Customizing Liferay

File Structure Overview

The following sections explain the purpose of each of the subdirectory and the tasks that can be performed from them.

/ext

The root directory. From this directory you can build and deploy the whole application to the application server by running ant deploy. You should not place any extra files here.

/ext/classes

This directory is for internal use and can be ignored.

/ext/ext-impl

This is the folder that will contain all your sources and configuration files (except those related to the web application). Upon creating of the ext environment several important files will be placed in its subdirectories. The most significant are:

• /ext/ext-impl/classes/portal-ext.properties: this file can be used to override the values of the properties in the portal.properties configuration file that ships with Liferay Portal.

• /ext/ext-impl/classes/system-ext.properties: this file can be used to override the values of the properties in the system.properties configuration file that ships with Liferay Portal.

• /ext/ext-impl/classes/content/Language-ext.properties: this file can be used to add you're own internationalized text messages or to override the messages that ship with Liferay Portal. You can add variations for other languages using the Java convention for message bundles. For example the translation to Spanish should be named Language-ext_es.properties.

Run ant deploy from /ext/ext-impl to compile your source and to deploy your classes to your specified application server's deployment directory.

/ext/ext-lib

Place any extra dependent libraries in here. They will be copied over to the deployment directory when you run ant deploy from /ext.

/ext/ext-service

This folder contains the classes that are generated by Liferay's service builder. You can read more about Liferay's service builder in the Advanced Development section.

/ext/ext-web

This directory will contain your JSPs, HTMLs, images, and all the web application related files inside the docroot subdirectory. Here are some of the most common activities you will be performing from this directory:

• Run ant deploy to deploy changes in the directory. The script will copy everything from /ext/ext-web/docroot over to /ext/ext-web/tmp and then copy everything from /ext/ext-web/tmp to the deployment directory of your specified application server. Do not manipulate the contents of /ext/ext-web/tmp manually. This provides an easy way to extend the portal without changing the source and makes upgrading very easy.

• Run ant fast-deploy to deploy only changed JSPs. Use this version for quick deployment in the process of developing a JSP or set of JSPs

• To add entries to the web application configuration file edit /ext/ext-web/docroot/WEB-INF/web.xml.

• To add a portlet, edit /ext/ext-web/docroot/WEB-INF/portlet-ext.xml, /ext/ext-web/docroot/WEB-INF/liferay-portlet-ext.xml, /ext/ext-web/docroot/WEB-INF/liferay-display.xml and /ext/ext-impl/classes/content/Language-ext.properties. These *-ext.xml files are read after their parent files are read and override their parent values. Note that we do not recommend adding portlet in the ext environment; it is far better to write a portlet plugin instead.

• If you are using StrutsPortlet to develop your portlets, the following files will also be of interest to you: /ext/ext-web/docroot/WEB-INF/struts-config.xml and /ext/ext-web/docroot/WEB-INF/tiles-defs.xml. Again, it is far better to write a hot deployable Struts Portlet plugin than to add it to the extension environment.

/ext/lib

This directory contains all of the portal's deployment time dependent libraries and compile time dependent libraries. It contains the following subdirectories:

• development: contains the libraries that will be used during development but will not be deployed. It also contains some JDBC drivers that you can manually deploy to the application server for the specific database in use.

• global: contains the libraries that will be deployed to the global library directory of the application server.

• portal: contains the libraries that will be placed inside the portal EAR.

/ext/modules

This folder contains the Liferay portal source code in .war or .jar format.

/ext/sql

This directory contains all of the portal's database scripts.

/ext/tools

This directory is for internal use and can be ignored.