Why do we need to integrate angular with portlet?

Single Page Application (SPA) is an application that fits on a single web page with dynamic actions without refreshing the page. To build SPA we can use Angular - an open source SPA framework. To create Single Page Application using Angular(formerly known as AngularJS) in liferay portlet, it is necessary to integrate angular with the portlet.

 

Prerequisite:

Before visiting this blog, please make sure you must have a basic idea of angular and how to create mvc portlet .

 

Environment requirements:

• Liferay IDE v3.0+

• Liferay Portal 7.0.2 CE GA3 / Liferay DXP

• JDK 8

• Blade CLI

• Gradle 3.0

• node version : 4.7.0+

• npm version :  5.5.1+

             

Creating MVC-Portlet Module:

1. Create an MVC portlet by using Liferay IDE or Blade CLI and Edit following generated files.

   • bnd.bnd

     • Add these 2 lines at the end of file:

       -includeresource: package.json

       -plugin.npm: com.liferay.ant.bnd.npm.NpmAnalyzerPlugin

   • build.gradle

     • Add buildscript and plugin before dependencies:

       
       

       

        

     • Add Gradle build tasks:- npmInstall, compileTypeScript,  copyAngularModules as described below.

        

       

        

   • view.jsp

     • Add system scripts from node modules and configure environment  variable according to requirements.

        

       

        

     • Change angular-portlet-1.0.0 with <YOUR-PORTLET-NAME>-1.0.0

     • Change selector name (e.g.  angular-app)  according to index.html

2. Create following angular resources:

   • package.json inside( /modules/angular-portlet/ ) : Used to manage locally installed npm packages.You can add or remove packages according to your requirements.

   • tsconfig.json inside( /modules/angular-portlet/ ) : It is a typescript configuration file to guide the compiler as it generates javascript files.

   • index.html, main.ts, polyfills.ts inside(/modules/angular-portlet/src/main/resources/META-INF/resources/) :

     • index.html : Main layout file

     • main.ts : It is the entry point of application, compiles the application with just-in-time and bootstraps the application’s root module.

     • polyfills.ts : Many browsers lack native support for some features in the latest HTML standards, features that Angular requires. "Polyfills" can emulate the missing features.

     • Create new folder : e.g.  app  (/modules/angular-portlet/src/main/resources/META-INF/resources): Create files app.component.ts, app.module.ts inside this folder

       • app.component.ts : The main component

       • app.module.ts : An Angular module class describes how the application parts fit together.

3. Add this file to configure angular with liferay:

   • systemjs.config.js inside( /modules/angular-portlet/src/main/resources/META-INF/resources/ ) :It is used to tell SystemJS where to look when we import a module.

     Now, project structure will look like :

      

     

      

4. Update angular resources created in step 2 to bootstrap angular in portlet:

   • package.json : Add dependencies and devDependencies according to your project need and also change angular version to 5.0.0

      

     

      

   • tsconfig.json : Add include and exclude directory paths to bundle required files.

   • index.html : html tag used to bootstrap App must match component selector.

   • main.ts :

     • Change bootstrapModule method like

        

       

        

     • If you change selector name in app.component.ts, change angular-app with that name in main.ts as well.

   • systemjs.config.js : Change web context path in this file according to your portlet name.

      

     

      

   • polyfills.ts : Update polyfills.ts file with the following code

      

     

      

Deployment:

Run below blade commands to deploy angular portlet.

• To build project run command: blade gw build

• To create jar file for portlet run command: blade gw deploy

After deployment add portlet and it will look like :

 

 

 

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