Migrating From PortletFaces to Liferay Faces

The Liferay Faces project originated from the http://portletfaces.org community website. On April 3, 2012 Liferay announced that it would be assuming leadership for the portletfaces.org community. Consequently, projects at portletfaces.org were repackaged under the Liferay Faces umbrella project and underwent the following name changes:

AlloyFaces → Liferay Faces Alloy
PorltetFaces Bridge → Liferay Faces Bridge
LiferayFaces → Liferay Faces Portal

Migrating BridgeRequestAttributeListener

PortletFaces Bridge provided a class named org.portletfaces.bridge.servlet.BridgeRequestAttributeListener but Liferay Faces Bridge uses com.liferay.faces.bridge.servlet.BridgeRequestAttributeListener. In order to migrate to the new class, you’ll need to refactor to the new package namespace, as a deprecated class has not been provided.

As an example, the code snippet below conveys how the BridgeRequestAttributeListener was specified in PortletFaces Bridge:

<web-app>
    <listener>
        ...
        <listener-class>
            org.portletfaces.bridge.servlet.BridgeRequestAttributeListener
        </listener-class>
        ...
    </listener>
</web-app>

That listener-class declaration is replaced in the WEB-INF/web.xml by the Liferay Faces Bridge version of BridgeRequestAttributeListener:

<web-app>
    <listener>
        ...
        <listener-class>
            com.liferay.faces.bridge.servlet.BridgeRequestAttributeListener
        </listener-class>
        ...
    </listener>
</web-app>

As you can see, migrating from PortletFaces Bridge to Liferay Faces Bridge is a snap!

Migrating Configuration Option Names

PortletFaces Bridge provided several configuration options for use within the WEB-INF/web.xml and WEB-INF/portlet.xml descriptors. In order to ease migration, the configuration option names have been reproduced in the Liferay Faces project. It is recommended that the new configuration option names be used, as shown in the following listing:

org.portletfaces.bridge.containerAbleToSetHttpStatusCode → com.liferay.faces.bridge.containerAbleToSetHttpStatusCode
org.portletfaces.bridgeRequestScopePreserved → com.liferay.faces.bridge.bridgeRequestScopePreserved
org.portletfaces.bridge.optimizePortletNamespace → com.liferay.faces.bridge.optimizePortletNamespace
org.portletfaces.bridge.preferPreDestroy → com.liferay.faces.bridge.preferPreDestroy
org.portletfaces.bridge.resolveXMLEntities → com.liferay.faces.bridge.resolveXMLEntities
org.portletfaces.bridge.resourceBufferSize → com.liferay.faces.bridge.resourceBufferSize

By making these changes, you’re well on your way to migrating configuration option names to the Liferay Faces project.

Migrating File Upload

PortletFaces Bridge provided classes named org.portletfaces.bridge.component.HtmlInputFile and org.portletfaces.bridge.component.UploadedFile, but Liferay Faces Bridge uses com.liferay.faces.bridge.component.HtmlInputFile and com.liferay.faces.bridge.component.UploadedFile, respectively. In order to migrate to the new classes, you need to refactor to the new package namespace, as deprecated classes have not been provided.

For example, the following import statements must be converted to the new Liferay Faces namespace:

import org.portletfaces.bridge.component.HtmlInputFile; → import com.liferay.faces.bridge.component.HtmlInputFile;
import org.portletfaces.bridge.component.UploadedFile; → import com.liferay.faces.bridge.component.UploadedFile;

Once you’ve refactored to the new package namespace, you’ve completed the migrating process for file uploading to Liferay Faces.

Migrating Facelet Tag Library Namespaces

The projects at portletfaces.org provided several UIComponents and Composite Components for use within Facelet views. The tag library documentation for these components has been migrated to VDL documentation for each version of the Liferay Faces Bridge:

The VDL documentation for the Liferay Faces 2.1 can be found at http://docs.liferay.com/faces/2.1/vdldoc/.
The VDL documentation for the Liferay Faces 3.0-legacy can be found at http://docs.liferay.com/faces/3.0-legacy/vdldoc/.
The VDL documentation for the Liferay Faces 3.0 can be found at http://docs.liferay.com/faces/3.0/vdldoc/.
The VDL documentation for the Liferay Faces 3.1 can be found at http://docs.liferay.com/faces/3.1/vdldoc/.
The VDL documentation for Liferay Faces 3.2 can be found at http://docs.liferay.com/faces/3.2/vdldoc/.

