Introduction to Alfresco Explorer
The Alfresco Enterprise Content Management product is bundled and shipped along with two web-based applications. One is called Alfresco Explorer, which was formerly known as the "Web Client". In this chapter we will go through the high-level overview of Alfresco Explorer. The other web-based application is called Alfresco Share , which enables collaboration. Chapter 10, Alfresco Administration Operations Using Alfresco Share, of this book has a detailed description of Alfresco Share.
By using any web browser you can connect to the Alfresco Explorer application. You will be able to manage users, security, content, business rules, and everything related to your enterprise content stored in Alfresco through Alfresco Explorer.
Note
In the rest of the book, wherever the web client configuration files are referred to, consider them as Alfresco Explorer related configuration files.
Logging in to Alfresco as an administrator
To begin, if Alfresco was installed by using the Tomcat or JBoss bundle, access the Alfresco Explorer from http://localhost:8080/alfresco. Access the Alfresco Explorer in the portal from http://localhost:8080/portal and navigate to Alfresco Explorer from the page menu, and then maximize the portlet.
If you have started Alfresco for the first time, then Alfresco will create the initial database content that is required to manage content. The first time you use Alfresco, your username will be admin and your password will be admin. You can change the admin password once you log in. Depending on your installation, you may have a choice of languages in the language drop-down menu. This book assumes that your selected language is English.
Screen layout
Once you log in, you will see the My Alfresco dashboard. You can browse through the Alfresco Explorer by clicking on the Company Home link provided at the top. A typical Alfresco Explorer page is shown in the following screenshot. Let us examine various sections of the Alfresco Explorer layout.
Toolbar
Tool Bar at the top provides the following information:
- Logo
- Links to home spaces and the My Alfresco dashboard
- Administration Console icon (
) to perform system administration functions - User options icon (
) to change your options and settings - Icon
to hide or show the shelf - Help button (
) to launch online help - Raise an Issue link to submit bug reports to Alfresco
- Login and Logout options
- Search box with basic and advanced search options
Navigator
The Navigator window is used to display the Navigator tree view, which consists of Shelf, OpenSearch, and Categories browsing as shown in the following screenshot:
Navigator tree view
The Navigator provides a tree view of the entire repository hierarchy including folders and subfolders. There is also a Refresh button, as shown in the previous screenshot, to refresh the navigator tree view with the latest files.
Shelf
The Shelf includes clipboard, recent spaces, and shortcuts:
- Clipboard: It is useful to cut or copy content, and to paste in multiple spaces. Clipboard also facilitates the creation of links to actual content items or spaces.
- Recent Spaces: It provides the list of recently visited spaces, thus useful when you want to go back to a specific space with one click. The information in the recent spaces is going to be refreshed every time you log in to Alfresco Explorer.
- Shortcuts: These are similar to favorites. You can create shortcuts to your frequently visited spaces.
OpenSearch
The OpenSearch is Alfresco's implementation of open-standards-based search API for sharing of search results, and extending existing schemas such as ATOM and RSS.
The execution of searches is supported via HTTP requests and responses. For example, the keyword search shown in the previous screenshot can also be executed via an HTTP request as follows:
http://localhost:8080/alfresco/service/api/search/keyword?q=alfresco
More details about OpenSearch are covered in Chapter 12, Search in Alfresco, of this book.
Categories logical view
Alfresco content can be categorized to be part of one or more categories. The Categories window provides a logical navigation of content as per the category hierarchy:
Breadcrumbs
Breadcrumbs help you navigate through various spaces. Typically breadcrumbs provide paths to parent spaces.
Header
The Header screen provides information about the current space, number of business rules applied to the current space, options to create content, menu actions to manage content, and options to use various views to display the information in the current space.
Detail
The Detail screen provides information about the subspaces and contents that are a part of current space.
You can click on icon or title of a space or content item in the Detail screen to access the information.
Actions are listed as icons for each space or content. Additional action items will be listed if you click on the arrow icon (
).
Administration Console
The Administration Console in Alfresco Explorer is useful to perform all the system-administration tasks. You can access the Administration Console by clicking on the administration console icon in the toolbar as shown in the following screenshot. This icon is visible and accessible only to the users with admin privileges. Refer the following screenshot to view the list of administration functions that can be performed by the system administrator:
Users and groups management
You can add and delete users, and update user information using the Manage System Users functionality. When you first install Alfresco, there will be two users, namely admin and guest, created by the installer. You can create new users using this functionality.
The Manage User Groups functionality is useful to create groups of users and subgroups within the groups. Groups are useful to provide authorization to access the content.
Category management
Categorization allows content information to be classified in a number of different ways. This aids searching of content. Categories can be edited only by the administrator. Categories can have subcategories, and content can be linked to one or more categories.
Data management
Export and Import functionality is useful for bulk extracting and loading of personal, departmental, or team information, from one location to another location, within the repository or to another repository. Import and Export functionality is covered in detail in Chapter 14, Administering and Maintaining the System.
System information
The System Information functionality is useful to view session information and the HTTP header information. The content in Alfresco is stored in industry standard Java Content Repository (JCR), where every folder and file is represented as a node. The subfolders are represented as branches of a node, which are nodes itself. Node Browser functionality is useful to navigate through the entire repository through nodes and subnodes. More details on Node Browser are covered in Chapter 14, Administering and Maintaining the System.