1. Alfresco Custom Model
Università del Salento, 2012
Andrea Leo
www.alfresco.com
www.qbreng.it

2. Estendere il modello dei contenuti
Alfresco permette di personalizzare e estendere il modello dei contenti per
soddisfare le diverse esigenze dell’Organizzazione
Il Dizionario dei Dati di default è pre-popolato con le definizioni che descrivono
i contenuti con cui è inizialmente popolato il repository (Cartelle, Documenti,
Nomi)
Il Dizionario dei Dati di Alfresco è estendibile, consente all’utente di dichiarare
nuovi Tipi di Dati Personalizzati (Custom Content Type) che soddisfano i
bisogni dell’Organizzazione.

3. I Blocchi elementari : Tipi e Proprietà
 Tipo: il concetto di tipo è concettualmente simile al concetto di
Classe dei linguaggi Object Oriented (es. Persona, Content, Folder).
Il concetto di Tipo è usato per modellare i Business Object che
hanno proprietà personalizzate.
I Tipi supportano l'ereditarietà.
 Proprietà: sono metadati che appartengono ad un determinato tipo
(es. Nome_Persona, Telefono_Persona)
 Tipi di Proprietà: sono i tipi di dato fondamentali. Descrivono i tipi di
dati del Repository che saranno usati per memorizzare le proprietà
(es. strings, dates, floats, boolean).
 Vincoli: i Constraints possono opzionalmente essere usati per
restringere/controllare il valore di alcune proprietà. Ci sono 4 tipi di
vincoli di default disponibili dalla piattaforma: REGEX (espressioni
regolari), LIST, MINMAX e LENGTH. Anche i vincoli possono essere
estesi.

4. I Blocchi elementari : Aspetti e Associazioni

Aspetti: permettono di “incollare” delle Proprietà a Tipi di
contenuto o anche a singole istanze di documenti quando e dove
abbiamo bisogno.

Associazioni: una associazione definisce relazioni fra Tipi.

Peer Associations: definisce una relazione “alla Pari” fra due
oggetti nel repository, in cui nessuno dei due è subordinato
all’altro.

Child Association: definisce una relazione “Padre-Figlio” fra
due oggetti, ossia l’oggetto Target (Figlio) dell’associazione
potrebbe non esistere mentre l’oggetto Source (Padre) esiste
sicuramente (es. associazione fra il tipo “Folder” e il tipo
“Content” instaurata nel repository di Alfresco)

5. Content Model Overview

A Content Model is a collection of related Content Types and Aspects.

Each Content Model is described in its own XML file

It is identified by its defined Namespace and Name.

6. Built-in Content Model Namespaces

Out-of-the-box, the Alfresco Repository is primed with several models:

System - describes system-level Repository concepts

Content - describes the Content Domain Model (e.g. Folder, File, etc.)

Application - describes Alfresco Application Model (e.g. Glossary, …)

Dictionary - describes the Dictionary Meta-model

The above models may be found at:

<tomcat-home>/webapps/alfresco/WEB-INF/classes/alfresco/model/systemModel.xml

<tomcat-home>/webapps/alfresco/WEB-INF/classes/alfresco/model/contentModel.xml

<tomcat-home>/webapps/alfresco/WEB-INF/classes/alfresco/model/applicationModel.xml

<tomcat-home>/webapps/alfresco/WEB-INF/classes/alfresco/model/dictionaryModel.xml

7. Schema Namespaces
<model name="cm:contentmodel" xmlns="http://www.alfresco.org/model/dictionary/1.0">
<description>Alfresco Content Model</description>
<author>Alfresco</author>
<published>2005-06-03</published>
<version>1.0</version>
<namespaces>
<namespace uri="http://www.alfresco.org/model/content/1.0" prefix="cm"/>
</namespaces>
<imports>
<import uri="http://www.alfresco.org/model/dictionary/1.0" prefix="d"/>
</imports>
...

8. Alfresco Namespaces

9. Content Types
<types>
<type name="cm:cmobject">
<title>Object</title>
<parent>sys:base</parent>
<properties>
<property name="cm:name">
<type>d:text</type>
</property>
</properties>
<mandatory-aspects>
<aspect>cm:auditable</aspect>
</mandatory-aspects>
</type>
…
</types>

10. Aspects
<aspects>
<aspect name="cm:auditable">
<title>Auditable</title>
<properties>
<property name="cm:created">
<type>d:datetime</type>
</property>
<property name="cm:creator">
<type>d:text</type>
</property>
<property name="cm:modified">
<type>d:datetime</type>
</property>
<property name="cm:modifier">
<type>d:text</type>
</property>
<property name="cm:accessed">
<type>d:datetime</type>
</property>
</properties>
</aspect>
…
</aspects>

11. Additional Property Capabilities
<property name="my:property">
<type>d:text</type>
<mandatory enforced='true'>true</mandatory>
<default>my default value</default>
</property>
….
It's possible to describe how properties are indexed.
<property name="cm:example">
<type>d:text</type>
<mandatory>false</mandatory>
<index enabled="true">
<atomic>false</atomic> <!-- index in the background. Default true -->
<stored>false</stored> <!-- store the property value in the index.Default false -->
<tokenised>true</tokenised> <!-- Default true -->
</index>
</property>

12. Data Types
The following data types are supported:
5

13. Child Associations
<type name="cm:folder">
<title>Folder</title>
<parent>cm:cmobject</parent>
<associations>
<child-association name="cm:contains">
<source>
<mandatory>false</mandatory>
<many>false</many>
</source>
<target>
<class>sys:base</class>
<mandatory>false</mandatory>
<many>true</many>
</target>
<duplicate>false</duplicate>
<propagateTimestamps>true</propagateTimestamps>
</child-association>
</associations>
</type>
Note: operations like delete etc will propagate through the children

14. Peer Associations
<aspect name="cm:subscribable">
<associations>
<association name="cm:subscribedBy">
<source>
<mandatory>false</mandatory>
<many>true</many>
</source>
<target>
<class>cm:person</class>
<mandatory>false</mandatory>
<many>true</many>
</target>
</association>
</associations>
</aspect>
Notes :

Delete propagation does not take place.

