Concepts: Classes

All Content Engine objects belong to a class. The class to which an object belongs determines its initial properties and behavior. All objects of a class are identical in form and behavior, but contain different values for their properties. Every Content Engine object has a property that describes the class to which it belongs, called the Class Description.

When an object store is created within Content Engine, it is pre-populated with a set of system-created classes. The administrator or users extend these system classes by defining subclasses. See Create a subclass for more information. The more likely system class to be extended is the system document class. Document classes define documents; by defining subclasses, you can define your application-specific documents.

In addition to the document class, the classes you will most often create subclasses of include the folder and custom object classes. Other classes designed for more sophisticated applications include annotation, document lifecycle action, and referential containment relationship.

Class Properties

Properties are attributes on a class that help identify the object defined by the class. The pre-installed system classes already have a set of basic properties that define the class. For example, most classes, if not all of them, have a property indicating the creation date. When an object defined by a class is created, the Creation Date property is populated with the current date. Properties of a class can be of different types. See Supported data types for more information.

The system automatically supplies certain property information, for example, the Date Added property. You can edit some system properties, while others are read-only. Every class has system properties. However, you can assign each class its individual set of properties called custom properties that reflect the content organization needs for your business. For instance, a subclass of document class named Contracts would have custom properties for all parties involved in the contract.

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