Overview

As many of you know, we announced that we were going to start the 7.2 Community Beta Program with the release of 7.2 Alpha 1.  Since then we have come to the conclusion that bug reporting and providing feedback should be a continuous engagement and not be limited to a program with a short life span.  With the newly compressed release cycle we found that we were receiving feedback too late in the process and couldn’t fit your good ideas in before it was time to release.  

As Milen points out in his post, we are working on an improved process for receiving continuous feedback.  In the meantime, we ask that you post any feedback you would like to provide for Liferay Portal 7.2 (Alpha, Beta, RC, etc) to the “Feedback for Milestone releases” forum category.

If you run into any issues while testing 7.2 Alpha 1, please don’t hesitate to create a bug report for the release.  Instructions for creating bug reports can be found at the end of this post.  Happy hunting!

Download Alpha 1 now!

• Tomcat Bundle: [Github tar.gz | 7zip][Sourceforge tar.gz | 7zip]

• Source Code Bundle: [Github][Sourceforge]

• Source Code Repository

• Other files: [Github] [Sourceforge]

New Features Summary

Online File Creation and Editing with Google Docs™

• Users can now create and edit Documents and Media files online in Google Docs™, Google Sheets™, and Google Slides™.
   

• When using Google Docs™ (or any of the other Google document services) to create or edit a Documents and Media file, that file isn't permanently stored in Google Drive™. Google is only used for its document editing UI. Your edits are then saved to the Documents and Media Library.
   

• Follow these steps to enable this feature:

  • Go to the Google API Console and create a project if you don't already have one.

  • Enable the Google Drive™ API for your project.

  • Create an OAuth 2 client ID for your Google project.

  • In the portal, navigate to Control Panel → Configuration → System Settings. Select Documents and Media, then select Google Drive under VIRTUAL INSTANCE SCOPE. Enter the client ID and client secret values from the previous step into their respective fields, then click Update.

• Follow these steps to create a Documents and Media file via Google Docs™:

  • Navigate to Content → Documents and Media for your site, then click the Add button and select the type of Google document to create (Google Docs™, Google Sheets™, Google Slides™). The portal creates a temporary Documents and Media file and links it to a new Google file. Your browser then redirects you to that Google file so you can create its content.
     

  • Create your file in the Google editor. All editor features are available except sharing.
     

  • Save or discard your file. To save your document as a new Documents and Media file (and delete the Google file), click Save and Return to Liferay. The file format depends on the document type. Google Docs™ is saved as docx, Google Sheets™ is saved as xlsx, and Google Slides™ is saved as pptx. To discard the file and return to the portal without saving, click Discard Changes.

• To edit an existing Documents and Media file via Google Docs™, click the file's Actions button and select Edit in Google Docs. This automatically checks out the file, transfers its content to a new Google Docs™ file, and redirects you to that Google Docs™ file. The editing process is identical to creating a file.
   

• If you close the editing window without clicking Save and Return to Liferay, or Discard Changes, the editing session still exists. You can access it via the file's Actions button in Documents and Media.

Sharing Files

• Users can now share Documents and Media files directly with each other.
   

• When sharing a file, you can only grant View, Comment, or Update permissions. You can't grant permissions you don't have. You must at least grant View permission.
   

• The receiving user (the user you're sharing the file with), must be part of the same instance, but doesn't have to be a member of your site.
   

• Follow these steps to share a file:

  • Navigate to the file you want to share in the Documents and Media app in Site Administration, or the Documents and Media widget on a page.

  • Click the file's Actions button and select Share. This opens the Share dialog.

  • Enter the email address of the user or users you want to share the file with (comma-delimited list for multiple users).

  • To let receiving users also share the file, select Allow the document to be shared with other users. Unselect this option to prevent receiving users from sharing the file. Note, however, that if any users have View, Comment, or Update permissions via the traditional role-based permissions system, they can share the file regardless of your selection here.

  • Select the file permissions to grant to receiving users. If you enabled further sharing in the previous step, note that receiving users can only share the file with the permissions you grant here.

  • Click Share.

• You can access files shared with you in Documents and Media, the Notifications app, and the Shared With Me app. The Shared With Me app is in your My Account menu.
   

