According to the FreeMarker include statement docs, you can make header- and footer- aware templates like so:
<#include "/header.ftl">
<!-- Content of my this page -->
<#include "/footer.ftl">
But if my web app has hundreds of pages/views, this is a lot of redundant copy pasta. It would be great if there was like a "layout" concept in FreeMarker, where I could say "Hey, here is a layout:"
<#include "/header.ftl">
<#import_FTL_Somehow>
<#include "/footer.ftl">
And then create separate templates for each view/page (index.ftl, contactUs.ftl, etc.) and then tell FreeMarkers which FTL files "use" the layout. That way I wouldn't have to keep specifying header/footer includes in each and every template file.
Does FreeMarker support this kind of concept?
It doesn't, though if you only need a footer or header it can be solved with some TemplateLoader hack (where the TemplateLoader inserts the header and footer snippets, as if was there in the template file). But the usual solution in FreeMarker is calling the layout code explicitly from each templates, but not with two #include-s directly, but like:
<#my.page>
<!-- Content of my this page -->
</#my.page>
where my is an auto-import (see Configuration.addAutoImport).
Update: Another approach is that you have a layout.ftl like:
Heading stuff here...
<#include bodyTemplate>
Footer stuff here...
And then from Java you always call layout.ftl, but also pass in the body template name using the bodyTemplate variable:
dataModel.put("bodyTemplate", "/foo.ftl");
cfg.getTemplate("layout.ftl").process(dataModel, out);
Related
We're using Liferay 7.3 (CE) and are trying to embrace the relatively new feature of "Content Pages" with "Page Fragments". We're able to develop page fragments that already include portlets (named "widgets" in the context of content pages), using the <lfr-widget-WIDGETALIAS> tag. So far, that works.
Now we're trying to prepare page fragments that embed portlets with special portlet configuration applied. For example, we want to prepare a page fragment that just shows an asset publisher portlet configured to list WebContent articles from a pre-defined category. The user should be able to just put that fragment onto the page without having to care about the configuration of the asset publisher portlet.
We did not find any direct way to achieve that -- our first guess that the configuration could be written as attributes or content of the <lfr-widget-...> tag was deterred by a hint in the liferay docs that there are no valid attributes or content to attach to that tag.
Does anybody have an inkling of an idea on how to achieve embedding portlets in page fragments with pre-defined portlet configuration applied? (including out-of-the-box Liferay portlets?)
I figured it out myself.
That one thing that the Fragment Editor does not tell you is that the HTML part of a fragment actually is interpreted as a Freemarker template, with the caveat that only Freemarkers alternative syntax is allowed.
That, in turn, means that Liferays taglibs are available, which means we can use the tag <liferay-portlet:runtime> (ported to freemarker alternative syntax, of course), which does accept a defaultPreferences attribute. Now we can just configure the portlet once, find its portletPreferences XML data in the DB (see table PortletPreferences), remove values we do not want to preconfigure and then just use the resulting preferences XML as a value for the defaultPreferences attribute of the <liferay-portlet:runtime> tag.
Care has to be taken for any IDs (e.g. if you want to preconfigure an AssetCategory filter). Better fetch the corresponding object from the corresponding service and get the ID from that object.
This example provides the HTML part for a page fragment that places an AssetPublisher onto the page, preconfigured to show 12 items (instead of the default 20). (CSS, JS and Configuration of the fragment is the default as given by the Page Fragment editor.)
<div class="fragment-12345">
[#assign assetPublisherPortletPreferences="<portlet-preferences>
<preference>
<name>delta</name>
<value>12</value>
</preference>
</portlet-preferences>" /]
[#liferay_portlet["runtime"]
instanceId="${fragmentEntryLinkNamespace}assets"
portletName="com_liferay_asset_publisher_web_portlet_AssetPublisherPortlet"
defaultPreferences="${assetPublisherPortletPreferences}"
/]
</div>
Thank you for this, #orithena. You saved me a lot of trouble.
Another option, to achieve the same result but with simpler syntax, is to use the built-in freeMarkerPortletPreferences:
[#assign assetPublisherPortletPreferences=freeMarkerPortletPreferences.getPreferences({
"delta": "12",
} /]
I need to make a footer in Liferay and use theme for it. What's the simpliest way to do it?
I have created new theme, filled _diffs folder with other folders, but it's empty and I couldn't find relevant docs about this. Should I copy all basic files there? What should I change to create footer?
