How to get the thin client URI of an Alfresco folder/document?

Question

A thin client URI is a web address that you can type to see details about a file or folder, on a nice web user interface.

For instance, my Android app uses Alfresco's CMIS API, but for complex operations (eg. to start a workflow on this file), you could click on a link and it would bring you to the fully-fledged web interface (provided by the Alfresco server).

How to calculate this thin client URI, for any Alfresco folder/document?

A good start is to use the thinClientURI feature of the CMIS protocol. Unfortunately it only work for the root of the repository.

A perfect algorithm would show Alfresco Share nodes in their Alfresco Share site, rather than in Share's generic Repository Browser.

is there any reason why you would like to see the old Explorer UI? For web browsing, Share should be all you want to look at.. — skuro, Dec 20 '13 at 10:20
@skuro: Share's Repository Browser is fine too, for anything that is not in `/Sites` :-) — Nicolas Raoul, Dec 20 '13 at 10:37
Does the `SiteShareViewUrlGet` webscript (at `/api/sites/shareUrl` ) not cover you? — Gagravarr, Dec 20 '13 at 12:18
@Gagravarr: I did not know about it! Could you please post as an answer? — Nicolas Raoul, Dec 20 '13 at 15:16

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 22 '13 at 12:06

Alfresco does have a little known feature to do just what you need! I believe it was implemented in Enterprise 4.0.3ish, ready for 4.1, and the main use of it so far is in Cloud Sync.

The webscript you're looking for is org.alfresco.repository.site.site-share-view-url.get and it is exposed as /api/sites/shareUrl?nodeRef=nodeRef . It returns a simple bit of JSON, such as:

{
   "site": "alfresco-test",
   "url": "https:\/\/my.alfresco.com\/share\/test.com\/page\/site\/alfresco-test\/document-details?nodeRef=workspace:\/\/SpacesStore\/aae3b33fd-23d4-4091-ae64-44a8e332091341"
}

(The above example is taken from the Alfresco cloud version, but it should be present in late 4.0 enterprise releases, enterprise 4.1, and community + enterprise 4.2 onwards)

If you want to see what kinds of content it supports, your best bet is to look at the java class which powers it, org.alfresco.repo.web.scripts.site.SiteShareViewUrlGet

However, one slight restriction is that it only supports nodes that are located within sites. If you have a non-site node, you'll have to calculate a repository browser URL for it yourself...

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 20 '13 at 10:33

Below is my current implementation.
It is (very) far from perfect, as it only works for folders, and only in Alfresco Share.

        string suffix1 = "alfresco/cmisatom";
        string suffix2 = "alfresco/service/cmis";
        if (repo.Address.AbsoluteUri.EndsWith(suffix1) || repo.Address.AbsoluteUri.EndsWith(suffix2))
        {
            // Detect suffix length.
            int suffixLength = 0;
            if (repo.Address.AbsoluteUri.EndsWith(suffix1))
                suffixLength = suffix1.Length;
            if (repo.Address.AbsoluteUri.EndsWith(suffix2))
                suffixLength = suffix2.Length;

            string root = repo.Address.AbsoluteUri.Substring(0, repo.Address.AbsoluteUri.Length - suffixLength);
            if (repo.RemotePath.StartsWith("/Sites"))
            {
                // Case of Alfresco Share.

                // Example RemotePath: /Sites/thesite
                // Result: http://server/share/page/site/thesite/documentlibrary
                // Example RemotePath: /Sites/thesite/documentLibrary/somefolder/anotherfolder
                // Result: http://server/share/page/site/thesite/documentlibrary#filter=path|%2Fsomefolder%2Fanotherfolder
                // Example RemotePath: /Sites/s1/documentLibrary/éß和ệ
                // Result: http://server/share/page/site/s1/documentlibrary#filter=path|%2F%25E9%25DF%25u548C%25u1EC7
                // Example RemotePath: /Sites/s1/documentLibrary/a#bc/éß和ệ
                // Result: http://server/share/page/site/thesite/documentlibrary#filter=path%7C%2Fa%2523bc%2F%25E9%25DF%25u548C%25u1EC7%7C

                string path = repo.RemotePath.Substring("/Sites/".Length);
                if (path.Contains("documentLibrary"))
                {
                    int firstSlashPosition = path.IndexOf('/');
                    string siteName = path.Substring(0, firstSlashPosition);
                    string pathWithinSite = path.Substring(firstSlashPosition + "/documentLibrary".Length);
                    string escapedPathWithinSite = HttpUtility.UrlEncode(pathWithinSite);
                    string reescapedPathWithinSite = HttpUtility.UrlEncode(escapedPathWithinSite);
                    string sharePath = reescapedPathWithinSite.Replace("%252f", "%2F");
                    return root + "share/page/site/" + siteName + "/documentlibrary#filter=path|" + sharePath;
                }
                else
                {
                    // Site name only.
                    return root + "share/page/site/" + path + "/documentlibrary";
                }
            }
            else
            {
                // Case of Alfresco Web Client. Difficult to build a direct URL, so return root.
                return root;
            }
        }

How to get the thin client URI of an Alfresco folder/document?

2 Answers2