Implementing Asset Priority

The Asset Publisher lets you order assets by priority. For this to work, however, users must be able to set the asset’s priority when creating or editing the asset. For example, when creating or editing web content, users can assign a priority in the Metadata section’s Priority field.

Figure 1: The Priority field lets users set an asset's priority.

This field isn’t enabled when you create an asset. You must manually add support for it. Fortunately, this is very straightforward. This tutorial shows you how. Onwards!

Add the Priority Field to Your JSP

In the JSP for adding and editing your asset, add the following input field that lets users set the asset’s priority. This example also validates the input to make sure the value the user sets is a number higher than zero:

<aui:input label="priority" name="assetPriority" type="text" value="<%= priority %>">
    <aui:validator name="number" />

    <aui:validator name="min">[0]</aui:validator>
</aui:input>

That’s it for the view layer! Now when users create or edit your asset, they can enter its priority. Next, you’ll learn how to use that value in your service layer.

Using the Priority Value in Your Service Layer

To make the priority value functional, you must retrieve it from the view and add it to the asset in your database. The priority value is automatically available in your service layer via the ServiceContext variable serviceContext. Retrieve it with serviceContext.getAssetPriority(), and then pass it as the last argument to the assetEntryLocalService.updateEntry call in your -LocalServiceImpl. You can see an example of this in the BlogsEntryLocalServiceImpl class of Liferay DXP’s Blogs app. The updateAsset method takes a priority argument, which it passes as the last argument to its assetEntryLocalService.updateEntry call:

@Override
public void updateAsset(
        long userId, BlogsEntry entry, long[] assetCategoryIds,
        String[] assetTagNames, long[] assetLinkEntryIds, Double priority)
    throws PortalException {

    ...

    AssetEntry assetEntry = assetEntryLocalService.updateEntry(
        userId, entry.getGroupId(), entry.getCreateDate(),
        entry.getModifiedDate(), BlogsEntry.class.getName(),
        entry.getEntryId(), entry.getUuid(), 0, assetCategoryIds,
        assetTagNames, true, visible, null, null, null, null,
        ContentTypes.TEXT_HTML, entry.getTitle(), entry.getDescription(),
        summary, null, null, 0, 0, priority);

    ...
}

The BlogsEntryLocalServiceImpl class calls this updateAsset method when adding or updating a blog entry. Note that serviceContext.getAssetPriority() retrieves the priority:

updateAsset(
        userId, entry, serviceContext.getAssetCategoryIds(),
        serviceContext.getAssetTagNames(),
        serviceContext.getAssetLinkEntryIds(),
        serviceContext.getAssetPriority());

Sweet! Now you know how to enable priorities for your app’s assets.

Related Topics

Adding, Updating, and Deleting Assets

Implementing Asset Categorization and Tagging

Relating Assets

Rendering an Asset

Publishing Assets