Open Source CMIS implementation from eXo Platform released: xCMIS

Last week we announced that eXo Platform has built an open source implementation of OASIS's Content Management Interoperability Services CMIS specification.  We licensed this under the LGPL license, and released it officially as xCMIS 1.0 beta1.

This release includes CMIS server with all the services implemented according to Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) Version 1.0 Committee Draft 06 for REST AtomPub and Web Services (SOAP/WSDL) protocol bindings. The project is hosted on the Google Code forge, check it out on http://code.google.com/p/xcmis/.  I wanted to take a few minutes to answer some of the most common questions from developers about the new xCMIS project.

What is the xCMIS project, and what does it do?

• xCMIS is an open source, server side Java CMIS implementation that is able to expose the content in existing content repositories according to the protocols defined in the CMIS spec
• xCMIS will give developers a way to make their content repositories "pluggable" on the server side - thanks to an internal Storage Provider Interface and additional protocol on-demand bindings
• xCMIS will provide (several) CMIS client frameworks for repository-application and repository-repository interactions. The programming language and supported protocol can be selected by the user.  (For example, the reasonable choice for use with web applications, gadgets, and/or mashups is JavaScript or GWT over REST AtomPub, while for inter-repository exchange it may be Java over Web Services, i.e. WSDL/SOAP.)
• Both the server and client sides of xCMIS are easily integrated in the eXo Platform 3.0 infrastructure. In particular, xCMIS exposes the eXo JCR content repository and provides a framework for building web applications and gadgets for the GateIn portal

Enough talk already!  How do I download and start to play with xCMIS on my local workstation?

The xCMIS server is packaged as a J2EE Web archive xcmis.war, which you can download and install on any Java servlet container.  Or, you can build it on your own from the source code by following these simple instructions.  Finally, the easiest option might be to use the "download and go" version that we prepared - it's basically Apache Tomcat bundled with an xCMIS server on /xcmis context path.

By default the xCMIS server includes both REST AtomPub and Web Services (SOAP/WSDL) protocol bindings.

• A Web Services (SOAP/WSDL) entry point can be accessed on http://localhost:8080/xcmis/cmisws.
• REST AtomPub is accessible on http://localhost:8080/xcmis/rest/cmisatom - this is the URL of RepositoryService's getRepository method. For more info about the CMIS services and methods in WADL format that are accessible via AtomPub protocol, go to http://localhost:8080/xcmis/wadl.html. 
• If you really wanted to get "under the hood", you can explore the capabilities of xCMIS using curl or Poster FireFox add-on, or just try using the information from a WADL file. 

The xCMIS bundle includes one CMIS repository with an empty eXo JCR and JCR WebDAV server inside.  The name of the JCR repository is "repository" :) and the name of JCR workspace is "cmis". So, it is possible to obtain access to the same content using WebDAV URL
http://localhost:8080/xcmis/rest/jcr/repository/cmis/

If you want to save time, you can download the xCMIS server with a full-featured CMIS GWT UI gadget inside (loaded remotely from xcmis.org site). It can be run the same way as a bare server; then you can go to http://localhost:8080/xcmis/xcmis-demo-gadget/GadgetWrapper.html to check out the CMIS visually.  It should look like this:

The interface is pretty simple and intuitive, and includes a toolbar, right-button context menu, drag-and-drop features, etc.

How do I use xCMIS remotely?

We created the dedicated resource xcmix.org that has xCMIS deployed on the GateIn portal. Here you can find and use the CMIS Expert gadget, and a really cool CMIS Zoho gadget. This one demonstrates multiple CMIS implementations (xCMIS, Alfresco CMIS and Nuxeo CMIS) in action.  You can browse the different CMIS repositories, see the content stored within them, and most importantly - you can view and modify files in Zoho editor.

Feel free to build GateIn yourself and add a local xCMIS server as described in the wiki, or use a remote one (http://xcmis.org/rest/cmisatom - for REST AtomPub protocol).  However, you might want to note that xCMIS beta1 uses eXo JCR 1.12 CR1, so make sure you use an appropriate version of GateIn.  It should be at least as recent as GateIn 3.0 beta 5 (as of the Feb 11, 2010 release, only GateIn built using trunk is suitable!).

And, of course, it is possible to use third-party CMIS clients such as IBM CMIS Firefox Connector, CMIS Spaces Flex+AIR and (I am pretty sure) other clients that are compatible with CMIS 1.0, all in the same way described in the xCMIS wiki (just using a remote server).

What's next for xCMIS?

• The CMIS specification is close to the final state, so that means we're close as well  - once CMIS is officially out, we'll put out the final xCMIS release shortly after that :)
• Open the source code for the GWT CMIS framework and move it to xCMIS project
• Finalize the Storage Provider Interface architecture
• Refactor the search engine, decoupling it from JCR storage
• Refactor a CMIS configuration to make it more clear (trying different types of configurations for different IoC containers)
• Add federated search between several types of CMIS repositories
• Check out other types of clients
• And other cool stuff... :)

We'd love to hear your feedback.  If you want to discuss the project, talk about new ideas, make suggestions for improving the documentation, or anything else, please get involved!

