Providing the User Personal Bar

The User Personal Bar displays options unique to the current user. By default, this menu appears as an avatar button that expands the User Settings sub-menu in the Product Menu. In a custom theme, the User Personal Bar could appear anywhere in the interface.

Figure 1: By default, the User Personal Menu contains the signed-in user's avatar, which navigates to the Product Menu when selected.

Although Liferay’s default User Personal Bar is bare-bones, you can add more functionality to fit your needs. Unlike other product navigation menus (e.g., Product Menu), the User Personal Bar does not require the extension/creation of panel categories and panel apps.

The User Personal Bar can be seen as a placeholder in every Liferay theme. By default, Liferay provides one sample User Personal Bar portlet that fills that placeholder, but the portlet Liferay provides can be replaced by other portlets.

Note: You can add the User Personal Bar to your theme by adding the following snippet into your portal_normal.ftl:

<@liferay.user_personal_bar />

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to customize the User Personal Bar. You’ll create a single Java class where you’ll specify a portlet to replace the existing default portlet.

1. Create an OSGi module.

2. Create a unique package name in the module’s src directory and create a new Java class in that package.

3. Above the class declaration, insert the following annotation:

   @Component(
       immediate = true,
       property = {
           "model.class.name=" + PortalUserPersonalBarApplicationType.UserPersonalBar.CLASS_NAME,
           "service.ranking:Integer=10"
       },
       service = ViewPortletProvider.class
   )
   

   The model.class.name property must be set to the class name of the entity type you want the portlet to handle. In this case, you want your portlet to be provided based on whether it can be displayed in the User Personal Bar.

   You should also specify the service rank for your new portlet so it overrides the default. Make sure to set the service.ranking:Integer property to a number that is ranked higher than the portlet being used by default.

   Since you only want the User Personal Bar to display your portlet, the service element should be ViewPortletProvider.class.

4. Update the class’s declaration to extend the BasePortletProvider abstract class and implement ViewPortletProvider:

   public class ExampleViewPortletProvider extends BasePortletProvider implements ViewPortletProvider {
   

5. Specify the portlet you want in the User Personal Bar by declaring the following method in your class:

   @Override
   public String getPortletName() {
       return PORTLET_NAME;
   }
   

   Replace the PORTLET_NAME text with the portlet you want to provide Liferay when it requests one to be viewed in the User Personal Bar. For example, Liferay declares com_liferay_product_navigation_user_personal_bar_web_portlet_ProductNavigationPersonalBarPortlet for its default User Personal Bar portlet.

You’ve successfully provided a portlet to be displayed in the User Personal Bar. If you want to inspect the entire module used for Liferay’s default User Personal Bar, see product-navigation-user-personal-bar-web. Besides the *ViewPortletProvider class, this module contains two classes defining constants and a portlet class defining the default portlet to provide. Although these additional classes are not required, your module should have access to the portlet you want to provide.