Whats new in liferay 6.2 API - Part 1

In this post we will cover the changes that comes along with Liferay Portal 6.2 in liferay-portlet.xml DTD file.

Kaleo Workflow Configuration for Custom Portlet in Liferay 6.1

1. Make sure you have deployed kaleo workflow war in your liferay portal.

2. Create the service.xml


3. Build the service

4. Edit the FeedbackLocalServiceImpl class and add the following methods:



5. Make the following entries in liferay-portlet.xml file



6. create the FeedbackAssetRendererFactory class



7. create the FeedbackAssetRenderer class-



8. create the /html/feedback.jsp file.


9. create the FeedbackWorkflowHandler class -



10. We are done with all the changes now, to see our portlet in action go to control panel → Workflow Configuration and set the workflow for your custom portlet.

Hiding SessionErrors Default Error Message

Whenever we make use of SessionErrors to display error message in Liferay, below default error message is also displayed by Liferay.

To get rid of this default message use the below code snippet -

NOTE: This will work for specific portlet only.

Adding Success Message in Liferay Custom Portlet Configuration Page

To add success message and page refresh in configuration page, just add the following snippet in your ConfigurationImpl class's processAction method ..

Configure Solr With Liferay 6

Configuring solr on standalone tomcat-

1. download solr and unzip to any directory say d:
2. set environment variable SOLR_HOME as D:\apache-solr-1.4.1\example\solr
3. Copy D:\apache-solr-1.4.1\dist\apache-solr-1.4.1.war and paste it in \Tomcat 6.0\webapps folder. make sure rename the war file to solr.war.
4. start the tomcat to unzip the war.
5. stop tomcat
6. edit the file \Tomcat 6.0\webapps\solr\WEB-INF\web.xml. Uncomment the following entry and provide path of your SOLR_HOME

7. Start tomcat and browse http://localhost:8080/solr/admin to verify your solr installation.

Configuring Solr plugin in Liferay-

1. download the required solr-web.war compatible with your liferay version
2. put this war in LIFERAY_HOME\deploy folder
3. After deployment shut down the Liferay server as well as solr instance.
4. Edit the file D:\liferay-portal-6.1.20-ee-ga2\tomcat-7.0.27\webapps\solr-web\WEB-INF\classes\META-INF\solr-spring.xml

provide your solr instance settings as above.
5. Copy D:\liferay-portal-6.1.20-ee-ga2\tomcat-7.0.27\webapps\solr-web\WEB-INF\conf\schema.xml file and paste it into D:\apache-solr-1.4.1\example\solr\conf folder.

Now start your tomcat and then Liferay server.

Liferay UI Tag liferay-ui:input-move-boxes

Following is the sample code to use liferay-ui:input-move-boxes tag-

1. JSP Code:

2. Java Code:

jQuery Autocomplete in Liferay Custom Portlet

In the following post we are going to implement jQuery Autocomplete in our custom portlet.

1. create the service.xml file-

2. Add the finder method in StudentLocalServiceImpl class-

3. Put the jquery js files in docroot/js folder and add the following entries in liferay-portlet.xml file -

4. view.jsp file-

5. Add the following methods in portlet class-

Connecting Liferay with Another Database

In the following post we will connect liferay with some third party database (legacy database):

Method 1:

1. Create Service.xml

2. Create ext-spring.xml file as /WEB-INF/src/META-INF/ext-spring.xml

You wont believe but yes we are done!!


Method 2:

1. Make an entry in portal-ext.properties file for another database:

2. create service.xml:

3. create ext-spring.xml file:


done!


NOTE: In both the above methods, we have to create the table manually in the database.

Liferay Permission on Custom Portlet

As mentioned on Liferay Dcoumentation we can add permissions to your custom portlets using four easy steps (also known as DRAC):

1. Define all resources and their permissions.
2. Register all defined resources in the permissions system. This is also known as adding resources.
3. Associate the necessary permissions with resources.
4. Check permission before returning resources.

Here we are implementing Liferay Permission for custom portlet named StudentMaster.

