Using the web interface, you simply log in and then navigate to the space that you wish to use. Clicking on the space's icon will show you existing contents.

Be careful that you are in the correct space as the Add Content button applies to the space named to its left - not to any space shown below!

When you click Add Content, the Add Content Dialog page is shown. This allows you to type in the path to a file or click the Browse button to select via a standard file selection dialogue. Once you have selected a file, it is immediately uploaded to the current space and the dialogue changes to show the General Properties. What is actually displayed at this point depends on how Alfresco has identified the file.

Generally, it will show the file's name; the Type will be set to “content”; the Encoding selection box will be defaulted to UTF-8; the Content Type selection box will show Alfresco's identification of the file, which you may change if you wish.

Under Other Properties the Modify all properties when this page closes check box is ticked by default.

When you click the OK button, you are shown the Modify Content Properties dialogue, where you are allowed to change the file's Name, the Content Type and the Encoding. You can add a display Title, which defaults to the file name, a Description and an Author. This last is loaded from the document if available.

When you click the OK button, you are returned to the Space view and your new document should be visible.

Access to documents is defined at the Space level, so see the entry on Alfresco Spaces.

To open any document, simply click its icon.

This will display a standard dialog box from the browser, which allows you to choose the application to open the file with. Generally, the correct application will be selected and you simply have to click OK.

Alfresco will always try to lock the document as Read Only if you haven't checked it out (see below) so you can't save back any changes you make to the file, unless the application supports a Save As… mode. As a result, files are protected from unintentional changes.

Note that, in most cases, the file is actually copied from the Alfresco space to your default temporary folder, so a lot of browsing will fill this up with substantial numbers of files.

To change a document, you need to click the Edit Offline icon beneath the file's main icon (it looks like a pencil writing on a page and is usually the leftmost icon underneath the file's date entry. If Alfresco has a built in editor for the file type, a second Edit Online icon will appear next to the offline icon, this is generally only available for simple text mode files, such as programme code.

When you elect to edit offline, you again see the application selection dialogue. Note that, in order to edit the file, you must click the Save File radio button, following which, the file will be saved to your default download location. The file will now be editable.

When you click the Close button of the Download page, you are returned to the Space view.

Following an edit, you can can do one of three things…

This copies the file to the Space but does not check it in. It's a sort of “safety save” facility.

Once the save is complete, however, you are offered a check box Check in this file, which, if ticked, will check in the file when you click the Done button.