Liferay Suites [new "Add Content" idea]

[16年前 に Ray Auge によって更新されました。]

In the last couple of weeks I'd been think that it might be interesting to have a new mechanism for Adding "pre configured" lumps of content to Communities..

For example, many portlet applications/dashboards are made up of more than a single portlet. In fact they are essentially "suites" of portlets, all designed to offer different views of a common data model.. offer previews, different task management etc...

So, I was thinking that it might be interesting to implement a feature which would Allow registering a "Suite" in the "Add Content" menu which would add not only a single portlet, but either create a NEW pre-configured Layout, portlets and all... or add a bunch of portlets (in the Suite) to the current page... (I like idea 1 better)

We could grant permission to seeing the "Suite" in "Add Content" as we do with portlets...

Consider a use-case:

- An intranet where users have only Personal Communities... (there are no "Communities" where users see common content).
- A user is promoted from on state to another which grants them access to and the ability to use "Suite A", if they choose.
- Clicking "Suite A" in the "Add Content" pane adds a New Layout titled "Suite A" with the pre-configured payload of portlets... (and possibly, sub-layouts)

One click gives them a complete application.

As well, I would be an ideal way for third party Portlet developers to "Package" a Dahsboard of their portlets...

For example, a portlet developer who develops a "Suite" of portlet for monitoring, tracking and displaying performance metrics. Or one who creates a "Suite" of BI portlets, etc...

They could provide a single plugin WAR, which also registers a "Suite" which is the pre-configred Layout of some or all of the portlets which make up their application... (the user would still have the power to reorganize the portlets the way they like once the Suite is added.)

Finally, A Suite could still list the individual portlets it contains so that an experienced user can select only the ones they prefer using... and lay them out where they want them...

Thoughts?

[16年前 に Ray Auge によって更新されました。]

A good example currently in the portal is the CMS... Right now we have
all those portlets listed directly under category CMS. A Suite called
"CMS DashBoard" might appear as a Sub-Category where there is an [Add
Suite] link beside it which would Add a new Top level Layout called "CMS
DashBoard".

Clicking on it would expand it to show the list pf portlets it
contains...

The list of portlets in "CMS DashBoard" might be:
- Document Library
- Image Gallery
- Journal
- Tags Admin

Clicking any portlet or dragging it to the page would behave the same as
it would now.

[16年前 に Neil Griffin によって更新されました。]

One thing I end up doing all the time is this:

1. Create a community
2. Create three pages:
- Articles
- Images
- Documents
3. Make each page single column
4. Put a "Journal" portlet on the "Aricles" page
5. Put an "Image Gallery" portlet on the "Images" page
6. Put a "Document Library" portlet on the "Documents" page

What would be your thoughts on this use case?

[16年前 に Ray Auge によって更新されました。]

> One thing I end up doing all the time is this:
>
> 1. Create a community
> 2. Create three pages:
> - Articles
> - Images
> - Documents
> 3. Make each page single column
> 4. Put a "Journal" portlet on the "Aricles" page
> 5. Put an "Image Gallery" portlet on the "Images" page
> 6. Put a "Document Library" portlet on the "Documents" page
>
> What would be your thoughts on this use case?

My thoughts are that a Suite, being a LAR file with some pre-configured
layouts... could really be any number of Layouts and portlets... so if
you need three Layouts for your Suite as opposed to only one... then
yeah... do it... I don't think there is any good reason to limit the
Suite's structural features to anything less that what we have now... it
should just be "easier", like "single clicking" is easy...

[16年前 に Jorge Ferrer によって更新されました。]

Hi Ray,

It's a very good idea, in fact we had been talking for some time about a very similar one but with a different name: "Layout templates". In fact I even received a contribution for it (only a partial implementation) but was just after we freezed for 4.4 so haven't looked at it yet.

The idea was to allow portal administrators to set up layouts through a layout template administration tool and then allow users to select among the available list of layout templates when creating or editing a layout.

This would work at a second level two, which is with community templates, which would be the exact same ideas but would expand to several layouts.

On the UI side, the initial idea was very different to yours, but during the retreat Nate and I talked about some ideas to extend the idea of "Add application" to allow also creating new pages through this templates. That way pages would not be created empty.

What do you think? Would "layout templates" provide what you were thinking of?

BTW, regarding the implementation I initially thought of LAR files too. But the guy that sent me the contribution convinced me that it's much better to do it directly in the database (probably through a new type of group) to allow for direct editing of templates by the administrators. LARs can of course still be used to distribute the templates or load default ones.

[16年前 に Ray Auge によって更新されました。]

> It's a very good idea, in fact we had been talking for some time about a very similar one but with a different name: "Layout templates". In fact I even received a contribution for it (only a partial implementation) but was just after we freezed for 4.4 so haven't looked at it yet.
>
> The idea was to allow portal administrators to set up layouts through a layout template administration tool and then allow users to select among the available list of layout templates when creating or editing a layout.
>
> This would work at a second level two, which is with community templates, which would be the exact same ideas but would expand to several layouts.
>
> On the UI side, the initial idea was very different to yours, but during the retreat Nate and I talked about some ideas to extend the idea of "Add application" to allow also creating new pages through this templates. That way pages would not be created empty.
>
> What do you think? Would "layout templates" provide what you were thinking of?
>
> BTW, regarding the implementation I initially thought of LAR files too. But the guy that sent me the contribution convinced me that it's much better to do it directly in the database (probably through a new type of group) to allow for direct editing of templates by the administrators. LARs can of course still be used to distribute the templates or load default ones.

