RIA for Enterprise 3.0

Here is a screencam of an early prototype of FlexibleShare, an open source Flex  based portal container / dashboard with Flex based pods for open source enterprise SW (Alfresco ECM, Alfresco Share,  reporting/BI, BPM, portals):

This will initially focus on Flex+AIR, and later will have Flex+Browser support.  Also plan to enable the pods to be used as Adobe Genesis Tiles.  (Note: the Flex based pods for Alfresco ECM will support Adobe LiveCycle Content Services ES too).

Overview of  the prototype:

The prototype currently uses the Esria dashboard sample (inside a Flex+AIR application) as its portal container (also looking at the Anvil project to provide more modular support for loading Flex portlets).

Alfresco ECM / FlexSpaces tab:
The first tab in the prototype screencam has pods based on FlexSpaces (Doc Lib, Search, Tasks, WCM, Local Files). The cool thing in AIR is that desktop drag / drop into the Doc Lib and WCM pods just “works”. The Local Files pod takes advantage of AIR apis to access local files and drag / drop from it into the Doc Lib and WCM pods works too.  FlexSpaces support for Calais integration semantic tagging is also supported if enabled.

Flex-ification of Alfesco Share tab:
This tab has the early beginnings of some Flex UI (blog, wiki, discussions, site doc lib, calendar) for Alfresco Share backend. For the calendar, I am using code based on Ely’s interactive calendar. For the overall Share dashboard and Share site dashboards, using the AIR webkit HTML control to display them (so Ajax Surf dashlets can be used in them). Update: for blog, wiki, discussions, now working on more specific UI  instead of FolderViews (instead will have post/comment tree,  selected item content viewer pane, etc.) Update: Later will look into pods for individual Surf dashlets.

JasperReports tab:
This tab is using a modified version of the flex based JasperReports flash viewer to display jrpxml files.

Charts tab:
This has left in pods from the ESRIA dashboard sample. These use the Quietly Scheming chart animation effects.

Pentaho tab:
This is based on a Flex version of the Pentaho dashboard sample.

Liferay tab:
This runs Liferay in a AIR webkit HTML control. Update: later will look into pods for individual Liferay portlets.

CMIS:
Update: Will look into pod for CMIS api repositories with drag / drop from desktop and with Alfresco pods

Adobe TV added about 50 more MAX 2008 presentation recordings today including:

Genesis MAX 2008 presentation recording. This recording has both a presentation and a demo in it. (Genesis MAX 2008 presentation slides on SlideShare)

Also see my previous blog post on Adobe Genesis / Flex Portals / Open Source / FlexibleShare

Presentation

Adobe is going to give more details about Genesis, their enterprise / collaborative / mashup AIR client next week at Adobe MAX. This client is supposed to be a free download with for pay SAAS collaborative services, and have an app catalog.

Although I assume it won’t be open source, I am curious how open and flexible it will be. Can it be used as a general flex based portal container? Can you customize the container or only just plug in Tiles? What apis will it have? Could you use it without their services and tie in your own SSO ?

I could  do the portlets for the FlexibleShare project I have started on as Genesis Tiles  (for Alfresco ECM, Alfresco Share collaboration, open source BI/reporting, etc).  Maybe also have an open source Flex portal container supporting the Adobe Genesis Tile api  (and support both Flex+AIR and Flex+Browser containers. Note: html embedded in Flex works best in AIR).

I have been prototyping using the Esria dashboard sample as a Flex based container with FlexSpaces components in pods (Alfresco DocLib, Search, Tasks, WCM). It works in AIR including drag/drop of desktop files into FlexSpaces pods. The DocLib and Search pods also support Adobe LiveCycle Content Services ES. The Alfresco Share UI works in this prototype currently in an HTML pod. I will be starting Flex versions of the Alfresco Share collaboration components (wiki, blog, calendar, discussions). Also have a JasperReports viewer pod based on a modified version of the flex based JasperReports flash viewer.  There is also a Flex based Pentaho dashboard sample available.  BIRT reports could be viewed as html or pdf, or with the Actuate interactive viewer.

The open source Anvil project (Flex MDI portal / Java backend framework) could be leveraged.  Also found an interesting article about Flex based portals: “A new way to look at Portals“.

Some Genesis links
Blog: Code Name Genesis - The Future of the Enterprise Desktop
Demo of an early Genesis prototype
The Future of the Enterprise Desktop: The Elevator Pitch
Office 2.0 Conference: Adobe Genesis Unveiling
Teblog: Adobe Genesis addresses real needs
Adobe readying new mashup tool for business users | ITworld

Update: Newer Genesis Links
Genesis page on Adobe Labs
Genesis Overview Slides on SlideShare from Adobe MAX 2008
update 1/12/09: Genesis presentation at Adobe MAX 2008 on Adobe TV