Project to get started with a Vaadin 23.1+ application that is running inside a portlet in a Liferay 7 Portal.

Prime Vaadin subscription is required for this starter project and for all the applications using Vaadin Portlet. You also need to have Java 11 (or later) installed.

Clone the repository and import the project to the IDE of your choice as a Maven project.

The documentation for Vaadin Portlet support is available here.

Run the following profile to automatically download and set up the Liferay bundle:

mvn clean package -Pdemo

Start the Liferay with your portlet:

mvn cargo:run

Before the portlet application can be run, it must be deployed to a Liferay:

1. Build the whole project using mvn install -DskipTests in the root

2. We assume Liferay is running in http://localhost:8080/, an easy way to run a local copy of Liferay is to use their official docker images. Below is an example of a docker-compose file you can use.

version: "2.2"
services:
    liferay-dev:
        image: liferay/portal:7.2.1-ga2
        environment:
            - LIFERAY_JAVASCRIPT_PERIOD_SINGLE_PERIOD_PAGE_PERIOD_APPLICATION_PERIOD_ENABLED=false
        ports:
            - 8080:8080
            - 8000:8000
        volumes:
            - ./deploy:/mnt/liferay/deploy
            - ./files:/mnt/liferay/files

The following steps describe how to set up the Liferay regardless of what way of Liferay distribution you choose: bundle or Docker image.

3. Add the following to the end of the last line in Tomcat's setenv.sh (/var/liferay/tomcat-<version>/bin) before starting Liferay. When using the above docker-compose file place an edited copy of setenv.sh in ./files/tomcat/bin.

 -Dvaadin.portlet.static.resources.mapping=/o/vaadin-portlet-static/

4. Download and add the Jna dependency JARs of a certain version into /var/liferay/tomcat-<version>/webapps/ROOT/WEB-INF/lib:

   • net.java.dev.jna:jna:5.7.0
   • net.java.dev.jna:jna-platform:5.7.0

   How to copy these files is described here

   This is needed because Liferay uses an older version of Jna and running Vaadin Portlet in dev mode causes a conflict of dependencies used by Liferay and Vaadin License Checker (NoClassDefFound exception).

   Here is a useful docs describing how to add third-party dependency version you want.

5. Run docker-compose up

6. Deploy all wars: vaadin-portlet-static.war and portlet-starter.war to your docker container by copying them to ./deploy/ (the copied files should disappear when deployed).

7. Wait for the bundles to start, then visit http://localhost:8080/. Set up a new user if you're running Liferay for the first time. Default is [email protected]/test. Log in into Liferay.

8. The deployed portlet needs to be added to a portal page. Do this by

• Selecting the Plus or the Pen icon near top right of the page (exact placement and look varies by Liferay version) add elements to the current page.
• Under Widgets on the right sidebar find Vaadin Liferay Portlet category under which you will find entry for MyPortlet1, drag and drop it onto the page.
• If at the top right of the page, in edit mode, you see a Publish button, use it to make your changes public (7.3+).

In order to remote debug your portlet under Liferay add the following to the end of the last line in Tomcat's setenv.sh (/var/liferay/tomcat-<version>/bin) before starting Liferay. When using the above docker-compose file place an edited copy of setenv.sh in ./files/tomcat/bin before docker-compose up.

 -agentlib:jdwp=transport=dt_socket,server=y,suspend=n,address=8000

Remote debugging (JDWP) is now available on port 8000 (to activate in IntelliJ, choose Run -> Attach to Process...).

Before deploying your portlet for production for the first time, you will probably want to change portlet-name in portal.xml from TestPortlet1 to something else, as well as the tag returned by MyPortlet.PORTLET_TAG from portlet-content to something else (stock Pluto already contains portlets with these names). Then build the production .war:

mvn package -Pproduction

Copy both portlet-starter.war and vaadin-portlet-static.war from /target folder into the deploy folder of a Liferay container.

It is possible to develop portlets as normal single route Vaadin applications.

Note: When developing using servlet mode no Portlet specific methods can be used in the view for servlet mode.

To develop portlets in servlet mode using jetty create a Route for portlet content e.g.

package com.vaadin.starter.portlet;

import com.vaadin.flow.router.Route;

@Route("")
public class ServletDevelopment extends MyPortletContent {
}

Then run the project as mvn clean jetty:run -Pservlet

To create an application that can be used both as a portlet and a servlet application you need to check at generation time the Request type.

For instance MyPortletContent could be setup as

public class MyPortletContent extends VerticalLayout {
    public MyPortletContent() {
        String message;
        if (VaadinRequest.getCurrent() instanceof PortletRequest) {
            VaadinPortlet portlet = VaadinPortlet.getCurrent();
            String name = portlet.getPortletName();
            String serverInfo = portlet.getPortletContext().getServerInfo();
            message = String
                    .format("Hello from %s running in %s!", name, serverInfo);
        } else {
            message = String
                    .format("Hello from %s running in a servlet container",
                            getClass().getSimpleName());
        }
        Button button = new Button("Click me",
                event -> Notification.show(message));
        add(button);
    }
}

See Vaadin Portlet release notes for a limitation and known issues list.