Open Source Alternative for Sharepoint Lists

Question

Sharepoint list features are powerful. Since I don't need all the other Sharepoint features, I was looking for an alternative (preferred open source) without much success.

Basically, I want to have a platform or web application that:

• allows us to define custom data types (for different types of client products).
• has the ability to create representations or forms for presenting to the user for reading, creating or updating information about the elements of this data type.
• ui is not required to configure this configuration, but it would be nice to have

In an ideal scenario, there is an API for retrieving data for further processing.

Answer 1

I heard about Alfresco (but did not use it), which is a free open source content management system. To solve each of the required functions you specified: 1. It has the ability to add its own types of content via XML ( http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Step-By-Step:_Creating_A_Custom_Model ). 2. I did not see much support for individual views, but general views can be customized when creating your model 3. Alfresco provided installation guides for various installation configurations. They need a login to download manuals ( http://www.alfresco.com/products/docs/ ) 4. REST support.

List of features from 10K view. I would check all the functions before checking them according to your needs. ( http://www.alfresco.com/products/dm/features/ )

Answer 2

I share your search for open source alternatives for sharepoint list functions. What I like / need sharepoint is the following:

• Can be imported from existing Excel files (removes a lot of fear from the client's point of view, many legacy Excel files there)
• You can export to Excel format (idem on fear, some clients just need to be fixed in Excel)
• Provides sorting / filtering out of the box
• good predefined data types and simple definitions of custom data types
• Easily define different views and display styles (customers love the preview panel)
• Lists / submissions can easily be inserted into other web pages / wikipages

I know that jqgrid and http://datatables.net/ provide functions for editing / sorting / filtering a table / grid with predefined data types, but you need to do backend work (they give a lot of exapmles in PHP).

If I determined what I would like to see for internal use in our team, this would be:

• Content management via wiki with decent WYSIWYG by default
• default table / grid / list management with all previously listed functions

I would say that if mediawiki / dokuwiki / phpwiki etc. If you could repackage with WYSIWYG and list processing, then the whole planet would just love them for it.

Regards / Colm

PS The only grief I would experience with Alfresco is the sledgehammer / fly metaphor, because it provides much more functionality than I need, because the overhead to get speed and installation support is prohibitive.

PPS I also look at http://www.tiki.org , which claim to have built-in spreadsheet functionality (based on jquery).