SkyVault Share Document Library repository tier

1. Document Library custom response

A custom response appears within the metadata.custom section of the JSON response. An example of a cleanly installed service is the vitServer configuration, defined within the slingshot-context.xml file.

The customResponses property defines a map of JSON key to custom response bean within the SlingshotDocLibCustomerResponse bean definition.

<bean id="slingshotDocLibCustomResponse"
       parent="baseJavaScriptExtension"
       class="org.alfresco.repo.jscript.SlingshotDocLibCustomResponse">
    <property name="extensionName">
       <value>slingshotDocLib</value>
    </property>
    <property name="customResponses">
      <map>
         <entry key="vtiServer">
            <ref bean="doclibCustomVtiServer"/>
         </entry>
      </map>
    </property>
    </bean>

Default slingshotDocLibCustomResponse bean configuration

The bean for returning the vtiServer configuration is defined as:

<bean id="doclibCustomVtiServer" class="org.alfresco.repo.jscript.app.VtiServerCustomResponse">
    <property name="scriptUtils">
        <ref bean="utilsScript" />
    </property>
    <property name="sysAdminParams">
        <ref bean="sysAdminParams" />
    </property>
    <property name="port">
        <value>${vti.server.external.port}</value>
    </property>
    <property name="host">
        <value>${vti.server.external.host}</value>
    </property>
</bean>

DocLibVtiServer bean configuration

The VtiServerCustomResponse class (which implements CustomResponse) returns a Serializable object (e.g. LinkedHashMap) that is serialized into the JSON response by the DocLib web scripts.

This extension point is designed to return useful information that is not specific to any node, for example, the presence of an optional module; whether a subsystem is active or not, etc.

2. Property decorators

The other place the data web scripts may be extended is via the property decorator extension mechanism. These are used by the org.alfresco.repo.jscript.ApplicationScriptUtils class and allow properties such as nodeRefs, usernames, and dates to be returned in a much more usable state to the web tier. For example, the Share interface displays usernames using First- and Last-name, rather than just the username. By decorating the properties returned in the initial web script request, further requests are not necessary to obtain the missing data.

<bean id="applicationScriptUtils" parent="baseJavaScriptExtension"
class="org.alfresco.repo.jscript.ApplicationScriptUtils">   
  <property
        name="decoratedProperties">
        <map>
          <entry key="cm:creator">
            <ref bean="usernamePropertyDecorator"/>         
          </entry>
          <entry key="cm:modifier">
            <ref bean="usernamePropertyDecorator"/>
          </entry>

Partial view of the applicationScriptUtils bean configuration

The decoratedProperties property defines a map of short-format QName to decorator implementation bean. Each of these decorator beans implements the PropertyDecorator interface and returns a serializable map via the decorate() method. This map is then serialized into the JSON response for each node being returned by the web script request.

3. Permissions list

The third place the data web script response may be extended is via the list of permissions that are returned for each node. These are defined via the userPermissions property on the applicationScriptUtils bean. For example:

  <property name="userPermissions">
    <list>      
        <value>CancelCheckOut</value>      
        <value>ChangePermissions</value>      
        <value>CreateChildren</value>      
        <value>Delete</value>       
        <value>Write</value>  
    </list>
  </property>

userPermissions property within the applicationScriptUtils bean configuration

The default set of permissions should not be reduced without fully understanding the impact on actions, indicators, and metadata evaluators already in use throughout Share.