Introduction to the Application Development Framework (ADF)

Alfresco's Application Development Framework (ADF) lets you add your own custom front end to the existing Alfresco services.

ADF is a set of custom TypeScript classes based on the Angular web application framework. The most important classes are the components that implement interactive UI features. The components and other classes access information from Alfresco's main backend products, Content Services and Process Services. You can combine these classes to produce your own custom web app with the exact styling, branding, and features that you need. Some examples of where this can be useful are:

• Feature based apps with functionality based around tasks that arise frequently in your business.
• Role based apps where specific types of user have their own feature set, tailor-made for their role in the business.
• Mashups where Alfresco services are integrated with services from other suppliers in the same app.

Getting started with ADF

You can find full instructions for installing ADF and its prerequisites in our tutorial Creating your first ADF application. When you have the environment and the scaffold app set up, the other tutorials then explain how to connect to the backend services and add custom features to your app. Use the component reference pages to learn about component features and the user guide to learn about specific tasks and topics in depth.