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Desktop actions allow a client-side application on the Alfresco CIFS server to trigger a server-side action. The action is run in the context of the folder the application is running in. Files and/or folders may be dragged onto the client-side application, these are then passed as parameters to the server-side action. see http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Desktop_Actions
Desktop actions are configured on a per filesystem basis using the file-servers.xml (or file-servers-custom.xml) configuration file. You can also specify content rules to apply to items such as auto-versioning.
WebDav: http based file editing and management on remote servers
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