Alfresco Enterprise 3.4.0

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The official documentation is at: http://docs.alfresco.com

Welcome to the 'Alfresco Enterprise 3.4.0'

Table of Contents

• 1 Alfresco Enterprise 3.4.0 Release
  
  
  
  • 1.1 New and Enhanced Features
    
    
    
    • 1.1.1 Language Packs
    
    
    • 1.1.2 Not included in this release
    
    
    • 1.1.3 Components
    
    
    • 1.1.4 Error messages
    
    
  
  
  • 1.2 Add-ons
    
    
    
    • 1.2.1 Doclib Portlets
    
    
    • 1.2.2 Web Quick Start
    
    
    • 1.2.3 XAM Connector
    
    
  
  
  • 1.3 Content Authoring
    
    
    
    • 1.3.1 Alfresco Web Editor (AWE) Enhancements
    
    
    • 1.3.2 Content Creation and Deletion
    
    
    • 1.3.3 AWE FreeMarker Support
    
    
  
  
  • 1.4 Share Enhancements
    
    
    
    • 1.4.1 Redesigned and Extensible Toolbar
    
    
    • 1.4.2 Advanced Search
    
    
    • 1.4.3 Advanced Workflow
    
    
    • 1.4.4 User Status
    
    
    • 1.4.5 Improved Options for Site Visibility
    
    
    • 1.4.6 Site Create Permissions
    
    
    • 1.4.7 Replication Job Management
    
    
    • 1.4.8 Forms Enhancements
    
    
  
  
  • 1.5 Repository
    
    
    
    • 1.5.1 Hibernate Removal
    
    
    • 1.5.2 Important
    
    
    • 1.5.3 Replication
    
    
    • 1.5.4 Rating Service
    
    
    • 1.5.5 Read Performance
    
    
  
  
  • 1.6 Installation
  
  
  • 1.7 Changes to Alfresco binaries from 3.4.x onwards
  
  
  • 1.8 Schema Changes
  
  
  • 1.9 API Changes
  
  
  • 1.10 User Interface Changes
  
  
  • 1.11 Known Issues
  
  
  • 1.12 Fixed Bugs
  
  
  • 1.13 Prerquisites
  
  

Alfresco Enterprise 3.4.0 Release

21st Jan 2011

The following notes provide detailed information on the Alfresco Enterprise 3.4.0 release.

New and Enhanced Features

This release includes many new features and enhancements. The following provides a summary of the new capabilities.

Language Packs

The Alfresco Enterprise 3.4.0 release includes language packs for French, German, Italian, and Spanish only. The language packs included with this version have been through an Engineering QA and linguistic testing cycle.

o    Before you install a localized version, ensure that your browser is set up to view the relevant locale. This ensures the special characters display correctly in your installed instance.

o    Please note that the source-localized files are encoded in ASCII, and the special and accented characters are displayed using escape sequences.

o    The source files have been renamed using the corresponding locale for each language. For example, site-welcome.properties is called site-welcome_fr.properties for the French version.

Not included in this release

o    The Japanese language pack is not included in this release. It will be included in 3.4.1.

o    The help files remain in English for this release.

Components

The following components have not been localized for this version. Therefore, any strings coming from these components in Share and Explorer will be displayed in English.

o    SharePoint

o    Records Management

o    Web Quick Start

o    Web Project Management (AVM)

o    Quickr Connector Support

o    OpenOffice

Error messages

The following files containing error messages remain in English for this release:

o    content-service.properties

o    dictionary-messages.properties

o    jbpm-engine-messages.properties

o    module-messages.properties

o    patch-service.properties

o    repoadmin-interpreter-help.properties

o    schema-update.properties

o    system-messages.properties

o    tenant-interpreter-help.properties

o    version-service.properties

o    webclient-config-admin-interpreter-help.properties

o    workflow-interpreter-help.properties

Add-ons

Doclib Portlets

The Doclib Portlets surface DM capabilities in portals via Share-based Document Library portlets.

Web Quick Start

The Web Quick Start is a sample application built on the Alfresco platform. It provides an end-to-end WCM example with an authoring and publishing environment using Alfresco Share and a web application built using Spring MVC, Spring Surf, and OpenCMIS. The website is delivered dynamically using Alfresco as a CMIS runtime.

