Part 3. Customizing Liferay

The final part of this book shows you how to take Liferay’s existing, built-in functionality and customize it to do whatever you want. Liferay is built for customization, and you’ll see how easy and extensible it is as you go through these chapters.

Chapter 8 covers hooks, which are Liferay plugins that give you access to existing Liferay extension points. By the end of the chapter, you’ll have modified Liferay’s Shopping portlet and given it a completely new user interface.

Liferay extension doesn’t stop there. Chapter 9 shows you how to extend Liferay not from existing extension points, but anywhere, using Ext plugins. We’ll also go over some best practices showing you how to approach a Liferay development project.

Finally, chapter 10 goes through a plethora of Liferay APIs. You’ll learn how to use friendly URLs, how to organize larger applications, and how to access other databases. You’ll find out what Liferay’s message bus can be used for and how to schedule jobs, as well as how to use indexing and search in Liferay.

By the time you’ve finished with the book, you’ll be well equipped to use the Liferay platform to build your site.