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I was looking closely to some opensource DMS like Alfresco and Nuxeo but found that in case of custom document metadata (or schema) you need to go through IDE.
Why after all progress done in the DMS, the end-user (not developer) isn't offered the ability to define custom properties for type of document ?

elsadek
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2 Answers2

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Actually Alfresco allows to create custom properties for document using "Aspect".
here is a good tutorial, you don't need to build by the way, just restart the server :

http://docs.alfresco.com/5.1/tasks/forms-aspect-display.html

elsadek
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  • BTW, This link does not say everything you need to define a new content model. That article only describes how to configure how the custom content model (defined elsewhere) is "rendered" by Share. – Marco Altieri Feb 07 '16 at 16:03
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With both Nuxeo and the last version of Alfresco, you can modify the schema using a web interface.

Nuxeo is definitely more advanced in this because with its web interface you can customise almost everything, but Alfresco has other advantages.

In my opinion, it is not so easy to build a web interface for end users (not developers) that has the flexibility that is necessary to implement client requirements. The problem with these interfaces is that they are perfect if they can do what you need, but become overcomplicated if you need to customise something.

Having said that, I was happy to see that finally, in the last version, Alfresco Share has a basic admin UI to define custom content models.

Marco Altieri
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  • Could you point out how to do it in Nuxeo, unless you mean an IDE in web interface. – elsadek Feb 07 '16 at 12:37
  • Yes, it is a kind of IDE, but it is easy enough for a power user that is not a developer to use it: https://doc.nuxeo.com/display/NXDOC/Getting+Started+with+Nuxeo+Studio – Marco Altieri Feb 07 '16 at 12:43
  • as said in my answer, Alfresco already makes it easy to create custom properties just by creating xml files. So I wonder if NUXEO has this same feature. – elsadek Feb 07 '16 at 13:48
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    @elsadek Yes, with Nuxeo you can of course customise the content model. You can define schemas and you can associate these schemas to your custom types. Nuxeo does not have aspects but has "facets" that are somehow similar because they can be added to documents "on the fly". They do not have properties, like aspects. Properties are always defined in schemas. https://doc.nuxeo.com/display/Studio/Schemas – Marco Altieri Feb 07 '16 at 14:43
  • for my question, do we have to write classes and than deploy them additionally to xml files, or just a plain vanilla text editor will suffice to create a custom schema or properties ? – elsadek Feb 07 '16 at 16:33
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    If you do not need to do anything fancy, xml and properties files will be enough. In some use cases, you could need to write custom classes for constraints, evaluators, etc... – Marco Altieri Feb 07 '16 at 16:35