Requirements:

- Ant 1.8.1 (or the latest stable version)
http://apache.rediris.es/ant/binaries/apache-ant-1.8.1-bin.zip

-  SDK Plugins

http://downloads.sourceforge.net/lportal/liferay-plugins-sdk-5.2.3.zip

- Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers
http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/packages/eclipse-ide-java-ee-developers/heliosr

- Notepad ++ (or other text editor)

http://notepad-plus-plus.org/release/5.7

- Your CSS and HTML design

Unzip all the files in your HD. Remember the path in order to the next step.

We need to add a new user variable. Click on “Environment Variables” at “System Properties” section on “My Computer”. Click on “New” and add the variable with this values:

variable name: ANT_HOME
variable value: C:\ant
(you have to put your ant path here)

Fig. 1. Environment Variable "ANT_HOME"

Then, edit the system variable “Path” and add the new variable. Save all changes.

variable value: %ANT_HOME%\bin; (don’t delete the other values)

Create a “build.{your windows session name}.properties in yor sdk folder and paste in it your tomcat path:

app.server.dir=C:/liferay-portal-5.2.3/tomcat-6.0.18

Now execute your command window (run->cmd) and go to the “Themes” folder of  sdk plugins folder. Then create the theme:

create jarconnection “Jarconnection Theme”
(where jarconnection is the name of the theme and “Jarconnection Theme” is a description of it)

Fig. 2. Creating the theme files

If you look at the “Theme” folder, you’ll see a new folder with the name you gave to, followed by “-theme”.

Create the project in Eclipse. Go to “File”->”New”->”Other” and select “Java Project”. Then clic “Next”. Write out the project name and select “Create project from existing source”. Click on “Browse” and select your theme folder (in C:\liferay-plugins-sdk-5.2.3\themes\jarconnection-theme). Finally, click on “Finish”.

Fig. 3. Theme project in Eclipse

Delete “src” folder. Now go to the project and edit “build.xml” file and change the value of property “theme.parent” to “classic” instead of “_styled”. Drag “build.xml” file and drop it into “ant” window. Execute it (double click). You’ll see the theme structure in the package explorer window.

Fig.4. Theme structure

If you see “C:\sdk\dist”, there’ll be a war file (your war theme). If you execute liferay portal, you’ll see your theme is available (but now is a copy of classic theme).

It’s time to develope the theme. Create a folder named “templates” in “_diffs” folder. Then copy “portal_normal.vm” file in this folder and open it.

Note: “_diffs” folder lets you add and overwrite templates, images, javascript code, …

If you see the code, there’ll be HTML code and other tags. This is velocity code. Most of the code are velocity variables, defined on “init.vm” (you can find the file at “C:\liferay-portal-5.2.3\tomcat-6.0.18\webapps\ROOT\html\themes\_unstyled\templates”).

Paste your HTML design on “portal_normal.vm” file (on “_diffs” folder). Be carefull not to delete these variables, you have to place them in your HTML where they better fit.

Create a “css” folder in “_diffs” folder. Create a “custom.css” in it and your css design. Here you can overwrite css default styles of the theme. If you have images in your css design, create a “images” folder and paste it in “_diffs” folder. Create a new folder in it called “css” and paste your images. Remember to change the path in your css code. The new path will be:

background-image:url(../images/css/butllet.gif);

Fig. 5. _diffs folder structure

If you have to add a javascript file, create a folder in “_diffs” called “javascript” and paste your javascript file in it.

Now it’s time to build the theme. Execute build file on ant window and wait until appears “Build successful” on console window.

To set this theme, you have to login as an admin and go to “Manage pages” at dock menu. Click on “Look & feel” tab and select your theme. Click on “Return to Full Page” to see your Homepage with the new theme.

Fig. 6. Theme

Note: each time you modify anyhing of the theme, you’ll have to build the theme again and verify at the Tomcat console the theme is available for use.

Now you can modify and desing your theme.

You can download a pdf version here

We are going to install and fix all the necessary settings to work on a Windows XP system.

To install Liferay Portal is needed:

- Java 6 JDK
(http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/widget/jdk6.jsp)

- Mysql Community Server 5.x
(http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/).
You’ll need a database manager (Mysql Administrator or other).

- Liferay Portal 5.2.3 CE bundled with Tomcat 6.0
(http://sourceforge.net/projects/lportal/files/Liferay%20Portal/liferay-portal-tomcat-6.0-5.2.3.zip)

- Notepad++
(http://notepad-plus-plus.org/download)

Unzip all the files in your HD. Remember the path in order to the next step.

