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For
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the
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record,
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I
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posted
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this
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for
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discussion
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in
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the
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Alfresco
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Forums (http://forums.alfresco.com/viewtopic.php?t=6031) - Steve
Here's
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an
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issue
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I'd
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like
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to
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just
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post
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for
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discussion
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and
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to
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see
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if
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anyone
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else
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has
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thought
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about
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it.
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Part
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of
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what
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we'd
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like
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to
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use
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Alfresco
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for
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is
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to
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house
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what
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amounts
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to
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a
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knowledge
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base
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-
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a
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large
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number
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of
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FAQ-type
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articles
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each
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with
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a
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fairly
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simple
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structure:
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- Question
- Answer
- Keyword list
- Category/Topic
We currently have about 1,800 such articles and the number is increasing all the time. With this many items, some problems in managing the content become apparent in Alfresco WCM:
1. It's not easy to find an existing article when you need to make a change. Paging through thousands of documents shouldn't be the only way.
2. When creating a new article, the user must enter a unique name, and there's no easy way for the user to know what names have already been used. In fact, there's no need for the user to have to enter a document name for this type of content.
3. We would really to be able to associate an immutable unique identifier with a document - an identifier other than the document name. This would allow us to change a document's name without breaking web app's reference to the document.
I realize the upcoming search capability may help with the first issue - but only if it's well integrated with the current WCM authoring UI. Will the search feature allow users to say "get me the document with name element = "Dreamweaver" ?
The second part could be addressed by having the ability to let Alfresco auto-generate document names. This could be based on a sequential integer or a guid-type string. A web form could be allowed to have an output-name specifier something like "${autoname}.xml"
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and
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the
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auto-generated
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name
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would
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be
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placed
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in
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the
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name
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field
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when
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the
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use
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first
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selected
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"create
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web
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content".
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The
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third
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issue
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could
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also
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be
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addressed
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by
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the
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availability
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of
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a
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unique-id-generation
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feature.
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A
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unique
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value
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could
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be
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generated
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and
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stored
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in
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an
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"ID"
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element
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in
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the
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xml
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file.
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It
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would
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be
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nice
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if
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this
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element
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could
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be
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made
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read-only
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when
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it
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appeared
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on
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the
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input
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forms.
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We
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have
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already
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experimented
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with
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auto-generating
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ID
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element
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values
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using
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a
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custom
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type
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&
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JSP,
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but
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we
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aren't
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able
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to
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make
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the
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field
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read-only
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on
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the
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web
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forms.
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I
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realize
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this
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is
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all
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about
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giving
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"database"
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kind
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of
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functionality
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to
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the
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WCM
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-
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I'll
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be
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interested
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to
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hear
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people's
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thoughts.
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Thanks,
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Steve