are prototypes. No commenting/reply feature yet. The calendar doesn’t hook into the Share backend yet. The Share dashboard html pod runs the Share overall dashboard (no pods for individual Surf dashlets yet). (Note that you need to confgure Share pods with the correct site short url name in the siteUrlName attributes in pods.xml)
The Charting, Pentaho charting, JasperReports report viewer pods are samples only (additional BI/reporting capabilities to come). Liferay html pod runs the full Liferay portal (no pods for individual Liferay portlets yet).
FlexibleShare uses the Esria dashboard sample. I still need to look into leveraging the Anvil project to provide more modular support for loading Flex portlets. (Note see previous blog post with more details on FlexibleShare)
Do to use of AIR, you can drag desktop files into FlexibleShare folder views. Regular AIR drag / drop also allows you to drag files from the local files pod to folder view pods and between folder view pods. Calais semantic auto-tagging, tag suggesting can be used in Doclib pods and in the search pod (switch from having the “simplesearch” pod to the “search” pod in pods.xml), and setup the Calais key / set enableCalais in FlexSpacesConfig.xml
To get FlexibleShare to run on LiveCycle Content Services (8.2.1), FlexSpacesConfig.xml needs to be changed following its LiveCycle comments (different setting for alfresoUrlPart, set isLiveCycleContentService value to true, and set serverVersion to 2.1 to reflect its embedded Alfreso. Also in data/pods.xml comment out the tasks pod, and remove the pods in Share
FlexibleShare Document Management (WCM pod not shown) screenshot (click on for larger):
FlexibleShare Collaboration screenshot (click on for larger):
FlexSpaces 0.9 (Flex+AIR, Flex+Browser) RIA Clients for Alfresco (and Adobe LiveCycle Content Services)
Refactored to use Presentation Model pattern, added SampleApp1, severside paging in webscripts (doclib, search results), favorites/shortcuts, now 6 languages, preview now more usable and uses same content model REST api as Alfresco Share, Spring ActionScript XML config of: what views to show (doclib, search, tasks, wcm, share), whether to have coverflow view mode, default view page sizes, page size picklist, thumbnail info (id/name, size). Menu config more usable now that all menu enable/disable code is position independent, thumbnails fixed, bug fixes. FlexSpaces on Google Code FlexSpaces on Alfresco Forge (Update: note in FlexSpacesConfig.xml, for LiveCycle, the alfrescoUrlPart should be “/contentspace/service” not “/contentspace/servicee” in the comment. )
CMIS Spaces RIA clients (Flex+AIR, Flex+Browser) preview build 6
CMIS Spaces clients are for ECM / CMS servers supporting the Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) standard. CMIS Spaces supports CMIS on both REST Atom and SOAP. Changed to keep in sync with FlexSpaces 0.9 code, performance fix to remove overhead of undisplayed coverflow, CMIS Spaces specifc menu XML config file, Spring ActionScript XML config of: what views to show (doclib, search, checked out), default view page sizes, page size picklist. CMIS Spaces on Google Code CMIS Spaces on Alfresco Forge
