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Dynamic Data Lists I

July 12, 2011 By Marcellus Tavares

One of the cool features that is coming in the next release of Liferay is the Dynamic Data Lists.

Basically, dynamic lists are a collection of information that you want to share. Lists resemble database tables. It supports various field types (data types) that you can use to create the metadata schema. Each item stored in a particular list shares that same schema.

With Dynamic Data Lists you can:

  • Graphically define the information to gather (schema)
  • Define how to display the information in detailed and list views (templates)
  • Define a workflow for approving captured information

In this first post, we are going to create a simple sign-up sheet for an event.

First, navigate to the Dynamic Data Lists portlet  in control panel (Figure 1).

Figure 1 - Dynamic Data Lists portlet

Then create a new list. In this step you need to either create a new schema or select an existing one (Figure 2). 

Figure 2 - Adding a new list and schema

And you are ready to populate the list. Click on Add Record button, fill the form (Figure 3) and that’s it! 

Figure 3 - Adding the list items

Figure 4 - List Items

 Keep Tuned for more updates! smiley

Showing 24 Comments

Jonas Yuan
7/13/11 9:24 AM

Dynamic Data List is one of 6.1 cool features. Thanks.

Fernando Garcez
7/13/11 9:54 AM

Awesome feature!

Andrés Cerezo
7/13/11 11:48 AM

It's nice !!! Is posible to get the records from database with source code?

Bruno Farache
7/14/11 4:37 AM

Andrés, I think in the next post he will show us how to display the records.

Marcellus Tavares
7/14/11 6:43 AM

Hey Andrés, yes it's possible. DDL is built on top of a storage layer that the developer has access through the API. I'll talk about this next post.

Szymon Gołębiewski
7/15/11 4:23 AM

Will that awesome GUI for adding a new list and schema will be available for Web Content structure edition page? emoticon

Andrius Kurtinaitis
7/18/11 5:36 AM

Is it a replacement or an extension to the WebForm portlet?

Marcellus Tavares
7/18/11 6:08 AM

@Szymon, Yes. We plan to integrate the form builder in the web content portlet as well emoticon

@Andrius, It will be a replacement, but not for this release. 6.1 will still have web-form portlet.

Nilesh Gundecha
7/18/11 8:17 AM

Very keen to know about this.. Is this what we call as Workflow Aware Forms?

Jignesh Vachhani
7/19/11 12:01 AM

Nice feature !!!!!!!! Thanks

Yogesh Agrawal
7/20/11 11:58 AM

Great Feature..
Looking forward for this, as replacement of web form.
Thanks !!!!

Pius Onobhayedo
7/22/11 3:32 AM

Great feature!!! There is something I seem to miss though - a fileupload field in the data definition. I think it will make the DDL more complete. What do you think?

Marcellus Tavares
7/22/11 5:43 AM

Hi Pius, the file upload will definitely come in. Probably in a minor version of 6.1 release.

Ben Brown
7/25/11 3:19 AM

Just what we were after emoticon

KK rajput
7/26/11 10:23 PM

Hi Marcellus ,
Nice post . is it as powerful as struts displaytag ??? or can you give how it is different from it

Shagul Khajamohideen
8/9/11 9:49 AM

Thanks for post!

Gnaniyar Zubair
8/21/11 2:33 AM

Thanks for the nice feature in 6.1. But As Pius said, It would be great if you add File upload feature with Dynamic Data. You could add that feature in this version itself till waiting for another version to get that feature.

Ashish Ranjan
9/27/11 12:17 AM

Nice Feature !

Peter Ruzicka
11/10/11 8:48 AM

Very good step. 1. Is it possible to search in displayed results (or include dynamic lists in liferay search portlet)? 2. Is there going to be result pagination? If not, is it going to be there? Thank you for the responses

Peter Ruzicka
11/10/11 8:50 AM

and 3. column ordering?

Marcellus Tavares
11/10/11 9:48 AM

Hey Peter, at present we don't have these features but certainly we're going to put that in. Btw, file upload was added for this release.

Nagendra Kumar Busam
11/30/11 12:40 AM

Really cool features, i checked some of them in 6.1 CE B4. File upload is there

Praveen P
5/14/12 4:38 AM

ya its a cool feature, but is it possible to change format of that new data definition? i want two column form, in first column upload file options is to be given and for second column some text fields is to be given is it possible?

Mustafa Tülü
5/14/12 12:18 PM

will there be a lookup column, where the contents are populated from another dynamic list?