RE: Custom Attributes - Where to apply them OOTB

2010-09-08T06:05:35Z

hi..
i am using liferay 6.
In control panel there is a tab called custom fields,where we can add new meta data for portlet.

I created a new field for webcontent called webid.when i create a new web content this field is visible under abstract tab. when i enter value into that field and search that field in web-content search and normal search portlet i don't get the result...

can you tell me what i need to do,so that i can search the custom fields also..

i am not able to search using any custom attributes for any portlet.
Any idea or suggestions are welcome...

thanks in advance..

RE: Custom Attributes - Where to apply them OOTB

2010-05-06T09:35:30Z

Hi Chris,

For the JSPs, I would recommend looking at the new ones from v6.0 which already have expandos integrated for bookmarks,document library,and images.

RE: Custom Attributes - Where to apply them OOTB

2010-05-04T14:18:46Z

Hi, Chris:
read this post. I think it would be helpful
Regards
Juan Fernández

RE: Custom Attributes - Where to apply them OOTB

2010-05-04T12:39:57Z

I know this is an older post but I'm trying to implement custom attributes for bookmarks,document library,and images.. My users want a publish date and an small image url (similar to the Web Content)... We're using 5.2 Sp3 and I can't seem to an easy way to do it...
This post talks about what we want something were we don't have to change the backend for every new attribute (just controlling it on the frontend) but I don't see where this is actually done...
I think I'm going to have to use expandos and on the frontend(JSP) reference that Expandos value and then change the backend(Action) to save that value in the expando table is that correct?
Thanks
Whitt

RE: Custom Attributes - Where to apply them OOTB

2009-09-15T15:42:15Z

Hi Baris,

you first have to add that custom attribute to Users (there is a button to do that in the users administration toolbar) and it will be automatically shown in the users administration in the section "Custo Attributes".

If you want to show it in the first page of the user administration (for example), then, you should use your ext environment to overwrite the jsp file for the profile of the user (enterprise_admin/user/details.jsp).

There is more info here: How to use Custom Attributes to enhance users

Julio

RE: Custom Attributes - Where to apply them OOTB

2009-08-25T14:27:12Z

I'm not sure if I understand how custom attributes work. How can I add a custom attribute into a user's profile, and they will have to choose a picture from a drop down menu?

Baris

RE: Custom Attributes - Where to apply them OOTB

2009-08-24T17:48:04Z

Hi Amine,

It's an interesting idea, although it's hard for me to know for sure if it's the best way to go. I'll keep in mind and talk about it with other Liferay architects when I have a chance.

If you do any further work on it (be it code, wireframes, ...) let me know.

Jorge

RE: Custom Attributes - Where to apply them OOTB

2009-08-06T16:50:14Z

Hi Amine, thank you. You do have good points on web content (Journal Article, Structure, Template).

Now the Expando (Custom Attributes ) is available for a set of objects: User, Organization, Wiki, Blogs, Bookmarks, Document, Image, etc. (See below screenshot)

Similar features would be useful for Document Library documents - CMS (DM and RM) of Alfresco.

Hi Jorge, thank you. It is very good that the Expando (Custom Attributes ) is available for any ServiceBuilder generated entities, especially for Document Library Document. Through custom attributes, documents can have many columns (metadata). That's cool.

I guess that there are a few limitations for Document Library plus Custom Attributes:

1) Custom attributes can only have basic data type. Custom data types like Document and Image are not supported yet.
2) Content Types can not be specified easily through custom attributes.

For example, there are two content types:
GAME - metadata: name, description, thumbnail, mini_game, keywords, etc.
VIDEO - metadata: name, description, title, thumbnail, large_thumbnail, medium_thumbnail, small_thumbnail, preview_video, etc.

How to implement above custom content types in Document Library plus Custom Attributes?

Thanks

Jonas Yuan

-----------------
Liferay Books

Liferay Portal 5.2 Systems Development
Liferay Portal Enterprise Intranets

RE: Custom Attributes - Where to apply them OOTB

2009-08-06T10:32:12Z

I'm thinking about the design of such a UI for managing Expando tables and rows with Excel import/export capabilities.

