Contineo was started in 2003 by two German developers and has stayed a relatively small project. The latest release of the software, 2.1 (currently in Beta), is designed as a pure document management system with decent support for document management basics. Its simplicity and use of “industry standard” technologies give Contineo potential as a workgroup solution or a simple platform on which to build a custom solution.

ARCHITECTURE

Contineo is a Java-based technology and is distributed as a .war file to be deployed on any J2EE application server or servlet container. Its use of components such as the Struts web application framework, the Torque object relational mapping service, and the Apache Velocity templating engine make the Contineo architecture familiar to many Java-oriented IT departments. These components are mature and reliable but they are not considered cutting edge or trendy within the Java world. Database support for Oracle, SQL Server, Informix, and Sybase as well as open source stalwarts MySQL and PostgreSQL makes Contineo acceptable to the DBA side of the technical organization. Contineo uses the leading open source search engine Lucene.

CREATE AND STORE

Creating content within Contineo is done by uploading files through the web interface. There is no file system or WebDAV interfaces for adding or updating documents. However, convenience features somewhat compensate for this limitation. There is a feature to load an entire zipped folder and have the zip expanded within Contineo. The system also does some keyword extraction from files of recognized types and adds them to the content metadata. Other metadata attributes include source, publication date, coverage, author, type of document, keywords and version description. However, there is no validation other than checking of required fields.

ORGANIZING AND COLLABORATION

Like most document management systems, Contineo offers folder navigation and search. The keyword register, which is basically a meta data filter, is a useful way to locate documents. Contineo indexes most common office file types in its Lucene search engine. Contineo's additional feature "€œkeyword navigation"€ allows a user to browse through the repository by keywords. Contineo also has a "€œSimilar Documents"€ feature, which automatically searches the repository for documents containing the same keywords.

Contineo supports emailing documents and links to documents (called download tickets). Users can also post comments on documents in the repository. There is decent support for check-in/check-out and versioning with the concept of minor and major versions.

SEARCH & ACCESS

Contineo has a group-based access model where groups are granted read and write access to documents and folders. Unlike many other document systems, access rights in Contineo are not inherited from enclosing folders. Whenever a document is added to the system, the user selects the groups that will have read and write privileges to it. After initial upload, additional groups can be granted access.

The frame-based user interface makes bookmarking and copying URLs somewhat problematic. The best way to share a direct URL is through the send a download ticket feature.

USABILITY

Contineo has a spartan user interface that is easy to navigate. Most of the functionality is driven by right-click menus that are not noticeable unless the user knows that they are there.

Implementations with deep directory structures will be difficult to navigate because there is no quick way to return to commonly used files and directories. Keyword navigation and search help flatten out these hierarchies and mitigate this issue somewhat.

COMMUNITY AND RESOURCES

As mentioned earlier, the Contineo community is very small. Documentation is sparse consisting only installation instructions, Javadoc, and some online user help. Until someone steps forward and is committed to writing up documentation, the primary information resource will continue to be the online forum and mail lists where most of the questions are answered by a small core of developers.

Developers interested in extending Contineo will benefit from the abundance of documentation, professional training, and published books on the underlying technologies. For example, there are more than ten books on the Struts project alone.