Custom Configurations in Liferay

Liferay-portlet-ext.xml
configuration.jsp
and the following javascript on the same page  
configurationActionImpl.java
init.java
 

Getting Configuration Portlet Controller Class

Session- an overview

What is a Session Object ?


Session Object is used to maintain a user session  related information on the Server side. You can store , retrieve and remove information from a Session object according to your program logic. A session object created for each user persists on the server side, either until user closes the browser or user remains idle for the session expiration time, which is configurable on each server.
How to create Session object and use it for storing information ?


This code will get the Session context for the current user and place values of count1 and count2 into MyIdentifier1 and MyIdentifier2 respectively


HttpSession session = req.getSession(true); //Creating a Session instance


session.putValue ("MyIdentifier1",count1);  // Storing Value into session Object
session.putValue ("MyIdentifier2", count2); 


session.getValue(MyIdentifier1); // Prints value of Count


session.removeValue(MyIdentifier1); // Removing Valuefrom Session Object

Developing Struts Portlet

Before creating a struts portlet, we are supposed to know what is the need of a struts of portlet, if simple JSP portlet is existing.

Why use Struts?

• Struts implements MVC. Although there are other frameworks that implement MVC, Struts is the most widely used and mature technology.
• What is MVC? MVC separates the presentation code from the business logic code.
• Struts provides centralized page-flow management in the form of struts-config.xml. This makes it highly scalable and allows you to modularize the coding process.
• By using Struts, you will be using a number of best practices that have been built into the framework.

Why use Tiles?

A page layout is typically designed using include statements. If there are 100 JSPs and the header and footer need to be swapped, all 100 JSPs need to be changed. With Tiles, a single template can be used to determine the page layout. Only the template needs to be changed, and all the pages will be updated accordingly.

Flow -

• A URL or URI is passed to the Controller.
• The Controller determines what page should be displayed.

So, lets see practically, how to develop it-

STEP 1 :  portlet-ext.xml

<portlet>
 <portlet-name>EXT_5</portlet-name>
  <display-name>Struts Portlet</display-name>
  <portlet-class>com.liferay.portlet.StrutsPortlet</portlet-class>
  <init-param>
   <name>view-action</name>
   <value>/ext/ApoStrutsPortlet/ApoStrutsPortlet</value>
  </init-param>
  <expiration-cache>0</expiration-cache>
  <supports> 
   <mime-type>text/html</mime-type>
  </supports>
  <resource-bundle>com.liferay.portlet.StrutsResourceBundle</resource-bundle>
  <security-role-ref>
   <role-name>power-user</role-name>
  </security-role-ref>
  <security-role-ref>
   <role-name>user</role-name>
  </security-role-ref>
</portlet>

STEP 2 :  liferay-portlet-ext.xml

<portlet>
 <portlet-name>EXT_5</portlet-name>
 <struts-path>ext/ApoStrutsPortlet</struts-path>
 <use-default-template>false</use-default-template>
</portlet>




STEP 3 : struts-config.xml
<action path="/ext/ApoStrutsPortlet/ApoStrutsPortlet" type="com.ext.portlet.ApoStrutsPortlet.ViewStrutsAction"> 
 <forward name="portlet.ext.ApoStrutsPortlet.ApoStrutsPortlet" path="portlet.ext.ApoStrutsPortlet.ApoStrutsPortlet" />
</action>

STEP 4:  tiles-def.xml
<definition name="portlet.ext.ApoStrutsPortlet.ApoStrutsPortlet" extends="portlet">
 <put name="portlet_content" value="/portlet/ext/ApoStrutsPortlet/ApoStrutsPortlet.jsp" />
</definition>

STEP 5:  init.jsp
<%@ include file="/html/portlet/init.jsp" %>

STEP 6: ApoStrutsPortlet.jsp
This is Apoorv's first struts portlet... 
<%@ include file="/html/portlet/ext/ApoStrutsPortlet/init.jsp" %>

STEP 7: ViewStrutsAction.java

package com.ext.portlet.ApoStrutsPortlet;

import javax.portlet.ActionRequest;
import javax.portlet.ActionResponse;
import javax.portlet.PortletConfig;
import javax.portlet.RenderRequest;
import javax.portlet.RenderResponse;

import org.apache.struts.action.ActionForm;
import org.apache.struts.action.ActionForward;
import org.apache.struts.action.ActionMapping;

import com.liferay.portal.kernel.util.Validator;
import com.liferay.portal.struts.PortletAction;

public class ViewStrutsAction extends PortletAction {

 public void processAction(ActionMapping mapping, ActionForm form,
   PortletConfig config, ActionRequest req, ActionResponse res)
   throws Exception {
  System.out.println("inside process action");
 }
 public ActionForward render(ActionMapping map, ActionForm form,
   PortletConfig config, RenderRequest request, RenderResponse response)
   throws Exception {

  System.out.println("something in action class ");
  
  
   return map.findForward("portlet.ext.ApoStrutsPortlet.ApoStrutsPortlet");
 }

}


I didn't anything more than that... So, please try it out... Thanks