Planning Plugin Upgrades and Optimizations

If you’ve explored Liferay DXP 7.1’s features and possibly created new portlet modules themes with Liferay’s new tooling and techniques, you may be wondering how you’d upgrade existing plugins. The great thing is that Liferay has automated much of the upgrade process. In addition, you can continue developing plugins in traditional ways and adopt new development tooling and techniques when you’re ready.

This tutorial guides you through phases of upgrading plugins and optionally optimizing them.

Upgrade: A process for deploying an existing plugin on Liferay DXP 7.1 with minimal changes.

Optimization: An optional but recommended process for modifying a plugin or migrating it to a new environment to improve the plugin or facilitate developing it.

Importantly, you should upgrade a plugin before applying any optimizations to it.

The good news is that upgrading plugins to Liferay DXP 7.1 is straightforward. For Plugins SDK and Maven projects, Liferay Dev Studio DXP’s Upgrade Planner automates much of the process. In addition, the upgrade tutorials demonstrate any remaining upgrade steps.

You can deploy plugins to Liferay DXP 7.1 as you have for previous releases (e.g., ant clean deploy). Since everything in Liferay DXP 7.1 runs as OSGi modules, however, you might wonder how traditional WAR-style plugins can run on it. The answer: Liferay’s Plugin Compatibility Layer.

The Plugin Compatibility Layer converts standard WARs to Web Application Bundles (WABs). WABs are full-fledged OSGi modules. The Plugin Compatibility Layer’s WAB Generator supports deploying traditional plugins and web applications that contain Servlets, JSPs, and other Java web technologies without making any OSGi specific changes to them.

Note, you can still use an application server’s mechanisms to deploy regular web applications along with Liferay DXP, without using the Plugin Compatibility Layer.

After upgrading your plugins you can consider optimizations such as these:

See the optimization tutorials for more options and details.

The Plugins SDK is no longer available to develop plugins for Liferay DXP 7.1. Visit the Deprecated Apps in 7.1: What To Do article for more information on the Plugins SDK removal.

In light of the removal, you should consider migrating plugins from the Plugins SDK to one of the new environments:

  • Liferay Workspace is a Gradle environment that supports developing modules and traditional plugins. Blade’s migrateWar command moves Plugins SDK portlets to Liferay Workspace (Workspace) in a snap.
  • Liferay’s Maven plugins and archetypes support developing modules and traditional plugins. There’s also a Liferay Workspace archetype for generating a Workspace that uses Maven.

Liferay Dev Studio DXP supports developing in Workspaces using Gradle or Maven.

Properly planned upgrades and optimizations reduce the time and effort they take. To help guide you through the upgrade and optimization tutorials, you get these things:

  • Upgrade and optimization phase descriptions
  • Upgrade and optimization paths

Upgrade and Optimization Phases

Follow these upgrade and optimization phases:

  1. Read the applicable upgrade tutorials for your plugin. Examine the upgrade and optimization paths.

  2. Upgrade the plugin, making only the minimal changes necessary for it to work on Liferay DXP 7.1.

  3. (Optional) Identify and apply only the most beneficial optimizations for your plugin.

  4. (Optional) Apply additional optimizations as desired.

Plugin Upgrade and Optimization Paths

PluginUpgrade pathOptimizations (optional)
ExtCustomization with Ext PluginsNone
Hook - Language files- Upgrading Core Language Key Hooks
- Upgrading Portlet Language Key Hooks
Same
Hook - Override a Liferay DXP Core JSPUpgrading Core JSP HooksSame
Hook - Override an app’s JSPUpgrading App JSP HooksSame
Hook - Event Actions (Portal/Session/Servlet Service/Shutdown/Startup)Upgrading Portal Property and Event Action HooksNone
Hook - Model ListenersUpgrading Model Listener HooksSame
Hook - Portal PropertiesUpgrading Portal Property and Event Action HooksSame
Hook - Properties- If the property is now a System Setting, edit it there and/or use a .config file
- If the property is in the liferay-hook.xml’s DTD, then adapt code to API and resolve dependencies
None
Hook - Service WrappersUpgrading Service WrappersNone
Hook - Servlet FilterUpgrading Servlet Filter HooksNone
Hook - Struts actions- StrutsAction → StrutsActionWrapper
- processAction → MVCActionCommand
- render → MVCRenderCommand
- serveResource → MVCResourceCommand
Same
Layout Template1. Adapt code to API
2. Resolve dependencies
3. Update Layout Template
- Migrate to Liferay Theme Generator (Node.js/Gulp/Yeoman)
Portlet - GenericPortletUpgrading a GenericPortlet- Migrate to Workspace/Gradle
- Apply Clay
- Convert to OSGi modules
Portlet - JSFUpgrading a Liferay JSF PortletNone
Portlet - Liferay MVCUpgrading a Liferay MVC Portlet- Migrate to Workspace/Gradle
- Apply Clay
- Convert to OSGi modules
Portlet - Servlet/JSPUpgrading a Servlet-based PortletNone
Portlet - Spring MVCUpgrading a Spring MVC PortletNone
Portlet - Struts 1Upgrading a Struts PortletConverting StrustActionWrappers to MVCCommands
Theme1. Adapt code to API
2. Resolve dependencies
3. Upgrade Theme
- Migrate to Liferay Theme Generator (Node.js/Gulp/Yeoman)
- Use Themelets
Web plugin1. Adapt code to API
2. Resolve dependencies
Convert to OSGi module, e.g., portlet-x-web

Feature Upgrade and Optimization Paths

FeatureUpgrade pathOptimizations (optional)
JNDI data sourceUse Liferay DXP’s classloader to access the app server’s JNDI APINone
Services - Invoke a service from Liferay DXP Core or another portlet or moduleImplement a Service TrackerInvoke Liferay services from a module
Services - Module dependencyCopy x-service.jar to WEB-INF/lib- Migrate to Gradle/Maven and add dependency on the OSGi service
Services - Service BuilderUpgrading Portlets that use Service BuilderConvert to OSGi modules, e.g., x-api and x-service
Services - Web services1. Adapt code to API
2. Resolve dependencies
Use a Service Builder service with JAX-RS with a REST service in front
Template - FreeMarker- Adapt code to API
- Adapt Theme templates
None
Template - Velocity (deprecated)Adapt code to APIConvert to FreeMarker

Now you have a game plan and a cheat sheet for upgrading and optimizing plugins with confidence.

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