I thought that the Expando service layer was suitable for storing user tables like that.
Moreover it can give the ability to extends existing Liferay entities.

But then I realized that localization aspect is missing in Expando.
So I tried to design a patch to Expando that would be able to consider multi-languages aspects.
Then a graphical ui that could define columns (name, type, order...).

And eventually I found that I was much too close to Web structures management in Liferay.
I surely don't want to code something that already exists.

If we put the Web Structure concept in a higher level, I think we would be close to a system that could manage expando, web structures, generic lists manager, custom attributes, and Library documents meta, altogether.

Advantages :
- We already have a good UI for designing web structures (ie for designing entities)
- An XML format that can be re-used for designing entities in general, not only for web contents but for docs as well and so on
- A rich editor
- Inheritance
- Localization capabilities (excepting for fields names but we could use messages)
- We can export/import this structure in LAR
- it's indexable
- It's been tested for a long time
- ...

What's missing? :
- Web Structure should be called "Entity Structure"
- Few Expando types should be added into the web structure types list
- A "classNameId" column should be added in EntityStructure table like in ExpandoTable
- The web structure UI should be moved into an "Entity Design" new link in the control panel and it should give the capability to choose a classNameId in a select list. (Web content, document, user, none...)

So that :
- A Web Structure would be just an "Entity Structure" that would have a classNameId = JournalArticle
- Custom attributes would be just an "Entity Structure" that would have a classNameId = User
- User Entities (for displaying generic tables with Excel export/import and pagination) would be "Entity Structure" that would have a classNameId to null
- An Alfresco-like aspect would be an "Entity Structure" that would have multiple values in "classNameId"
- ...

Do you think I should keep going further with this design? Or side effects of placing web structure in a higher level would be much too huge?

RE: Custom Attributes - Where to apply them OOTB

2009-07-29T11:03:58Z

Hello Jorge

I have the knowledge but I'm very busy right now. I'll give you a prototype as soon as I can.

I was thinking about two portlets in the EXT environment.

- The first portlet would be an Expando Entity Designer. In a way I think it's going to be close to the ui for designing a web structure.

- The second portlet would be an Expando Entity Display. With the layout tag support we could paginate it and offer sorting functionnalities. With some higher permissions we would give a nice CRUD to fill in data thanks to jQuery.
And in edit mode we could select the entity to deal with and hide or make visible the "export into excel" icon or design the search engine in a "display settings" section.

I have a question about custom attributes and expando :
Entities have typed attributes composed by a key and a value.
Is there a way to store multi-lingual key names and multi-lingual values ?

RE: Custom Attributes - Where to apply them OOTB

2009-07-28T20:49:04Z

@Jonas We are working on it. Keep a look at the commits in the next few days

@Amine The idea for a custom portlet to store data based on expandos sounds great. Do you have the time and knowledge to do a quick prototype?

RE: Custom Attributes - Where to apply them OOTB

2009-07-28T17:07:50Z

Hello
That's a great feature. Few thoughts:

Custom attributes UI that is available for users should be available as well for layout, documents, images and articles.

An advanced option of the search portlet could offer a select box in order to search contents by custom attributes.

A generic Expando portlet could offer a way to create an entity on the fly with custom attributes.
Administrators would design entities, columns, types...
Contributors would fill in tables with data (with an excel import functionnality mapped with expando columns)
And guests would see a table displayed on their web site with data (pagination, search engine, sorting with display tag) and could export in Excel
That would match a generic data list management need without much efforts thanks to the expdando system.

If we complete this portlet by adding an option "extends a Liferay entity" when you create a new entity that would let people create multiple extensions of a page, a user, a web article...

Everything seems to be in place in the service layer and we just need to work on UIs actually don't you think?

RE: Custom Attributes - Where to apply them OOTB

2009-07-24T13:30:42Z

Hi Jorge,

It would be nice to know your plan on implementation of this feature. Please let me know what I can contribute on this feature.