To learn more, check out the project Wiki: http://code.google.com/p/xcmis/w/list
To see the source code: http://code.google.com/p/xcmis/source/checkout
To download the binaries: http://code.google.com/p/xcmis/downloads/list
To play with the latest demos: http://xcmis.org/portal/public/classic/CMISExpert

xCMIS (2) : xCMIS 1.0 beta1 released

Just finished first xCMIS release marathon called 1.0b1 :), thanks a lot, guys, for dedicated work!

Finally the code, binaries and Wiki is on http://code.google.com/p/xcmis

It was very interesting to take part in PR preparation with professionals, here is the result:

San Francisco, Calif. (Feb. 11, 2010) -- eXo Platform today introduced xCMIS, an open source implementation of the Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) specification. Fully compliant with the latest CMIS 1.0 – cd06 specification, xCMIS supports eXo's standards-based Java content repository (JCR) and works with third-party CMIS clients as well as a new eXo CMIS client based on Google Web Toolkit (GWT). The xCMIS server is being released as open source code under the LGPL at http://code.google.com/p/xcmis/.

eXo's new GWT-based CMIS client offers the flexibility of building both standalone web applications and Google gadgets. Applications or gadgets created with this framework can be loaded from a remote location or integrated into a portal such as GateIn (http://gatein.org), the next-generation portal runtime co-developed by eXo and JBoss. The eXo CMIS client comes bundled in the xCMIS download, and will be accessible as a remote gadget leveraging GWT client libraries at http://xcmis.org.

Created by OASIS to enable greater interoperability of enterprise content management (ECM) systems, CMIS provides a common interface using either AtomPub or Web Services to enable content sharing across different content management systems. Applications are no longer tied to any one specific content repository, so developers can write new applications without concern for the development platform or language dependencies on any single content system. With xCMIS, eXo joins the rank of ECM providers that have rallied behind CMIS.

"eXo was founded on open standards, which remain core to our DNA," said Benjamin Mestrallet, CEO of eXo Platform. "We started with the industry's first Java portlet container, one of the first open source Java content repositories, one of the first enterprise OpenSocial implementations and now one of the most complete CMIS implementations available. In line with this commitment to open standards, we're making xCMIS widely available as open source to ensure that any developer can have access to a first-class CMIS server with which to write their applications."

The xCMIS server is available as a community beta release today with a production-ready version planned when the final CMIS 1.0 spec is ratified. Commercial support for xCMIS will be included in the next enterprise version of the eXo Platform, version 3.0, which will be based on GateIn. For more information on xCMIS or to participate in the project, visit http://xcmis.org.

eXo will be hosting a free one-hour webinar about xCMIS on 24 February 2010. The webinar will include an overview of the CMIS specification, an introduction to the features of xCMIS and a step-by-step tutorial for creating gadgets that can make newly unlocked content even more useful. To register for the webinar, visit http://www.exoplatform.com/portal/public/website/community/__webinar-xcmis.

IDEall an online development environment

An experiment, which began in eXo UA lab of eXo Platform to create a simple on-line editor for Groovy scripts a few months ago has evolved to the multipurpose on-line Integrated Development Environment called IDEall. Here I'll try describe an idea and features of it step by step.
Here is how it looks like for the time being:

Small list of IDEall features:

• Rich user interface, supported by all popular browsers thanks to using of GWT
• Advanced multi-file editor supporting syntax of XML, HTML, JavaScript, CSS and Groovy script, auto format, line numbering.
• Browse, search, create, update, delete, copy, move files and folders using small Data Storage API (i.e. backend is plugable). 
• Supports WebDAV on top of eXo JCR backed out of the box, including the possibility to discover and choose accessible JCR repositories/workspaces. 
• File Properties browsing ability
• Files uploading/downloading including uploading folder as a Zipped single file, which is very usable for backup.
• Facility to validate, deploy and call REST Groovy service, obtaining its output just below an editor panel. Yes, it's true, a developer is able remotely create, debug and launch service which is working under J2EE application server!
• Supports Google gadget debugging and preview (using Open Social compatible container such as Apache Shindig) which is extremely useful for mashup building
• Accessible as both standalone Web-application and a gadget
• Can be integrated on GateIn portal and delivered as GateIn portal extension as well as deploy just developed gadgets into GateIn portal out of the box.
• Saving your current state in cookies so you'll have the same files opened as you leave last time
• Dynamic, context dependent menu, customizable toolbar and other nice and useful features like one-click panel maximizing, go to file's location etc.
• And even more cool features soon as the project is under active development
  

It is available online, so help yourself on http://gwt.demo.exoplatform.org , just log-in as proposed in home page and click on IDE menu item.

Later more in details about IDEall features, stay tuned, feel free to comment or twit me @gazarenkov