Practical Liferay

386 Pages·2009·5.75 MB·English

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Books for professionals By professionals® The eXperT’s Voice® in open source
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Practical Liferay
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Java™-based Portal Applications Development
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Practical
Dear Reader,
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Congratulations! You are holding a comprehensive guide to the world’s most
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popular open source portal—Liferay.
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In spite of its growing popularity, Liferay does not come with very much
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documentation. With Practical Liferay, I aim to bridge the gap in understand-
Author of
ing between Liferay and its potential users. The book describes, in detail, how a Liferay
Pro Apache XML
to develop a practical portal using Liferay. It takes you through all the Liferay
Business Process Execution l
applications, from chat and messaging to blogs, calendars, wikis, and discussion

Language for Web Services
forums. You will learn the purpose of each application; how to install, configure, L
SOA Approach to Integration and manage it; and how to put it to good practical use. There are also plenty of
i
helpful tips on content management, user management, and security.
f
Liferay application configuration is nontrivial for the first-time user, but this
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book gives you the answers you need. By following the step-by-step instructions
provided for each application, you will quickly understand how to configure r
it to meet your needs. Once you have read the book and followed its detailed a
examples, you will have no difficulty setting up and managing an entire portal
y
consisting of several Liferay applications. As you read on, each chapter will help
you add features to your portal and tailor them to your own precise requirements. Java™-based Portal Applications Development
After the introductory chapters, you can read each chapter independently of
the others. This can save you a lot of time in getting your portal up and running
as quickly as possible.
If you would like to evaluate the suitability of Liferay for your next portal
development project, you will find Practical Liferay a valuable resource. If, on the
other hand, you are already using Liferay, it will come in handy as a ready reference
A down-to-earth, practical approach to developing
on the various Liferay commands and applications. And if you are developing a
training course on Liferay, you will find it a wealth of useful information. full-featured Java™-based web portals with blogs,
Poornachandra Sarang wikis, and more
Companion eBook
ReLAteD titLeS

See last page for details
on $10 eBook version
Poornachandra Sarang, Ph.D.
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ISBN 978-1-4302-1847-0 a
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www.apress.com ng
Shelve in
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User level: 9 781430 218470
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this print for content only—size & color not accurate spine = 0.885" 384 page count

Practical Liferay
Java™-based
Portal Applications
Development
Poornachandra Sarang, Ph.D.
Practical Liferay: Java™-based Portal Applications Development
Copyright © 2009 by Poornachandra Sarang, Ph.D.
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
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system, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher.
ISBN-13 (pbk): 978-1-4302-1847-0
ISBN-13 (electronic): 978-1-4302-1848-7
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To my wife, Nita

Contents at a Glance
About the Author ..................................................................xix
About the Technical Reviewer ......................................................xxi
Acknowledgments ...............................................................xxiii
Introduction ..................................................................... xxv
ChAPter 1 Introducing and Installing Liferay ................................1
ChAPter 2 Creating Portal Pages ..........................................31
ChAPter 3 Managing Portal Users .........................................67
ChAPter 4 Creating Discussion Forums ....................................99
ChAPter 5 Facilitating Collaboration ......................................127
ChAPter 6 Incorporating Blogs ...........................................149
ChAPter 7 Establishing a Wiki ............................................175
ChAPter 8 Implementing a Shared Calendar ..............................205
ChAPter 9 Managing Content ............................................229
ChAPter 10 Publishing Dynamic Content ...................................261
ChAPter 11 Enhancing Your Portal .........................................299
ChAPter 12 Doing Portal Administration ....................................325
inDex .......................................................................345
v

Contents
About the Author ..................................................................xix
About the Technical Reviewer ......................................................xxi
Acknowledgments ...............................................................xxiii
Introduction ..................................................................... xxv
ChAPter 1 introducing and installing Liferay ..........................1
What Is a Portal? .................................................1
Example Portal: Yahoo! .......................................3
Example Portal: Google ......................................7
Kinds of Portals .................................................14
Personal Portals ............................................15
Academic Portals ...........................................15
Regional Web Portals .......................................16
Government Web Portals ....................................16
Corporate Web Portals ......................................16
Domain-Specific Portals .....................................16
Sports Portals ..............................................17
Portal Advantages ...............................................17
Creating a Portal with Liferay .....................................18
Liferay Features .................................................19
Ease of Use ................................................20
Support for a Wide Variety of Applications .....................20
Liberal Licensing and Open Source Code ......................20
Extensibility ................................................20
Scalability .................................................20
Internationalization Support ..................................20
Integration with Other Tools ..................................21
Adherence to Industry Standards .............................21
vii
viii ■CONTENTS
Under the Hood .................................................22
Page Internal Structure ......................................22
Page Creation Process ......................................23
Request Handling ...........................................24
Installing Liferay .................................................26
Downloading Liferay ........................................27
Setting Up J2SE ............................................27
Setting Up Liferay ...........................................27
Testing the Liferay Installation ....................................28
Summary .......................................................29
ChAPter 2 Creating Portal Pages .......................................31
Defining the Securities Portal .....................................31
Access to Critical and Timely Data ............................32
Timely News Updates .......................................33
Trade Data from Stock Exchanges ............................33
Expert Analysis .............................................33
Peer-to-Peer Collaboration ...................................34
Creating the Securities Portal .....................................34
Adding a Page ..............................................35
Deleting a Page ............................................35
Changing the Page Name ....................................36
Adding Multiple Pages .......................................36
Adding Child Pages .........................................37
Changing the Page’s Display Order ...........................40
Editing a Page ..............................................41
Applying Themes ................................................42
Individual Page Themes .....................................44
Installing New Themes ......................................44
Downloading Community Themes ............................49
Installing Community Themes ................................50