The primary design goals of the Web Quick Start are to illustrate the power of the Alfresco platform in an easy-to-install package and to provide developers with a strong starting point for their Alfresco implementations. These goals are fundamental for getting business people and developers up and running with the Alfresco WCM platform in the shortest time possible. The Alfresco core product has not been changed in any way, just extended by plugging in content model, behaviors, and workflows, using the many standard hooks provided by the Alfresco product.

XAM Connector

A new Alfresco XAM Connector module integrates Alfresco with XAM-enabled Content Addressable Storage (CAS). The connector can be configured to include metadata as well as the content and also provides ability to apply default and explicit retention dates within Alfresco, which are enforced by the CAS device.

Currently, this module has been certified against EMC Centera only.

Content Authoring

Alfresco Web Editor (AWE) Enhancements

Content Creation and Deletion

Additions to the AWE allow for new content to be created and for current content items to be deleted. The create process provides an additional marker icon that allows the user to effectively ‘create another piece of content like this one’. This provides a simple mechanism for non-technical users to create new content without the complexity of setting an attach point and content type. #ws_id.70d23baab890

AWE FreeMarker Support

The Web Quick Start provides an example of using the AWE with FreeMarker templates.

Share Enhancements

Redesigned and Extensible Toolbar

The Share header bar has been redesigned to provide improved usability, better localization support, and configuration-based customization.

Advanced Search

New advanced search capabilities offer search forms for end users and extensive customization options for developers.

o    End users can search based on custom document types, aspects, and their properties.

o    Developers can define custom search screens for application-specific searching using Forms.

Advanced Workflow

3.4.0 provides comprehensive workflow capabilities including:

•   Start workflows with/without attachments
  
•   Multiple task attachments
  
•   New Inbox dashlet
  

• •     Start Workflow, filter tasks by priority, due dates, personal and pooled tasks, and view and edit tasks actions
    

•    My Tasks Page Component
  

• •    Filter tasks based on due dates, priorities, or assignee
    

• •     Edit, view task, and workflow actions
    

• •    Paging
    

•    View/Edit Tasks Details pages
  

• •     Due dates
    

• •    Manage attachments
    

• •    Progress status
    

• •     Voting
    

• •    Priorities
    

• •    Parallel/Serial tasks
    

•    Workflow Details page
  

• •     Current task owner, due date, and status
    

•    Task History
  

• •     Actioned by, outcome, event date/times, and comment history
    

•    Workflow Management - Workflows I've Started
  

• •     Filter tasks based on due dates, when started, priorities, and workflow type
    

• •    View and cancel workflows
    

User Status

User status information is viewable by other users via the users profile, site members lists, and more.

Improved Options for Site Visibility

You can control which users can see public sites to support an extranet use case. For example, you can enable public sites to be visible to employees but not external users.#ws_id.c67a9a688e33

Site Create Permissions

By default, any user can create Share sites. It is possible to control who has permission to create sites by changing the permissions applied to the sites folder.#ws_id.8461108e3480

Replication Job Management

3.4.0 introduces a new Share Administration console component for creating and managing replication jobs including the transfer payload (folders and documents to transfer), repository server to transfer to (transfer target), and replication schedule.

Forms Enhancements

Several enhancements have been made to Forms engine, including new controls, an enhanced association picker and new set templates. Refer to Administration guide for details on forms.#ws_id.6648e94f7ea5

Repository

Hibernate Removal

Since the first version of Alfresco, Hibernate has been used to provide the object-relational mapping and data access layer against the underlying relational database. Hibernate proved invaluable in enabling Alfresco to rapidly build the early versions.

As the size of Alfresco deployments has grown, it's become more important for Alfresco to control the interaction between the application and the underlying database to ensure this is optimized for our use case. In Alfresco 3.4.0, we have moved away from using the generalized capabilities provided by Hibernate to a native mapping and data access layer developed by Alfresco using Apache iBatis. The new approach provides us with a much greater level of control over the data access layer so we can ensure it continues to scale and support the very large repositories and enterprise deployments that Alfresco is increasingly seeing.

Important

Developers are isolated from the implementation details of the data access layer. These changes do no affect the existing APIs, query capabilities, or other features. There is **no need** to migrate existing systems.

Replication

Replication builds on the Transfer Service introduced in Alfresco 3.3 to allow spaces (folders) and content to be automatically copied between distinct Alfresco repositories. Replication can be triggered according to a schedule, on-demand, or by actions.

