Many of us enjoy collecting things we value: stamps, comic books, sea shells, shoes, or even vintage musical instruments. You’ve probably never thought about collecting URLs, even though most of us collect them. Anyone that uses a browser likely has an extensive URL collection in the form of bookmarks. With Liferay’s Bookmarks app, your Liferay instance can provide its users with bookmarks that benefit the entire community.
The Bookmarks app lets users and administrators add, edit, delete, export, and import URLs in your Liferay instance. Through the Bookmarks app, users can access web sites and administrators can publish links tailored to specific user segments. Both internal pages as well as external sites can be bookmarked. Next, you’ll learn how to create bookmarks and folders in the Bookmarks app.
Creating Bookmarks and Folders
To use the Bookmarks app, you must first add it to a page. Select Add → Applications → Community, and then drag Bookmarks onto the page. By default, the app looks like this:
Figure 1: Initially, no bookmarks appear in the Bookmarks app.
The Bookmarks app is empty at first. The app greets you with a smiley face and a message that says there are no bookmarks in the app’s current bookmarks folder, the Home folder. The current folder’s name is displayed to the top-left of the area with the smiley face and message. The app displays the management bar immediately above the current folder’s name. The management bar lets you choose which bookmarks and folders to display, how to display them, and more. The search bar, located to the top-right of the management bar, lets you search for folders and bookmarks in the app.
To see all this functionality in action, you must first add some bookmarks and
folders. When you mouse-over the app, another bar appears across the top that
shows the app’s name, an Add button
(), and an Options button
(
). When
you click the Add button, a small menu pops up that lets you select Folder or
Bookmark. Selecting Bookmark brings up the Add Bookmark form. This form
lets you add a bookmark by filling in the Name, URL, and Description
fields. Below these fields, there are additional options for Categorization,
Related Assets, and Permissions, just like in other Liferay apps. See the
Publishing Content Dynamically
section for more information on this. When you’re finished filling in the Add
Bookmark form, click Save to create the bookmark. If you select Folder from
the add button, this brings up the Add Folder form. This form is very similar
to the Add Bookmark form. Fill in its Name and Description fields, assign
any permissions you want to use, and click Save to create the folder. When you
create folders and bookmarks, they’re added to the current folder. Folders can
have any number of subfolders.
Figure 2: The Add Bookmark form lets you create a bookmark.
Figure 3: The Bookmarks app displays your folders and bookmarks.
To import or export bookmarks, mouse-over the app, click the Options button next to the Add button at the top of the app, and select Export/Import. In the window that appears, you can start a new export or import process. For details, see the article on importing and exporting pages and content.
Next, you’ll learn how to manage bookmarks and folders.
Managing Bookmarks and Folders
The Bookmarks app provides several ways to manage your bookmarks and folders.
One is the management bar. Checking the checkbox on the left-hand side of the
management bar selects all the folders and bookmarks currently displayed in the
app. When you do this, the management bar changes to show the number of selected
items, and replaces the buttons on its right with an Info button
() and a Recycle Bin button
(
). Pressing the Recycle Bin
button moves the selected items to the Recycle Bin. Uncheck the checkbox to
return the management bar to its initial state. In this state, the selector menu
to the right of the checkbox lets you filter the items to display:
-
All: Display all folders and bookmarks.
-
Recent: Display only recent bookmarks.
-
Mine: Display only the bookmarks you created.
The Info, Descriptive
(), and List
(
) buttons are on the management
bar’s right side. Clicking the Info button slides in an info panel that displays
more information about the current folder and gives you additional management
options. To receive notifications when a user adds a bookmark to the folder,
subscribe to the folder by clicking the Star icon
(
). Click the Actions menu
(
) to reveal options for editing,
moving, assigning permissions to, or deleting the folder. Note that you can’t
edit, move, or delete the Home folder.
Figure 4: A folder's info panel shows more information about the folder, and lets you take additional actions.
The management bar’s Descriptive and List buttons determine how the app displays folders and bookmarks. Click the Descriptive button to show each item’s name, description, number of subfolders and bookmarks (folders), and number of visits (bookmarks). The app displays items this way by default. To instead show items in a simple list, click the List button.
You can also manage each item from its Actions menu. You can use this menu to edit, move, assign permissions to, or delete each item. If the item is a bookmark, you can also subscribe to it in its actions menu. Subscribing to a bookmark means that you receive a notification when the bookmark changes.
When moving an item, the Bookmarks app presents you with the Move Entries form. In this form, the item’s new folder is selected for you automatically. Click Move to move the item to this folder. To choose a different folder, click Select. The window that appears lets you navigate your folder hierarchy, beginning with the Home folder. Click any folder’s name to view its subfolders. The text at the top of the window indicates your position in the hierarchy. You can click the folder names in this text to move back up the hierarchy. To select a subfolder, click its Choose button. To choose the folder you’re currently browsing, click the Choose This Folder button. To create a new folder, click the Add Subfolder button. Note that when you’re in the Home folder, this is instead the Add Folder button. The window closes once you choose a folder, returning you to the Move Entries form. Click Move to move the item to the selected folder.
Figure 5: Choose the folder to move the item to.
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Summary
Liferay’s Bookmarks app gives users and administrators a straightforward way to add and manage bookmarks in your Liferay instance. This lets everyone share and access URLs relevant to the community, including URLs for internal pages. Since bookmarks can be organized in folders nested to unlimited levels, the Bookmarks app is suitable for Liferay instances with any number of users.