Alfresco's search languages do not yet support joins across non-child associations.

15. built-in constraints
...
<constraints>
<constraint name="test:regex1" type="REGEX">
<parameter name="expression"><value>[A-Z]*</value></parameter>
...
</constraint>
<constraint name="test:regex2" type="REGEX">
<parameter name="expression"><value>[a-z]*</value></parameter>
...
</constraint>
<constraint name="test:stringLength1" type="LENGTH">
<parameter name="minLength"><value>0</value></parameter>
<parameter name="maxLength"><value>256</value></parameter>
</constraint>
...

16. built-in constraints
...
<constraint name="test:minMax1" type="MINMAX">
<parameter name="minValue"><value>100</value></parameter>
<parameter name="maxValue"><value>256</value></parameter>
</constraint>
<constraint name="test:list1" type="LIST">
<parameter name="allowedValues">
<list>
<value>ABC</value>
<value>DEF</value>
</list>
</parameter>
<parameter name="caseSensitive"><value>true</value></parameter>
</constraint>
</constraints>
...

17. built-in constraints
These constraints can be referenced in the property definitions:
<property name="test:prop1">
<type>d:text</type>
<protected>true</protected>
<default></default>
<constraints>
<constraint ref="test:regex1"/>
<constraint ref="test:stringLength1"/>
</constraints>
</property>
Further constraints can be defined inline as well, but are not reusable:
<property name="test:prop1">
<type>d:text</type>
<protected>true</protected>
<default></default>
<constraints>
<constraint ref="test:regex1"/>
<constraint type="LENGTH">
<parameter name="minLength"><value>0</value></parameter>
<parameter name="maxLength"><value>128</value></parameter>
</constraint>
</constraints>
</property>

18. built-in constraints
The built-in constraints are present in the package
org.alfresco.repo.dictionary.constraint and are:

REGEX : org.alfresco.repo.dictionary.constraint.RegexConstraint

LENGTH : org.alfresco.repo.dictionary.constraint.StringLengthConstraint

MINMAX : org.alfresco.repo.dictionary.constraint.NumericRangeConstraint

LIST : org.alfresco.repo.dictionary.constraint.ListOfValuesConstraint
The <parameter> definitions correspond directly to setter methods on the classes

19. Writing Further Constraints

Implement the org.alfresco.service.cmr.dictionary.Constraint interface

Extend org.alfresco.repo.dictionary.constraint.AbstractConstraint..
<constraint name="my:FactorsOf"
type="com.company.alfresco.constraints.MultiplesOfConstraint">
<parameter name="multipleOf"><value>10</value></parameter>
</constraint>

20. Out-of-the-box Aspects

Classifiable Aspect: Enable Categorization so that categories can be linked to the
document.

Dublin Core Aspect: Add Dublin core metadata to the document. Dublin core
metadata includes properties such as Publisher, Contributor, Subject, and Rights.

Effectivity Aspect: Add effectivity properties called Effective From and Effective
To to the document.

Emailed Aspect: Add a set of properties called Email Data to the document. This is
useful to capture the email information if the document is an attachment to email.

Summarizable Aspect: Add a property called Summary to the document.

Templatable Aspect: Enable template view.

Geographic Aspect: Add two properties called Latitude and Longitude.

Versionable Aspect: Enable versioning.

21. ADAMO

22. Content Model UML Class Diagram

23. Dynamic model
Enables dynamic customisation of models without requiring a restart of the server

deployment/undeployment of custom models (messages)

deployment/undeployment of custom workflow (process) definitions

deployment/undeployment of custom web client extensions

Models in Company Home -> Data Dictionary -> Models (Model Active checkbox)

Messages in Company Home -> Data Dictionary -> Messages

Webclient in Company Home -> Data Dictionary -> Web Client Extensions
http://localhost:8080/alfresco/faces/jsp/admin/webclientconfig-console.jsp → reload
NOTES:

Only incremental updates are supported for an active model.

If the update attempts to delete a type, aspect, property (etc) then the upload will fail.

24. Estendere il modello Avanzato
Il modello dei dati può essere esteso editando 3 file di configurazione
XML:
• QBR-Model-content.xml: permette di dichiarare alla
piattaforma un insieme di modelli di dati personalizzati che
saranno resi disponibili all’interno di Alfresco
• QBRModel.xml: permette di implementare il Content Model
definito, ossia dichiarare alla piattaforma Tipi, Aspetti, e
Associazioni.
• Web-client-config-custom.xml: permette di dichiarare il
modello creato all’interfaccia utente di Alfresco: “Web Client”.
Tomcat: <TOMCAT_HOME>/shared/classes/alfresco/extension

25. Resources

http://www.alfresco.com

http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Category:Content_Modeling

http://www.qbreng.it

http://wiki.qbreng.it

http://sourceforge.net/projects/adamo-project/

Twitter : andrealeo83