Hmm, I'm not sure about this last one... in considering a client
requirement which is that the Layout belongs to the end user once added
to the page... if the Layout template was to be centrally owned and
manipulated then this contract is broken... the layout is no longer
under the control of the user... But I can see where BOTH cases could
easily be handled... one where the logic is to "clone" a copy of the
template and give it to the user thereby granting them further control
over the layout once they have it... and the other where the template is
"global" were each user has in fact the same template and the template
is centrally managed. Perhaps this would simply be part of the
definition of the template at time of creation...

[16年前 に Jorge Ferrer によって更新されました。]

Hi Ray,

Oh, I've always expected those templates to serve just as something to copy from. So I think we are on the same page here.

Regarding the name, it's sad that the name is taken since it fits perfectly here. We've been talking about "Community templates" for some time and I think everyone understands what it is. So this is just about making it available to individual pages. "Page templates" would be a good name IMO, although it doesn't really solve naming conflict. Any other suggestion?

[15年前 に Jesper W によって更新されました。]

Ray Augé:

Hmm, I'm not sure about this last one... in considering a client
requirement which is that the Layout belongs to the end user once added
to the page...

I believe that is probably the more un-common use case (and also not too distant from just the already existing "copy from page").

The powerful thing we I would love to see is for the users page to be automatically updated as soon as the original template changes.

This has been on top of our "Wanted" list for more than a year, but keeps getting postponed because it's too big a task for our small team...

(And BTW I think "suites" is maybe not a perfect term for it... I missed noticing this thread despite having seen the title several times, it didn't mean anything to me :-) )

/j

[15年前 に Ray Augé によって更新されました。]

You can already do that.... simply use a static templates in the mode
that users cannot modify their pages and you have that very result. Plus
you can hot deploy your layout_templates when you want to change them,
and there you have it.

Ray

[15年前 に Jorge Ferrer によって更新されました。]

Hi Jesper,

I've also wanted to implement this for a long time. In fact for 5.3 I'm going to do my best to do the first part which I call "Page Templates". The idea is that administrators will be able to define a set of portlets in a page and give it a name. Then one a page is created instead of creating it completely blank the users will be able to select one of the templates. Ideally we would have several templates out of the box, such as wki, documents, etc. that contain the main portlet together with several auxiliary portlets that enhance their features. I think this is exactly the idea that Ray was suggesting with the portlet suites.

The next step would be, as you mention, to allow the user to choose whether the template is copied or 'linked'. In the former case the user is able to remove any of the portlets copied from the template. In the latter those portlets would be static and it would only be possible to add new ones. There is a customer that also wants this although I think they've decided to do it as custom for them. So it's a feature that may have to wait a little bit more, but hopefully not too much.

[15年前 に Jesper W によって更新されました。]

I think what you describe is exactly the thing we have been thinking about. In our use case it is certainly the "linked" type that is interesting.

The important thing compared to Ray's suggestion above is that the template needs to be modifiable using the admin GUI, not from a property file.

I envision something like a special page category, that makes the page a named "PageTemplate" or something like that.

Other pages can then link to this page and have the setup and portlets from the PageTemplate appear together with other portlets specific for the page.

Some things to consider in the specs:

- Would it be possible to combine several PageTemplates for one page? (As in for example: "I want the standard WebContent feeds for News, plus the standard Community Feeds, and then add a couple of my own portlets").

- Would it be possible to have the PortletPreferences of the page instance be an "overlay" on top of the PortletPreferences from the PageTemplate? For example, Portlet A in the PageTemplate has background green. For pages that use this PageTemplate Portlet A will have green background unless modified locally. If the PageTemplate color changes, all pages using it will change except those who explicitly specified a different color.

- Would pages using a PageTemplate be allowed to insert their own portlets before, between or after the ones from the PageTemplate? (I am guessing it must be made a requirement that the page has the same LayoutTemplate as the PageTemplate...?)

BTW, I don't think I have seen this feature in any other publishing system (templates needing programming skills to create do not count!).
I think it would be a very strong Liferay selling-point...

[15年前 に Jorge Ferrer によって更新されました。]

Hi Jesper,

I think we are definitely in the same page here.

Your extra requirements look very interesting to me. Hard, but interesting ;)

In any case we'll see what can be done or not once we start implementing this. I know for sure that I won't be able to do anything related to this until after a couple or three months. Considering that, would you start doing it yourself or wait?

[15年前 に Jesper W によって更新されました。]

Well, we have basically decided it will suck up too much of our small teams time to do it.
We have prioritize improving the TV programming guide, searching inside videos and a micropayments implementation first.

