Liferay Guru

Hide Sign In Portlet

2014-08-28T12:05:00.000-07:00

Have you ever thought of hiding Sign In Portlet? Once I got a requirement to do this for my project. Here is a quick tips.

Go to look and feel

In the advance styling add below code and save the changes.

.signed-in .portlet-login {
display: none;
}

Advance Styling

Refresh your browser. Sign In Portlet will be invisible.

Careful:

Suppose you want to revert back. How will you do that? Because its invisible. By firebug just inspect the page as below

Inspect

The same thing can be in VM file of the theme also. But this is the most light wight option to achieve this.

Open Office Integration

2014-08-26T04:48:00.001-07:00

Liferay has a capability to convert document in different format like pdf, doc...etc. We can convert web content as well as document media content in different format.

But this feature is not enabled by default. To enable this feature we need to perform some extra steps.

Consider the below web content and you want to have a link in the content to export as PDF.

Sample Web Content

To achieve this we can integrate open office in your portal. Once open office is configured we can easily convert any document as well as liferay web content in different formats.

Below are the few steps to integrate open office in Liferay.

Step 1: Download open office from the site https://www.openoffice.org

Step 2: Install open office.

Step 3: Run the open office service.

Step 4: Configure Liferay to use open office service.

Step 5: Enable export option for web content.

I have downloaded Apache_OpenOffice_4.1.1_Win_x86_install_en-US.exe. You can download open office according to your machine. (Step 1 is completed)

Install open office in your machine in any drive. I have installed in C:\Program Files (x86)\OpenOffice 4. You can install according to your interest. (Step 2 is completed)

In the Step 3 you have to start the open office service. Navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\OpenOffice 4\program (In your case it may be different). Run the below command (its a windows command)

soffice -headless -accept="socket,host=127.0.0.1,port=8100;urp;" -nofirststartwizard

(Step 3 is completed)

In step 4 configure Liferay to use this service. To integrate go to your control panel and navigate as shown in below screen shot.

External Services

Then enable open office as below

Enable Open Office

(Step 4 is completed)

In Step 5 go to your web content. Click the setting icon or Configuration icon.

Click the settings icon

Check the PDF and Save.

Enable PDF

Refresh your page. PDF icon will appear in your web content as in the below image. (Step 5 is completed)

PDF icon appeared

Similarly you can convert your documents which are uploaded through document and media portlet. Just open any document from your document and media portlet. You will see different formats to convert a document.

Liferay Beanshell

2014-08-25T00:47:00.002-07:00

Beanshell is a Java scripting language that’s designed to run Java code with little or no changes. Beanshell doesn’t support the use of Java Generics.

Liferay has a great feature to run java code from the UI. Consider you want to check some java API then beanshell is very handy to use. Because for using beanshell you no need to develop anything. You can just run your liferay API directly.

To use beanshell go to your control panel. Access the beanshell as shown in below screen shot

Beanshell UI

Below are the implicit objects that we can use in beanshell

portletConfig
portletContext
actionRequest
actionResponse
out

Now lets run some Liferay API from the beanshell

1. Display the total number of users:

import com.liferay.portal.model.User;

import com.liferay.portal.service.UserLocalServiceUtil;

import java.util.List;

int userCount = UserLocalServiceUtil.getUsersCount();

out.println(userCount);

2. Find the company ID

import com.liferay.portal.util.PortalUtil;

long companyId = PortalUtil.getCompanyId(actionRequest );

out.println("The comapny Id is : "+companyId);

3. Get current user object

import com.liferay.portal.util.PortalUtil;

import com.liferay.portal.model.User;

User user = PortalUtil.getUser(actionRequest );

out.println("First Name :"+user.getFirstName());

out.println("Last Name :"+user.getLastName());

out.println("Full Name :"+user.getFullName());

4. Get the version of your Liferay

import com.liferay.portal.kernel.util.ReleaseInfo;

String version = ReleaseInfo.getVersion();

out.println("The Liferay Version :"+version);

5. Get theme

import com.liferay.portal.theme.ThemeDisplay ;

import com.liferay.portal.util.WebKeys;

import com.liferay.portal.model.Theme;

ThemeDisplay themeDisplay = (ThemeDisplay)actionRequest.getAttribute(WebKeys.THEME_DISPLAY);

Theme theme = themeDisplay.getTheme();

out.println("Current Theme: "+theme.getName());

Here in this session I have given only basics of using beanshell. However you can use this feature according to your requirements. For example consider you have 10,000 users in your portal and now you want update each user with a particular role. In this case you can use this feature instead of doing it manually.

