Creating Portlet Keys

Refactoring the Prototype
Step 3 of 6

PortletKeys let you manage important things like the portlet name or other repeatable, commonly used variables in one place. This way, if you need to change the portlet’s name, you can do it in one place, and then reference it in every class that needs it. Keys must be referenced first as a component property, and then as a class.

Follow these steps to create your application’s PortletKeys:

1. In your guestbook-web module, open the GuestbookPortlet class and update the component class metadata properties by adding one new property:

   "javax.portlet.name=" + GuestbookPortletKeys.GUESTBOOK,
   

   Note that you need the trailing comma if you’ve added the property to the middle of the list. If you’ve added it to the end of the last, leave it off.

2. Save GuestbookPortlet. It now shows an error because you haven’t added the key to the class.

3. Open the com.liferay.docs.guestbook.constants package.

4. Open GuestbookPortletKeys and create a public, static, final String called GUESTBOOK with a value of com_liferay_docs_guestbook_portlet_GuestbookPortlet:

   public static final String GUESTBOOK =
            "com_liferay_docs_guestbook_portlet_GuestbookPortlet";
   

5. Save the file.

Now GuestbookPortlet’s error has disappeared, and your application can be deployed again. Nice job!

Next, you’ll integrate your application with the new back-end you generated with Service Builder.