Each link for the VDL documentation contains information about all the aui, aui-cc, bridge, liferay-ui, liferay-util, and liferay-security tags for that version of the Liferay Faces Bridge, so each VDL documentation link basically holds the entirety of the PortletFaces tag library documentation (with the exception of certain tags which are excluded from certain versions of the Liferay Faces Bridge).

By using the VDL documentation, your migration of the facelet tag library namespaces from PortletFaces to Liferay Faces is a snap!

Migrating GenericFacesPortlet

PortletFaces Bridge provided its own org.portletfaces.bridge.GenericFacesPortlet class, but the Liferay Faces Bridge uses the JSR 329 standard javax.portlet.faces.bridge.GenericFacesPortlet class. In order to ease migration, the old class still exists in Liferay Faces Bridge although it has been deprecated. It is recommended that the standard class name be used in all the WEB-INF/portlet.xml file’s portlet-class entries.

As an example, the code snippet below conveys how the GenericFacesPortlet portlet-class was specified in PortletFaces Bridge:

<portlet-app>
    <portlet>
        ...
        <portlet-class>
            org.portletfaces.bridge.GenericFacesPortlet
        </portlet-class>
        ...
    </portlet>
</portlet-app>

That portlet-class declaration is replaced in the WEB-INF/web.xml file by the Liferay Faces Bridge version of GenericFacesPortlet:

<portlet-app>
    <portlet>
        ...
        <portlet-class>
            javax.portlet.faces.GenericFacesPortlet
        </portlet-class>
        ...
    </portlet>
</portlet-app>

After completing the above steps, you’ve officially migrated your GenericFacesPortlet class to Liferay Faces!

Migrating LiferayFacesContext

PortletFaces provided a class named org.portletfaces.liferay.faces.context.LiferayFacesContext class, but Liferay Faces Portal uses the com.liferay.faces.portal.context.LiferayFacesContext class. In order to ease migration, the old class still exists in Liferay Faces Portal although it has been deprecated. It is recommended that the standard class name be used instead.

For example, the following import statement must be converted to the new Liferay Faces namespace:

import org.portletfaces.liferay.faces.context.LiferayFacesContext; → import com.liferay.faces.portal.context.LiferayFacesContext;

Once you’ve refactored to the new package namespace, you’ve completed the migrating process for LiferayFacesContext.

Migrating Logging

The PortletFaces-Logging project at portletletfaces.org has been moved into the Liferay Faces Bridge codebase. In order to keep using this logging API in your portlets, you’ll need to refactor to the new package namespace, as deprecated classes have not been provided.

PortletFaces provided its own org.portletfaces.logging.Logger and org.portletfaces.logging.LoggerFactory classes, but the Liferay Faces Bridge uses the com.liferay.faces.util.logging.Logger and com.liferay.faces.util.logging.LoggerFactory.

For example, the following import statements must be converted to the new Liferay Faces namespace:

import org.portletfaces.logging.LoggerFactory; → import com.liferay.faces.util.logging.LoggerFactory;
import org.portletfaces.logging.Logger; → import com.liferay.faces.util.logging.Logger;

Great! You’ve officially migrated logging to Liferay Faces.

Migrating Portlet Preferences

PortletFaces Bridge provided its own org.portletfaces.bridge.preference.Preference class but Liferay Faces Bridge uses the JSR 329 standard javax.portlet.faces.preference.Preference class. In order to migrate to the standard class, you’ll need to refactor to the new package namespace as deprecated classes have not been provided.

For example, the following import statement must be converted to the new Liferay Faces namespace:

import org.portletfaces.bridge.preference.Preference; → import javax.portlet.faces.preference.Preference;

With the new converted namespace, you’ve migrated portlet preferences to Liferay Faces. That wraps up your migration from PortletFaces to Liferay Faces. Congratulations!

Understanding Liferay Faces Bridge

Specifying the portlet.xml file for Your JSF Portlet

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