Limitation:
This feature can be used only for Liferay API as well as liferay default services. You will not be able to test your own custom services which are developed as plugin portlet.

Liferay Custom Field

2014-08-24T11:04:00.001-07:00

Before going to the topic lets have a look in Liferay Entity. If you have used Liferay Service Builder then you are aware of Liferay Entity. An entity is simply a Java Class which is auto generated by Service Builder. An Entity represents model data and persisted in database.

Liferay by default it has many entities. Some of them are User,Page,Role and many more.

Liferay provides UI and API to allow for the creation of customized fields associated with any entity generated by Service Builder. These fields provide extensibility without the need for extending the Liferay DB schema.

Lets explore how to add custom fields through UI. You need to login to your portal as Admin. Go to your control panel. Click Custom Fields as shown in red color in below picture.

Liferay Control Panel

You will see below list

Custom Fields

You will see list of all entities for which you can add custom fields. However you can add your own Entity in this list. I will cover how to add your own entity in another session.

Now you can add your custom fields for any entity in the list. Consider you want to add custom fields for User entity. Click edit for the entity User.

Follow the below screen shot

Adding Custom Field

Select type as Text Field. There are many other options under type. You can explore yourself. You can add many custom fields for a given Entity. For this session we will concentrate on only one field.

After adding the custom field we can view, update from the Liferay UI as well as we can use in our custom portlet.

View and Update Custom Field By Code:
In your jsp add below code

<%@page import="com.liferay.portal.model.User"%>

<%
User currentUser = themeDisplay.getUser();

%>

View / Edit Custom Field<br/>
<portlet:actionURL var="updateCustomField" name="updateUserCustomeField"/>

<aui:form action="<%= updateCustomField %>" method="post" name="fm">

                     <liferay-ui:custom-attribute-list
                     className="<%= User.class.getName() %>"
                     classPK="<%= currentUser != null ? currentUser.getUserId() : 0 %>"
                     editable="<%= true %>" label="true"/>
<aui:button type="submit" value="update"/>
</aui:form>

In your portlet class file add below code

@ProcessAction(name="updateUserCustomeField")
    public void updateUserCustomeField(ActionRequest actionRequest,
            ActionResponse actionResponse) throws IOException,
            PortletException, PortalException, SystemException {

        ServiceContext serviceContext = ServiceContextFactory.getInstance(User.class.getName(), actionRequest);

        User user = PortalUtil.getUser(actionRequest);

        user.setExpandoBridgeAttributes(serviceContext);

        UserLocalServiceUtil.updateUser(user);
    }

Show all the custom fields for a given Entity(in JSP):

<liferay-ui:custom-attribute-list
    className="<%= User.class.getName() %>"
    classPK="<%= currentUser != null ? currentUser.getUserId() : 0 %>"
    editable="<%= false %>" label="true"/>

Show specific Custom Field Value (in JSP) :

<liferay-ui:custom-attribute
     className="<%= User.class.getName() %>"
    classPK="<%= currentUser != null ? currentUser.getUserId() : 0 %>"
    editable="<%= false %>"
    name="secondary-email" label="true"/>

Add Custom Field dynamically by Java Code:

@ProcessAction(name="addUserCustomeField")
    public void addUserCustomeField(ActionRequest actionRequest,
            ActionResponse actionResponse) throws IOException,
            PortletException, PortalException, SystemException {


        String customField = ParamUtil.getString(actionRequest, "customField","");
        User user = PortalUtil.getUser(actionRequest);
        user.getExpandoBridge().addAttribute(customField);
    }

