Liferay MVC Portlet

If you’re an experienced developer, this is not the first time you’ve heard about Model View Controller. If there are so many implementations of MVC frameworks in Java, why did Liferay create yet another one? Stay with us and you’ll see that Liferay MVC Portlet provides these benefits:

• It’s lightweight, as opposed to many other Java MVC frameworks.
• There are no special configuration files that need to be kept in sync with your code.
• It’s a simple extension of GenericPortlet.
• You avoid writing a bunch of boilerplate code, since Liferay’s MVC Portlet framework only looks for some pre-defined parameters when the init() method is called.
• The controller can be broken down into MVC command classes, each of which handles the controller code for a particular portlet phase (render, action, and resource serving phases).
• An MVC command class can serve multiple portlets.
• Liferay’s portlets use it. That means there are plenty of robust implementations to reference when you need to design or troubleshoot your Liferay applications.

The Liferay MVC Portlet framework is light and easy to use. The default MVCPortlet project template generates a fully configured and working project.

Here, you’ll learn how MVCPortlet works by covering these topics:

• MVC layers and modularity
• Liferay MVC command classes
• Liferay MVC portlet component
• Simple MVC portlets

Review how each layer of the Liferay MVC portlet framework helps you separate the concerns of your application.

MVC Layers and Modularity

In MVC, there are three layers, and you can probably guess what they are.

Model: The model layer holds the application data and logic for manipulating it.

View: The view layer contains logic for displaying data.

Controller: The middle man in the MVC pattern, the Controller contains logic for passing the data back and forth between the view and the model layers.

Liferay DXP’s applications are divided into multiple discrete modules. With Service Builder, the model layer is generated into a service and an api module. That accounts for the model in the MVC pattern. The view and the controller layers share a module, the web module.

Generating the skeleton for a multi-module Service Builder-driven MVC application saves you lots of time and gets you started on the more important (and interesting, if we’re being honest) development work.

Liferay MVC Command Classes

In a larger application, your -Portlet class can become monstrous and unwieldy if it holds all of the controller logic. Liferay provides MVC command classes to break up your controller functionality.

• MVCActionCommand: Use -ActionCommand classes to hold each of your portlet actions, which are invoked by action URLs.
• MVCRenderCommand: Use -RenderCommand classes to hold a render method that dispatches to the appropriate JSP, by responding to render URLs.
• MVCResourceCommand: Use -ResourceCommand classes to serve resources based on resource URLs.

There must be some confusing configuration files to keep everything wired together and working properly, right? Wrong: it’s all easily managed in the -Portlet class’s @Component annotation.

Liferay MVC Portlet Component

Whether or not you plan to split up the controller into MVC command classes, the portlet @Component annotation configures the portlet. Here’s a simple portlet component as an example:

@Component(
    property = {
        "com.liferay.portlet.css-class-wrapper=portlet-hello-world",
        "com.liferay.portlet.display-category=category.sample",
        "com.liferay.portlet.icon=/icons/hello_world.png",
        "com.liferay.portlet.preferences-owned-by-group=true",
        "com.liferay.portlet.private-request-attributes=false",
        "com.liferay.portlet.private-session-attributes=false",
        "com.liferay.portlet.remoteable=true",
        "com.liferay.portlet.render-weight=50",
        "com.liferay.portlet.use-default-template=true",
        "javax.portlet.display-name=Hello World",
        "javax.portlet.expiration-cache=0",
        "javax.portlet.init-param.always-display-default-configuration-icons=true",
        "javax.portlet.name=" + HelloWorldPortletKeys.HELLO_WORLD,
        "javax.portlet.resource-bundle=content.Language",
        "javax.portlet.security-role-ref=guest,power-user,user",
        "javax.portlet.supports.mime-type=text/html"
    },
    service = Portlet.class
)
public class HelloWorldPortlet extends MVCPortlet {
}

The javax.portlet.name property is required. When using MVC commands, the javax.portlet.name property value links particular portlet URL/command combinations to the correct portlet.

Important: Make your portlet name unique, considering how Liferay DXP uses the name to create the portlet’s ID.

There can be some confusion over exactly what kind of Portlet.class implementation you’re publishing with a component. The service registry expects this to be the javax.portlet.Portlet interface. Import that, and not, for example, com.liferay.portal.kernel.model.Portlet.

Note: The DTD liferay-portlet-app_7_2_0.dtd defines all the Liferay-specific attributes you can specify as properties in your portlet components.

Consider the <css-class-wrapper> element from the above link as an example. To specify that property in your component, use this syntax in your property list:

"com.liferay.portlet.css-class-wrapper=portlet-hello-world",

The properties namespaced with javax.portlet. are elements of the portlet.xml descriptor.

A Simpler MVC Portlet

In simpler applications, you don’t use MVC commands. Your portlet render URLs specify JSP paths in mvcPath parameters.

<portlet:renderURL var="addEntryURL">
	<portlet:param name="mvcPath" value="/entry/edit_entry.jsp" />
	<portlet:param name="redirect" value="<%= redirect %>" />
</portlet:renderURL>

As you’ve seen, Liferay’s MVC Portlet framework gives you a well-structured controller layer that takes very little time to implement. With all your free time, you could

• Learn a new language
• Take pottery classes
• Lift weights
• Work on your application’s business logic

It’s entirely up to you.

To get into the details of creating an MVC Portlet application, continue with Creating an MVC Portlet.