We need to add a new user variable. Click on “Environment Variables” at “System Properties” section on “My Computer”. Click on “New” and add the variable with this values:

variable name: JAVA_HOME
variable value: C:\Java\jdk1.6.0_20
(you have to put your jdk path here)

Fig. 1. Environment Variable "JAVA_HOME"

Then, edit the system variable “Path” and add the new variable and save all changes.

variable value: %JAVA_HOME%\bin; (don’t delete the other values)

Fig. 2. "JAVA_HOME" added to "Path"

Liferay Portal works with a database called “hsql”. To work with a Mysql database, create a database called “lportal” and a user with all the grants to that database. Then create a file called “portal-ext.properties” on “C:\liferay-portal-5.2.3″. Copy and paste the next code in it:

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

Where the words in bold are: database name, username and password.

On “C:\liferay-portal-5.2.3\tomcat-6.0.18\webapps\ROOT” delete the folders “sevencogs-theme” and “sevencogs-hook” (these are sample themes and hooks).

Now we can run Liferay Portal. Go to

C:\liferay-portal-5.2.3\tomcat-6.0.18\bin (or wherever your folder is unzipped)

and execute “startup.bat”. After a few minutes, the welcome page will appear on your browser.

Fig. 3. Liferay Portal Home page

To get to the portal administration, sign in as:

username: test@liferay.com
password: test

You can download a pdf version here

Meanwhile, you can know the last features of it at the blogs, like the “team” (a new kind of group). I just downloaded bundeled Liferay Portal 6.0 and looks great!!!

Here are some screenshots:

Fig. 1. Home

Fig. 2. Admin Menu

More news soon!!

ICEfaces is a fully featured product that enterprise developers can use to develop new or existing Java EE Ajax applications at no cost. There is an open source project and an Enterprise (commercial) software that extends the open source project.

There are numerous benefits of using ICEfaces to enrich enterprise web applications:

Rich User Experience: Create a superior user experience and produce more effective enterprise Java EE Ajax applications.

Open Source: ICEfaces is the most successful enterprise Ajax Java framework available under open source.

Standards-based: ICEfaces is a pure Java enterprise solution so developers can continue to work the way they are use to. Existing Java IDEs and test tools can be leveraged during development.

Easy Ajax: ICEfaces is much more than a component suite it is a Java Ajax application framework that provides ease of development for Java/JSF developers. ICEfaces applications are developed with minimal design effort in Java/JSF not JavaScript.

Ajax Push: ICEfaces pioneeredAjax Push , enabling server/application initiated content rendering to the browser. WithAjax Push , developers can create collaborative and dynamic Java EE Ajax applications like never before. There is simply no easier way to develop JavaAjax Push applications.

Security: ICEfaces EE is the most secure Java EE Ajax solution on the market today. It is compatible with SSL, prevents cross-site scripting, malicious code injections and unauthorized data mining. As a server-based solution, ICEfaces EE doesn’t expose application logic or user data, plus it is especially effective at preventing fake form submissions and SQL injections attacks.

Project Home page:

http://www.icefaces.org

After looking in several posts and blogs and aiming us to display them in the css file (why we would not do it?) I found an interesting post about Velocity objects.

And now the is an application:

<a href=”#”><img src=”$themeDisplay.getPathThemeImages()/theme/logo.gif” alt=”Logo”></a>

In the “Theme” scenario, we have the “$themeDisplay” variable. We can get the name of the css class, its folder path, the logo name, …

All these variables are in the “init.vm” file in :

{your root\liferay-portal-5.2.3\tomcat-6.0.18\webapps\ROOT\html\themes\_unstyled\templates

- Content Management:

• Sharing structures between communities.
• Related contents
• Tagcloud
• Improvements in the management of taxonomies
• Moderation / censorship of content

- Custom Attributes

• Incorporate custom fields to most portlets

- Knowledge base

• Functional module for knowledge management.

- Integrated Workflow

- Audit and usage statistics

- Scalability

I started creating a new theme in Liferay, editing “custom.css” with my own design and modifying the Velocity templates (for more info, check this link).

It’s quite easy its language, and you can create a new template in few minutes (if you have the stylesheet ready, of course). The trouble I found when trying to display the images in the template.  I tried to set a variable to display it but it didn’t work. I turned to Google but I didn’t found what I needed. Maybe I’ll have to look for it a bit more.