To call this method add below code in your JSP page

<portlet:actionURL var="addCustomField" name="addUserCustomeField"/>
<aui:form action="<%= addCustomField %>" method="post" name="fm">

    <aui:input name="customField" label="Custom Field"/>

<aui:button type="submit" value="Add Custom Field"/>
</aui:form>

Download Code

Liferay Plugin SDK

2011-10-15T12:41:00.000-07:00

The Liferay Plugins SDK is a development environment that helps in the development of all types of plugins for Liferay Portal. Following are the plugins supported by Liferay Portal

1. Portlet

2. Theme

3. Layout

4. Hooks

So I want to say to beginners that Plugin SDK is nothing but development environment of Liferay Portal. Lets download it. To download Plugin SDK click here. The link will download a file liferay-plugins-sdk-6.0.6-20110225.zip in your local box.

Configure Plugin SDK:

To configure plugin sdk follow the following steps

1. Unzip the above zip file in your local box

2. Go inside the unzipped plugin sdk and create a file with name build.${your_user_name}.properties file. Here ${your_user_name} should be replaced by your user name of your computer. If your computer user name is "john" then your file name should be build.john.properties and if its "test" then it should be build.test.properties ans so on. If you don't know your computer user name then command prompt ant type 'set' and press enter. You will see a screen as bellow where you will see your user name.

3. Open the file and add the following contents

    app.server.type=tomcat
    app.server.dir=G:/liferay/liferay-portal-6.0.6/tomcat-6.0.29
    app.server.deploy.dir=${app.server.dir}/webapps
    app.server.lib.global.dir=${app.server.dir}/lib/ext
    app.server.portal.dir=${app.server.dir}/webapps/ROOT

Here "G:/liferay/liferay-portal-6.0.6/tomcat-6.0.29" is my tomcat path. So you should replace it with your corresponding tomcat path.

That's all about your configuration.

Configure database with liferay

2011-10-14T12:10:00.000-07:00

By default liferay use hsql database. To override this default behavior we can configure to different database of our own interests. Here we are going to show that how can we configure MySQL with Liferay Portal. This is pretty simple database and its free of cost. That's why its taken for this example.

Before configuring MySQL with liferay be sure that you have installed MySQL in your local machine. If you have not installed download it from http://www.mysql.com/downloads/ and follow the following steps.

Step 1:
Open your note pad and save it any where in your local machine with a file name "portal-ext.properties". Now add the following contents in your empty "portal-ext.properties" file.

jdbc.default.driverClassName=com.mysql.jdbc.Driver

jdbc.default.url=jdbc:mysql://localhost/lportal?useUnicode=true&characterEncoding=UTF-8&useFastDateParsing=false
jdbc.default.username=root
jdbc.default.password=root

If you don't have knowledge on database just remember the following
lportal is the database that liferay is going to use. So lportal schema should be created in your MySQL.

root is the user name and password for your MySQL server. It can be different in individual machine. So replace it with your user name and password.

Step 2:
Now copy "portal-ext.properties" and past inside liferay-portal-6.0.6\tomcat-6.0.29\webapps\ROOT\WEB-INF\classes folder

That's all. Start your server. If MySQL is connected successfully it will populate liferay tables inside the schema "lportal" as mentioned above.

Liferay Installation

2011-10-14T11:12:00.000-07:00

Step 1:
Go to the Liferay Official site www.liferay.com and click download as shown bellow.It will download liferay tomcat bundle. The file looks like liferay-portal-tomcat-6.0.6-20110225.zip

Step 2:
Unzip the above zip file to your local drive. By default the name of the unzipped folder will be liferay-portal-6.0.6

Step 3:
Go inside liferay-portal-6.0.6\tomcat-6.0.29\bin folder and double click on startup file. It will start liferay portal.

Step 4:
Waite for some time until you get the message "server start up" in the console.

Step 5:
Open browser and enter http://localhost:8080. It will ask for user name and password. By default

User Name: test@liferay.com
Password: test

Enter inside the portal and explore liferay features.