1. The first step is to define your resources and the actions that can be defined on them. Create a file named default.xml in /src/resource-actions folder -


2. After defining resource permissions for our custom portlet, we need to refer Liferay to the resource-actions XML file that contains definitions. Create a properties file named portlet.properties that references the the file default.xml. In this portlet properties file, create a property named resource.actions.configs with the relative path to portlet’s resource-action mapping file (e.g.default.xml) as its value. Here’s what this property specification might look like:


3. Adding a Resource

After defining resources and actions, it’s time to add resources into the permissions system. Resources are added at the same time entities are added to the database. Each Entity that requires access permission must be added as a resource every time it is stored.

4. Adding Permission:

On the portlet level, no code needs to be written in order to have the permission system work for custom portlet. If we have defined any custom permissions (supported actions) in configuration file’s portlet-resource tag, they’re automatically added to a list of permissions in Liferay’s permissions UI. What good, however, are permissions that are available but can’t be set by users?
To let a user set permissions on model resources, we must expose the permission interface to the user. Just add these two Liferay UI tags to JSP:
1. : Returns a URL to the permission settings configuration page.
2. : Shows an icon to the user. These are defined in the theme, and one of them (see below) is used for permissions.

5. Checking Permission:

Spring MVC Portlet Validations

In the previous post we have implemented spring mvc portlet using Liferay Portal. In the following post we are going to implement input validation for adding new student form. We will use Spring’s Validator framework for validating data entered during adding new student.

1. First of all we will create StudentValidator class which implements Spring’s Validator interface.

[code language="java"]
@Component("studentValidator")
public class StudentValidator implements Validator{

@Override
public boolean supports(Class clazz) {
return Student.class.isAssignableFrom(clazz);
}

@Override
public void validate(Object target, Errors errors) {
ValidationUtils.rejectIfEmptyOrWhitespace(errors, "name", "required.name", "Field name is required.");
ValidationUtils.rejectIfEmptyOrWhitespace(errors, "subject", "required.subject", "Field subject is required.");
}
}
[/code]

2. Now we will make changes in StudentController class

a. The @Autowired annotation is used to instruct the Spring container to inject the dependency. We will use this to inject StudentValidator in our StudentController class:

[code language="java"]
@Autowired
StudentValidator studentValidator;
[/code]

b. Modify the addStudent method to insert validation code -

[code language="java"]
@ActionMapping(params = "myaction=addStudent")
public void addStudent(@ModelAttribute("student") StudentImpl student, BindingResult result, ActionResponse actionResponse)
{
studentValidator.validate(student, result);
if(result.hasErrors())
{
actionResponse.setRenderParameter("myaction", "addStudentForm");
}
else
{
try {
long studentId = CounterLocalServiceUtil.increment(Student.class.getName());
student.setPrimaryKey(studentId);
StudentLocalServiceUtil.addStudent(student);
} catch (SystemException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
[/code]

c. modify the showAddStudentForm method -

[code language="java"]
@RenderMapping(params = "myaction=addStudentForm")
public String showAddStudentForm(Model model) throws SystemException
{
System.out.println("showAddStudentForm Called !!!!!!!!!!!");
return "addStudent";
}
[/code]

d. Add the following new method -

[code language="java"]
@ModelAttribute("student")
public Student getCommandObject() {
return new StudentImpl();
}
[/code]

3. make changes in addStudent.jsp file to display error messages-

[code language="html"]
<form:form action="<%=AddStudentURL.toString()%>" method="post" commandName="student">
<table>
<form:errors path="*" />
<tr><td>Name :</td> <td><form:input path="name" /></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2"><form:errors path="name"></form:errors></td></tr>
<tr><td>Subject:</td> <td><form:input path="subject" /></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2"><form:errors path="subject"></form:errors></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2"><input type="submit" value="Save" /></td></tr>
</table>
</form:form>
[/code]

4. Add the following snippet to myContext.xml file

[code language="xml"]
<bean id="messageSource" class="org.springframework.context.support.ResourceBundleMessageSource">
<property name="basenames">
<list>
<value>content.Language_en</value>
</list>
</property>
</bean>
[/code]

5. Add an entry to portlet.xml file -

[code language="xml"]
<resource-bundle>content.Language_en</resource-bundle>
[/code]

6. create new file named Language_en.properties with following content in src/content folder -

[code language="java"]
required.name = name is required!
required.subject = subject is required!
[/code]

We are done with all the changes required!