Categorizing the Configuration

Because it’s easy to make any application or service configurable, there are already lots of configuration options in Liferay DXP by default. If you’ve deployed custom applications and services, there are even more. To make it easier for portal administrators to find the right configuration options, specify a category for the configuration in the auto-generated System Settings UI.

By default, the following System Settings sections are defined. All available categories are nested beneath these sections:

1. Content Management

2. Social

3. Platform

4. Security

5. Commerce

6. Other

Note: Sections appear if they contain at least one configuration category. Categories appear if they contain at least one configuration. The visible sections and categories depend on the deployed modules.

If you don’t specify a category, your application’s configuration resides in Platform → Third Party. Usually, you’ll want to place your configurations in an existing category or create your own.

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Specifying a Configuration Category

If you looked in the source code at the Liferay Forms configuration interface (it’s in the Forms & Workflow suite’s Liferay Dynamic Data Mapping Form Web module), you’ll notice something was left out of the code snippet above. The @Meta.OCD annotation is directly preceded by

    @ExtendedObjectClassDefinition(
        category = "dynamic-data-mapping",
        scope = ExtendedObjectClassDefinition.Scope.GROUP
    )

This annotation does two things:

1. Specifies the dynamic-data-mapping category.

2. Sets the scope of the configuration.

The fully qualified class name of the @ExtendedObjectClassDefinition class is com.liferay.portal.configuration.metatype.annotations.ExtendedObjectClassDefinition.

Note: The infrastructure used by System Settings assumes the configurationPid is the same as the fully qualified class name of the interface. If they don’t match, it can’t provide any information through ExtendedObjectClassConfiguration.

The @ExtendedObjectClassDefinition annotation is distributed through the com.liferay.portal.configuration.metatype module, which you can configure as a dependency.

Creating New Sections and Categories

Configurations should be in the most intuitive location (section and category) so administrators find them. If your configurations don’t fit into the existing categories or category sections, create your own by implementing the ConfigurationCategory interface.

Here’s code that creates the Content Management section and the Dynamic Data Mapping category:

    @Component
    public class DynamicDataMappingConfigurationCategory
        implements ConfigurationCategory {

        @Override
        public String getCategoryIcon() {
            return "dynamic-data-list";
        }

        @Override
        public String getCategoryKey() {
            return _KEY;
        }

        @Override
        public String getCategorySection() {
            return _CATEGORY_SET_KEY;
        }

        private static final String _CATEGORY_SET_KEY = "content-management";

        private static final String _KEY = "dynamic-data-mapping";

    }

The getCategorySection method returns the String with the new section’s key. Similarly, getCategoryKey returns the key for the new category. Provide localized values for these keys in your module’s src/main/resources/content/Language.properties file.

Next you’ll specify the scope of your application’s configuration.