• After sharing a file, you can un-share it or modify its permissions on a per-user basis. You can take these actions from the Manage Collaborators link in the file's Info panel in Documents and Media.

Auto-tagging Images

• Liferay Portal can now automatically apply tags to images uploaded to Documents and Media. The available image auto-tagging providers are TensorFlow (default), Google Cloud Vision, and Microsoft Cognitive Services.
   

• Tags applied automatically are currently English only.
   

• Image auto-tagging relies on asset auto-tagging. Currently, images are the only assets that the portal can auto-tag. You must, however, configure asset auto-tagging separately.
   

• Asset auto-tagging is disabled globally by default. To enable it, navigate to Control Panel → Configuration → System Settings. Under SYSTEM SCOPE, select Asset Auto Tagging. Enable auto-tagging and enter the maximum number of tags that can be added to a single asset (0 means that there is no limit).

• To configure asset auto-tagging at the instance level, select Control Panel → Configuration → Instance Settings, then select the Asset Auto Tagging tab. This tab contains the same settings as the global configuration. You can also configure auto-tagging providers for different asset types in the instance.

• To enable/disable asset auto-tagging for a site, navigate to that site's Configuration → Site Settings menu. In the General tab, expand the Asset Auto Tagging section and use the toggle to enable or disable auto-tagging for the site. Note that for your setting here to work, asset auto-tagging must be enabled globally and for the instance.
   

• By default, image auto-tagging is enabled in any instance that has asset auto-tagging enabled. To configure image auto-tagging for instances, go to Control Panel → Configuration → System Settings, then select Documents and Media. Under VIRTUAL INSTANCE SCOPE, select the image auto-tagging provider you wish to enable/disable and/or configure. Note that for Google Cloud Vision you must provide an API key, and for Microsoft Cognitive Services you must provide an API key and API endpoint.

• You can override image auto-tagging settings for an instance from the instance-level asset auto-tagging configuration described above.

File Versioning Improvements

• When creating a new file version, you can create a minor version, a major version, or retain the current version (no version number increment).
   

• Previously, selecting a minor version increment could be ignored by the system. Now, the system must honor any option you choose.
   

• A new automatic versioning policy kicks in when the user doesn't select a version increment. This policy determines the version increment via these criteria:

  • If the file's content changes, it's a major version increment.

  • If only the file's metadata changes (no changes to the file's content), it's a minor version increment.

  • Otherwise, keep the current version number. For example, this occurs when editing the file's tags, categories, comments, or permissions.
     

• A Versioning Policy API has been introduced. By deploying a custom component, the default versioning policy can be extended to include more criteria.

Bulk Editing

• It's now possible to edit the tags on multiple documents at once. This functionality will soon also apply to categories.
   

• After selecting one or more documents, a new Edit Tags action appears in the management toolbar. Clicking it lets you remove common tags from or add new tags to all selected documents.
   

• For bulk editing of tags, it's possible to select all the documents in the current folder without having to navigate. To do this, select all the elements in the page with the management toolbar, then click the Select All link that appears at the top. Then run the Edit Tags operation.

Bug Reporting

If you believe you have encountered a bug in the new release you can report your issue on issues.liferay.com.  Be sure to check the list of known issues in Liferay 7.2 Alpha 1

Creating Tickets

• Navigate to https://issues.liferay.com/issues

• Click on the Create button in JIRA

• Select Public - Liferay Portal Community Edition as the project

• Select either a Bug or Regression Bug as the issue type.

• Click Next

• Summary: Write a brief summary of the bug (e.g. Image Editor cannot be loaded, Console errors appear after publishing Blogs post)

• Component - Select the Component where the bug was found

• Bug Type - Leave as none

• Security Level - Leave this blank

• Affect Version - Select what version(s) of Portal are affected by this bug (e.g. 7.2.0 Alpha 1)

• Description - Write out the steps to reproduce and (if applicable) the environment you reproduced on using the following format:

Note: The more descriptive a ticket is, the easier it will be for Liferay Staff to understand the issue you are describing. Take screenshots, gifs, videos, etc. liberally.

• Click Create

That’s it! A Liferay staff member will validate the issue and contact you if there are any questions.