Content replication is designed to assist geographically distributed deployments where performance may be affected by network latency or bandwidth limitations.

For content consumers, replication provides:

o    Fast access by serving content from local servers

o    High availability - removes the single point of failure

For network administrators, replication provides:

o    Reduced network overhead

By default, replicated content is read-only in target repositories. This ensures the integrity of the content is not compromised by uncontrolled updates. An option is provided for users to navigate to the content's source repository to make any updates.

Rating Service

A Rating Service has been added to the repository services. This service provides built-in content rating schemes and supports 3rd party developers in defining new schemes. It enables users to apply and retrieve various rating data to content. The Java Foundation API, the JavaScript API, and the REST API for this service have been implemented. However UI extensions in Share have not yet been added. #ws_id.1fb0b7bf4685

Read Performance

Enhanced read permission evaluation performance in the form of a new method on the PermissionService called hasReadPermission. This is particularly beneficial for large results sets.

Installation

Please refer to Simple Install guides available on Alfresco Network for details. Installers for Windows (32 bit and 64 bit) and Linux (64 bit) versions are now available.

Changes to Alfresco binaries from 3.4.x onwards

o    MS-office add-ins are now packaged together as one zip file in alfresco-enterprise-office-addins-3.4.0.zip. This zip file includes add-ins for MS Excel, MS Word and MS PowerPoint.

o    DoD AMPs alfresco-dod5015-share.amp and alfresco-dod5015.amp are now packaged in one AMP file alfresco-enterprise-dod5015-3.4.0.zip.

o    Alfresco-mmt.jar is now made part of alfresco-enterprise-3.4.0.zip.

o    Sample extensions are now made part of alfresco-enterprise-3.4.0.zip. File alfresco-enterprise-sample-extensions-version.zip file is not distributed any more.

o    Alfresco installers replace Tomcat bundles and these are now removed from distribution.

o    alfresco-enterprise-AVM-3.4.0.zip contains alfresco-wcm-examples-version.zip and alfresco-enterprise-wcm-version.zip

o    alfresco-fdk.amp and alfresco-fdk.jar packaged as alfresco-enterprise-fdk-3.4.0.zip.

o    vti-module.amp replaced as alfresco-enterprise-spp-3.4.0.zip

o    alfresco-enterprise-3.4.0.zip consists of Share and Explorer war bundles including Sample extensions such as custom-repository.properties. This file also contains Module Management tool and JCR benchmarking tool.

Schema Changes

For this release, following schema changes have occurred.

o    alf_prop_unique_ctx: Added column prop1_id

o    Old-style audit tables are no longer used by code: alf_audit_config, alf_audit_date, alf_audit_fact, alf_audit_source

o    Data in Attribute tables has been moved to the Property Value tables. The Attribute tables still remain.

API Changes

NodeArchiveService.restoreAllArchivedItems has been deprecated and is no longer used within Alfresco.

User Interface Changes

'Restore All Items' in the 'Deleted Items’ dialog has been removed from the Explorer interface.

Known Issues

The following known issues are associated with this release.****

For a full list of issues and fixes, refer Jira issue tracking system.

o    The Linux Bitrock installer uses the incorrect JDBC URL when connecting to an existing database. To resolve this issue check the db.url setting in alfresco-global.properties and change #38 to an & character e.g.

o    Incorrect version: db.url=jdbc:mysql://localhost/alfresco?useUnicode=yes#38characterEncoding=UTF-8

o    Correct version:

o    db.url=jdbc:mysql://localhost/alfresco?useUnicode=yes&characterEncoding=UTF-8

o    Share document download issue on Tomcat with https(SSL) for Internet Explorer versions 7 & 8.on IE7 and IE8, you will get error message if you try to download a document from share in Tomcat with https(SSL) enabled. To resolve this issue add following to Context element within file ..tomcat/conf/context.xml

o    <Valve className='org.apache.catalina.authenticator.SSLAuthenticator' securePagesWithPragma='false' />

Fixed Bugs

For a full list of closed / fixed issues, please see the Jira issue tracking system.

Prerquisites

Refer to the Support Stacks page under the Support menu > Support Stacks on Alfresco Network for details on the Enterprise certified stacks.
Enterprise Edition
3.4