Thanks

Jonas Yuan

-----------------
Liferay Books

Liferay Portal 5.2/5.3 Systems Development
Liferay Portal 4.4/5.0 Enterprise Intranets

RE: Custom Attributes - Where to apply them OOTB

2009-07-21T15:16:08Z

Hi Jorge,

Thank you so much. It would be very nice to know your detailed plan on this.

The specific tables are used for metadata of Images and Documents. I think that these specific tables should have following capabilities:

1) association to any objects, including Images and Documents - for long term usage;
2) dynamic types (basic types) generation, like the custom attributes (Expando tables);
3) custom types generation, like DLFileEntry, IGImage, JournalArticle, etc - object reference and association.
4) handling persistent "lock / unlock" functions;
5) handling workflow (jBPM) status;

Any thing else?

Thanks

Jonas Yuan

-----------------
Liferay Books

Liferay Portal 5.2/5.3 Systems Development
Liferay Portal 4.4/5.0 Enterprise Intranets

RE: Custom Attributes - Where to apply them OOTB

2009-07-20T17:03:52Z

Hi Jonas,

I like the idea of allowing linking contents, but I would prefer to create specific tables for that and do it at the asset level. Using specific tables and services would allow for more specialized code to work with the relationships.

I'm thinking of this feature for the version after 5.3. Suggestions and contributions are welcome.

RE: Custom Attributes - Where to apply them OOTB

2009-07-20T16:32:11Z

Hi Ray,

It is really nice feature - Custom Attributes. Thank you, Ray.

It was noticed that only basic types (Booleans, String, etc) are supported in custom attributes like:

public class ExpandoColumnConstants {
	public static final int BOOLEAN = 1;
	public static final int BOOLEAN_ARRAY = 2;
	public static final String BOOLEAN_ARRAY_LABEL = "boolean[]";
	public static final String BOOLEAN_LABEL = "boolean";
	public static final int DATE = 3;
	public static final int DATE_ARRAY = 4;
...
       public static final int STRING = 15;
	public static final int STRING_ARRAY = 16;
	public static final String STRING_ARRAY_LABEL = "java.lang.String[]";
	public static final String STRING_LABEL = "java.lang.String";

Is it good to support Liferay default types like DLFileEntry, IGImage, JournalArticle? Hope that it CAN.

Why do we need these types?

Use custom attributes to represent references (associations) of documents, images and JournalArticle;
Use custom attributes to build dynamic content model;
and more ...

Make sense?

Jonas Yuan

-----------------
Liferay Books

Liferay Portal 5.2/5.3 Systems Development
Liferay Portal 4.4/5.0 Enterprise Intranets

RE: Custom Attributes - Where to apply them OOT

2008-11-07T20:10:59Z

Hi Yanke,

You can have access to this feature by checking out the code from trunk. It'll also be included in the next release (5.2), although it doesn't have a date yet.

RE: Custom Attributes - Where to apply them OOT

2008-11-05T15:54:38Z

Hello,

Has this feature "custom attributes" been released?

If it has, how can i access it, if not when is it likely to be released.

Thanks in Advance

Yinka

RE: Custom Attributes - Where to apply them OOTB

2008-10-08T15:55:10Z

Makes sense. I assumed that we were going to include it as another tab. Thanks Jorge.

RE: Custom Attributes - Where to apply them OOTB

2008-10-08T15:46:27Z

Hi Ed,

The access to managing custom attributes will be in the toolbar of the user management portlet. For cases like this I think we should be careful to keep the links out of the portlet box (which is managed by the portal).

I think it's important to keep out of the portlet window anything that's not related to that specific portlet window. Note that preferences and configuration are specific to the window, not the the Journal portlet (or any other portlet) in general.

Anything that is related to the "contents" of the portlet should be handled by the portlet itself and not by the portal in any way. That keeps the proper separation of concerns which ends up helping usability and also provides more flexibility to the developers.