Alfresco Short URL

alfrescoShortUrl.md

How to create a simple url shortener for Alfresco (>=4.0):

1. Create the Shortable Aspect:

   • Copy shortUrlModel.xml in the repository in /Data dictionary/Models
   • edit document properties and activate the model

2. Make the aspect and the property visible:

   • Add the content of share-config-custom.xml to /tomcat/shared/classes/alfresco/web-extension/share-config-custom.xml
   • restart Alfresco

3. Create the script to generate the short url:

   • Copy createShortUrl.js in the repository in /Data dictionary/Scripts

4. Create a Rule in a folder (can be the root of the document library of your share site):

   • When the content is added
   • For all the content NOT having the aspect "Short url enabled"
   • Execute two actions:
     • Add "Short url enabled" aspect
     • Execute Script createShortUrl.js
   • Apply rule to subfolders

5. If you add a document to the folder you will see it will have a property (dw:shorturl) of 3 or 4 chars eg. xyz

   • now you can find the document in the search page eg. http://localhost:8080/share/page/search?t=dw:shorturl:xyz

6. To have a really short url you can use, for example, a rewrite rule on Apache as in rewrite-rule.conf

createShortUrl.js

var shortUrl = document.properties['dw:shorturl'];

while (!shortUrl){
    var newUrl = "";
    var length = 3;
    var possible = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789";

    for( var i=0; i < length; i++ ){
        newUrl += possible.charAt(Math.floor(Math.random() * possible.length));
    }

    var nodes = search.luceneSearch("@dw\\:shorturl:"+newUrl);
    if (nodes.length==0){
        shortUrl = newUrl;
        document.properties['dw:shorturl']=shortUrl;
    }
    length++;    
}
document.save();

rewrite-rule.conf

RewriteEngine On

RewriteRule ^/s/(.*)$ /share/page/search?t=dw:shorturl:$1 [R]

share-config-custom.xml

<config evaluator="aspect" condition="dw:shortable">
    <forms>
        <form>
            <field-visibility>
                <show id="dw:shorturl" for-mode="view"/>
            </field-visibility>
        </form>
    </forms>
</config>

<config evaluator="string-compare" condition="DocumentLibrary">
    <aspects>
        <visible>
            <aspect name="dw:shortable" />
        </visible>
    </aspects>
</config>

shortUrlModel.xml

<model xmlns="http://www.alfresco.org/model/dictionary/1.0" name="dw:shortable">
    <description>Shortable Aspect</description>
    <author>Andrea Agili</author>
    <version>1.0</version>

    <imports>
        <import uri="http://www.alfresco.org/model/dictionary/1.0" prefix="d"/>
        <import uri="http://www.alfresco.org/model/content/1.0" prefix="cm"/>
    </imports>

    <namespaces>
        <namespace uri="http://drwolf.it/model/1.0" prefix="dw"/>
    </namespaces>

    <aspects>
        <aspect name="dw:shortable">
            <title>Short url enabled</title>
            <properties>
                <property name="dw:shorturl">
                    <type>d:text</type>
                </property>
            </properties>
        </aspect>
    </aspects>

</model>