Liferay Portlet Installation Notes

Notes on how to install a portlet on Liferay

1. Install Liferay, if you haven't done so already.
2. Get/Create a deployment script. For example:
   • Download portlet-deployer ant build
   • You may need to (ahem) improve the ant build file:
     • Read: Directions for setting up Hot Deploy
     • Edit the ant file to set up some filepaths for your local system. This is described in the above directions.
     • Note: You will also have to add paths to the classpath in the build.xml as otherwise it will be missing libraries. I've attached variants of the file to this page:
       • portlet-deployer-3.6.0.xml - original
       • build.xml - my version
       • portlet-deployer-3.6.0.xml.diff - diff of those two files
3. Create a deploy directory. (I chose to make my deploy directory a child of my tomcat directory.)
4. Copy the portlet war to the deploy directory.
5. Copy the deployment build file to the deploy directory.
6. Run your deployment script. (For example: ant deploy -Dportlet=search-confluence-portlet)
   • This will create a new directory in your tomcat/webapps directory where this portlet will live.
   • You will need to add liferay specific libraries to this directory. More on that later.
7. Use the portal application to load and interact with the portlet.
   • Liferay example:
     • You should not need to restart tomcat for the deployment script to work. (It's a Hot Deploy script.)
     • Launch Liferay in a browser, and sign in.
     • Add content by:
       • mousing over the Liferay logo in the upper right corner
       • Clicking the + (plus) logo.
       • A popup of addable content will launch.
       • Look for the new portlet in the Undefined category.
       • Click the add button.
       • Close the addable content button.
     • Most likely, it will say: Portlet is temporary unavailable. This message occurs when the portlet is having server side errors. (Remember, we're missing necessary liferay libraries.)
       • So, check the logs for help on figuring out what you're missing. The log you're interested is located in tomcat/logs/catalina.out. Possible errors might be:
       • File "/WEB-INF/tld/liferay-portlet.tld" not found. Solution:
         • cp webapps/ROOT/WEB-INF/tld/liferay-portlet.tld webapps/my-confluence-portlet/WEB-INF/tld/.
       • java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: com.liferay.taglib.portlet.ActionURLTei. solution:
         • cp webapps/ROOT/WEB-INF/lib/util-taglib.jar webapps/my-confluence-portlet/WEB-INF/lib/.
       • NoClassDefFoundError: com/liferay/util/Validator. solution:
         • cp webapps/ROOT/WEB-INF/lib/util-java.jar webapps/my-confluence-portlet/WEB-INF/lib/.
       • Restart tomcat after any library changes.
       • Refresh the Liferay page in your browser.