LiferayPhotos: a fully functional app in 10 days using Liferay Screens. Part 2 Architecture and planning

In the previous blog post we covered the beginning of the project, this includes a description of the app features, advantages of using Liferay Screens and lastly the wireframe.

In this one, we will cover how we can “screenletize” the different screens of the application and build them combining different screenlets. We will also organise the 10 days and plan what are the tasks we are going to work on each day.

“Screenletizing” the app

In this step, we have to take each screen and think about which screenlet we can use to build each part, this way we can combine those screenlets together to build the final screen. Before we continue, you can check out available screenlets here.

We will extract these images from the prototype included in the previous post.

Log In

In this case, the solution is very straightforward, we need the Login Screenlet.

Let’s cover a more complex example

Feed

We have a feed screen where the user will see all the pictures that are uploaded onto the platform with its description and number of likes.

This screen is basically a list of images, but each image has a lot of additional information (user, user image, number of likes, description). To render a List of Images we have a dedicated screenlet, the ImageGalleryScreenlet.

The default version of the ImageGalleryScreenlet only displays a list of images in a Grid, but as we learned in the previous post, we can easily customise the UI.

We have to display more information in each image cell, and… exactly, we will also be using screenlets to do this.

 

 

  • To render the user information we will be using the Asset Display Screenlet. This screenlet will show any asset of Liferay and, depending on the inner type, it will choose a specific UI. In this case, as it is a user we will render the name and the profile picture, and of course, to render the profile picture we will use another screenlet, the Userportrait Screenlet.
  • To display the likes, we have another screenlet: the Rating Screenlet. In this case, we don’t have a default UI that represent likes, so we will need to create one.
 

The great thing about separating view parts into screenlets is that it will allow to reuse them in other parts of the application, or even in other applications.

Planning

After we have finished extracting screenlets of our app, we can create a schedule for the development of the application.

The app will be developed by two people. One will be working part-time and the other full time. The person that will be developing it full time is Luis Miguel Barcos, our great intern. He doesn’t have previous experience using Liferay Screens, which will make the journey even more interesting. He will write the next blog post talking about the experience and a more technical look at the project.

Here is the detailed planning of the app:

Conclusion

In this blog post, we have shown how we are going to “screenletize” the application in order to divide it into small and reusable pieces. We have also created a planning scheme to organise the 10 days we have to work on this app.

Be sure to check out the next and last blog post with the final result.