In Liferay, theme's portal_normal.vm serves as the template to
construct HTML structure of the page. There you define your header,
body and footer includes.
When you will look at the portal_normal.vm of classic theme, you will observe following HTML snippet:
<footer id="footer" role="contentinfo">
<p class="powered-by">
#language ("powered-by")
Liferay
</p>
</footer>
This is the footer of the page. This is what you need to implement. However, it's not necessary to use footer tag at all, as you can simply use div or table based structure with bootstrap or customized CSS classes for your footer, it's upto your requirement.
Remember! Classic theme is just like a sample provided by Liferay, so, it's not good idea to directly customize it.
Everybody needs a whole customized view of the site, and for this the best idea is to create a custom theme (that's what you are doing!), that will give you full control over your look-n-feel.
To kick-start, you can initially copy required folders from classic theme to your customized theme's (_diffs folder) and start changing bit by bit.
I would like to create external Handlebars files using the following -
1. header- Contains html codes
2. footer- Contains html codes
3. nav- Contains html codes
4. search - Contains html codes
etc.
Is there a way with handlebars to do this, so that I can include each template if and when needed in a specific page. Not sure how to go about it.
Thanks!
Absolutely! You can use Handlebar partials to do this. Simply register your header, nav, etc files as partials and then you can use this in your main template by doing something like this:
{{> header }}
{{> nav activePage=(activePage) }}
Have you considered using ASP.NET?
If you wanted to add content from other html files, I would highly recommend using
#RenderPage()If you use this, then you could set up a layout such as:
#RenderPage("header.html")
Some random description
#RenderPage("navigationbar.html")
#RenderPage("searchbar.html")
- Insert some content here -
#RenderPage("footer.html")
I'm certain that if you use this kind of layout, you'd get the appearance you would want. Obviously this is just an example, so you'd probably want to add some kind of CSS layout to suit your taste, but this is how I would go about it in ASP.NET.
In asp.net webpages framework what is the difference between using a content block versus a helper?
They both seem to be used to output HTML to multiple pages. They both can contain code and both can pass parameters.
Are there other differences? When should you use a helper versus a content block?
More info:
With Content Blocks we create a .cshtml (for example _MakeNote.cshtml) file to hold the content we want to insert into a page. Then we use:
#RenderPage("/Shared/_MakeNote.cshtml")
to insert the content into a page. We can pass parameters to the content block like this:
#RenderPage("/Shared/_MakeNote.cshtml", new { content = "hello from content block" })
It's somewhat like an include file, but I think does not share scope with the parent page.
With Helpers we create a .cshtml page in the App_Code folder (for example MyHelpers.cshtml) and place methods in that page which we want to call. The method looks something like this:
#helper MakeNote(string content) {
<div>#content</div>
}
The helper is called by using:
#MyHelpers.MakeNote("Hello from helper")
There isn't a lot of difference functionally. Helpers need to go into an App_Code folder - unless you download VWD or Visual C# Express and compile a binary - and the App_Code folder doesn't translate well to the MVC framework. Of course, that's only relevant if you want to upgrade to MVC at some point.
I would use a helper for generic functional snippets like your MakeNote. I would use a "content-block" (partial, really) for repeated site-specific sections of a page.
I am following the example given here to override the default DocumentLibraryForm rendering template
MSDN - Override a Default Control Template
<SharePoint:RenderingTemplate ID="DocumentLibraryForm" runat="server">
... Custom stuff here ..
</SharePoint:RenderingTemplate>
(Thats the 2007 version, the 2010 version is the same but not complete, it doesn't show the directives)
And that all works just fine. There are lots of other examples on t'internet of overriding control rendering templates.
However I am trying to override things like ListTitleViewSelectorMenu and that isn't working.
<!-- Definition from allitems.aspx -->
<SharePoint:ListTitleViewSelectorMenu AlignToParent="true" id="LTViewSelectorMenu" runat="server" />
SharePoint:RenderingTemplate can only be used to override defined templates, usually in the generation of forms and list views. I dont think they can be used to replace random controls that are placed on page layouts.
I think i have tried what you are trying do, customise that view dropdown on list layout pages. I have an control that shows it sorted. The way that you replace controls is with a DelegateControl (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms470880.aspx), but unfortuately ListTitleViewSelectorMenu is not wrapped by a DelegateControl in the standard list layouts. You may have to replace the entire bread crumb.