Upgrading a GenericPortlet

Upgrading Portlets

Step 1 of 6

It’s common to create portlets that extend javax.portlet.GenericPortlet. After all, GenericPortlet provides a default javax.portlet.Portlet interface implementation. Upgrading a GenericPortlet is straightforward and takes only two steps:

1. Adapt the portlet to Liferay DXP 7.2’s API using the Liferay Upgrade Planner. When running the planner’s Fix Upgrade Problems step, many of the existing issues are autocorrected. For remaining issues, the planner identifies code affected by the new API and ways to adapt it.

2. Resolve its dependencies

3. Deploy it

When the portlet WAR file is deployed, Liferay DXP’s Plugin Compatibility Layer converts the WAR to a Web Application Bundle (WAB) and installs the portlet as a WAB to Liferay DXP’s OSGi runtime.

On deploying an upgraded portlet, the server prints messages that indicate the following portlet status:

• WAR processing
• WAB startup
• Availability to users

Deploying a portlet produces messages like these:

2018-03-21 17:44:59.179 INFO  [com.liferay.portal.kernel.deploy.auto.AutoDeployScanner][AutoDeployDir:262] Processing sample-dao-portlet-7.1.0.1.war
...
2018-03-21 17:45:09.959 INFO  [Refresh Thread: Equinox Container: 0012cbb0-7e2c-0018-146e-95a4d71cdf95][PortletHotDeployListener:298] 1 portlet for sample-dao-portlet is available for use 
...
2018-03-21 17:45:10.151 INFO  [Refresh Thread: Equinox Container: 0012cbb0-7e2c-0018-146e-95a4d71cdf95][BundleStartStopLogger:35] STARTED sample-dao-portlet_7.1.0.1 [655]

The portlet is now available on Liferay DXP.

You’ve learned how to upgrade and deploy a portlet that extends GenericPortlet. You adapt the code, resolve dependencies, and deploy the portlet as you always have. It’s just that easy!