[15年前 に Jorge Ferrer によって更新されました。]

Ok, not a problem.

I'll let you know when I start working on this just in case you have resources then to help out.

[14年前 に Jason E Shao によって更新されました。]

Jorge Ferrer:

The next step would be, as you mention, to allow the user to choose whether the template is copied or 'linked'. In the former case the user is able to remove any of the portlets copied from the template. In the latter those portlets would be static and it would only be possible to add new ones. There is a customer that also wants this although I think they've decided to do it as custom for them. So it's a feature that may have to wait a little bit more, but hopefully not too much.

uPortal which I'd been very involved with in the past has this as one of it's core features. DLM - Distributed Layout Managment, which I much miss. Basically the way DLM works is you have dynamically instantiated layouts - a base layout and one or more instantiated on the fly above it in layers. The layered layouts are composited and merged based on RBAC, then user changes (stored as directives - e.g. move, delete, add) are dynamically applied on login to produce a final, user visible layout.

This allows users to have a dynamically assembled default (composited from a number of simple layouts) with their changes layered on top. Depending on the restrictions set by fragment owners, users may or may not then be able to do things on top like add/modify/delete.

Where this really gets interesting though is tied in with PAGS - the Person Attribute Group service. This service allows attributes (typically from LDAP) to be tested for group membership - e.g. "smart groups" so you could test for membership in the group "studentsWithMoreThan50Credits" and if the current user is in that group, display content specifically for that target. If they lose the LDAP attribute (through some out-of band IDM process perhaps) they would be dropped from the group, and on next login not see the content.

In the long run, this is the kind of scenario I'd be intersted in seeing Liferay support as well, since it opens up lots of options for rich user-specific automatic customization.

[16年前 に Michael Young によって更新されました。]

Jorge Ferrer:

Hi Ray,

It's a very good idea, in fact we had been talking for some time about a very similar one but with a different name: "Layout templates".

We definitely need a different name than "Layout Templates" since we already have layouttpl.

layouttpl = Layout Templates

[16年前 に Roman Hoyenko によって更新されました。]

I think it is a good idea.
You can do something like this now - add portlets to layouts, then users can select this layout. But I don't think there is a way to manage permissions on the whole thing as opposed to a separate portlets.

I would actually prefer if the menues (navigation and sign-in) would be portlets in a special layout. This would make themes lightweight and customizing the theme very easy.

[15年前 に Michael M によって更新されました。]

I would like to see a way to centrally manage a template that is reused in multiple pages. For example if I had several pages which were basically the same except for the central content (i.e. they all have a navigation portlet, a breadcrumb portlet, and an rss feed but the "main" content is a different portlet). I would like to make changes in one place to say the RSS feed and have it affect each page rather than making the change on each page. I know you can copy pages when creating them and import LAR files but these are just copies with no way to centrally manage the pages after creation if something changes. I can't just recopy them because part of the page is different. I think this would really add to the usability of Liferay.

[15年前 に Ray Augé によって更新されました。]

You can do this with Layout Templates.

They aren't as convenient to work on because there is no "on-line"
edit.. but it certainly can do everything you mention here.

[15年前 に Michael M によって更新されました。]

I don't want to hijack the thread, but thanks. I'll check into that. I thought those were only for defining layouts, not adding content.

[15年前 に Björn Ryding によって更新されました。]

Have a look at this wiki article:
http://www.liferay.com/web/guest/community/wiki/-/wiki/Main/Add+runtime+portlets+to+a+layout

[15年前 に Michael M によって更新されました。]

Thanks! I just found that wiki page myself. That worked to add a portlet to a page, but can you add a specific pre-configured portlet to the page? For example by portlet id.

[15年前 に Jonas Yuan によって更新されました。]

Hi Ray,

This is a good idea ....

One more practice likes:

## Portlets for layouts
Guest_Welcome_1_2_columns_i=EXT_1,EXT_2,56
Guest_Welcome_1_2_columns_ii=56,56,56
Guest_Welcome_1_2_1_columns=EXT_1,EXT_2,56,56
Guest_Welcome_2_2_columns=56,56,56,56
Guest_Ext_1_2_1_columns=56,56,56,56
Guest_Ext_2_2_columns=56,56,EXT_1,EXT_2

The dashboard allows users to choose different pre-defined layout templates for a given page, in case the users were scared to use drag and drop feature ...

[15年前 に Michael M によって更新されました。]

I may not have explained my use case well but it is discussed in this thread: https://www.liferay.com/web/guest/community/forums?p_p_id=19&p_p_lifecycle=0&p_p_state=normal&p_p_mode=view&p_p_col_id=column-3&p_p_col_pos=1&p_p_col_count=2&_19_struts_action=%2Fmessage_boards%2Fview_message&_19_messageId=1230257&_19_threadView=flat

It appears that there is no way to manage portlet instances through layouts from what I gather. You can easily add portlets to a layout though. I am really looking for the ability to update the preferences and such of a portlet in one place that affects many pages.