In this chapter, we discuss several ways Liferay users can customize pages, applications, and the way they use your portal. We’ll cover the following topics:
- Personal Sites
- Customizable Pages and Applications
- Application Display Templates
- Using a Rules Engine
Personal sites allow each portal user to manage and customize a set of public
and/or private pages and any associated content or applications. Public pages
provide a means of making content publicly available. Private pages provide a
means for users to create content and use applications that should be hidden
from other users. Liferay 6.1 introduced the concepts of customizable pages and
applications. Administrators can designate certain pages or applications as
“customizable,” which allows each user to make and save their own
customizations. Portlet layouts can also be customized with the use of
application display templates. Application display templates allow a portlet’s
look and feel to be completely customized. Liferay Enterprise Edition provides a
rules engine which allows administrators to create custom portal rules and
simplify complex blocks of code containing lots of if-else
statements. Let’s
start by discussing personal sites.