Using custom services or liferay services in liferay themes (velocity templates)?

Question

How to use custom services method in liferay themes in velocity files like init_custom.vm, portal_normal.vm etc.

I see liferay provides a l

Answer 1

You can extend velocity context used in theme with custom variables and services using following hook plugin. Let's say you need to use your custom local service.

1. create a hook plugin with following liferay-hook.xml definition

   <hook>
       <portal-properties>portal.properties</portal-properties>
   </hook>
   

2. create portal.properties in main/resources (when you use maven) or in docroot/WEB-INF/src (when you use plugins sdk), place following configuration there

   servlet.service.events.pre=com.my.custom.action.MyCustomPreAction
   

3. create com.my.custom.action.MyCustomPreAction class in your hook that will extend com.liferay.portal.kernel.events.Action

4. implement run method

   @Override
   public void run(final HttpServletRequest request, final HttpServletResponse response)
       throws ActionException {
   
       Map<String, Object> vmVariables = (Map<String, Object>) request.getAttribute(WebKeys.VM_VARIABLES);
       if (vmVariables == null) {
         vmVariables = new HashMap<String, Object>(1);
       }
       vmVariables.put("myCustomServiceUtil", com.my.custom.service.MyCustomLocalServiceUtil.class);
       request.setAttribute(WebKeys.VM_VARIABLES, map);
   }
   

5. after your hook is deployed you can use your custom service in velocity template of your theme

   // this code calls method from MyCustomLocalServiceImpl class to fetch items
   #set ($listOfItems = $myCustomServiceUtil.getAllItems())
   

Answer 2

It is possible.

1. The following code shows how to get the services:

   // Fetching instance of my custom services
   #set ($myCustomLocalService = $serviceLocator.findService('myCustomServices-portlet', 'com.my.custom.service.MyCustomLocalService'))
   
   // Fetching instance of UserLocalServiceImpl
   #set ($userLocalService = $serviceLocator.findService('com.liferay.portal.service.UserLocalService'))
   

2. Then simply call the service methods:

   #set ($listOfItems = $myCustomLocalService.getAllItems())
   
   #set ($listOfUsers = $userLocalService.getUsers(0, 99))
   

_{For Liferay 6.1 CE GA1: I found this class VelocityVariablesImpl (see methods like insertHelperUtilities, insertVariables) which actually makes all the variables and helper utilities available to the velocity templates.}