Liferay Themes – xmlRequest

When you make a journalContentUtil call from a theme, there is no portlet request object, which means there is no serialized $xmlRequest object available to your CMS Templates. This limits the potential of articles a lot. Producing XML and accessing it directly from the theme is often useful for creating full page structures from the various nodes of the XML. But even a relatively unsophisticated template requires access to basic variables like the URL, so this gap needs to be bridged.

Here’s how. You create a faux xmlRequest object (just xml), and pass it to the CMS template as part of the journalContentUtil call.

#set ($xmlRequestPath = "$full_templates_path/xmlRequest.xml")
#set ($xmlRequest = "#parse($xmlRequestPath)")

## ARTICLE XML OPERATIONS
#set ($articleXML = $!journalContentUtil.getContent(
    $getterUtil.getLong("GROUPID"),
    $articleID, "", "view",
    $localeUtil.toLanguageId($locale),
    $themeDisplay,
    $xmlRequest
))
portal_normal.vm

<request>
  <container-type>portlet</container-type>
  <container-namespace>/</container-namespace>
  <content-type>text/html</content-type>
  <server-name>$themeDisplay.getServerName()</server-name>
  <server-port>$themeDisplay.getServerPort()</server-port>
  <secure>$themeDisplay.isSecure()</secure>
  <auth-type />
  <remote-user>$themeDisplay.getUserId()</remote-user>
  <context-path>/</context-path>
  <locale>en</locale>
  <portlet-mode>view</portlet-mode>
  <portlet-session-id></portlet-session-id>
  <scheme>https</scheme>
  <window-state>normal</window-state>
  <lifecycle>RENDER_PHASE</lifecycle>
  <portlet-namespace></portlet-namespace>
  <action-url></action-url>
  <render-url></render-url>
  <render-url-exclusive></render-url-exclusive>
  <render-url-maximized></render-url-maximized>
  <render-url-minimized></render-url-minimized>
  <render-url-normal></render-url-normal>
  <render-url-pop-up></render-url-pop-up>
  <resource-url></resource-url>
  <theme-display>
    <cdn-host />
    <company-id>$themeDisplay.getCompanyId()</company-id>
    <do-as-user-id />
    <i18n-language-id />
    <language-id>en</language-id>
    <locale>en</locale>
    <path-context />
    <path-friendly-url-private-group>
        $themeDisplay.getPathFriendlyURLPrivateGroup()
    </path-friendly-url-private-group>
    <path-friendly-url-private-user>
        $themeDisplay.getPathFriendlyURLPrivateUser()
    </path-friendly-url-private-user>
    <path-friendly-url-public>
        $themeDisplay.getPathFriendlyURLPublic()
    </path-friendly-url-public>
    <path-image>$themeDisplay.getPathImage()</path-image>
    <path-main>$themeDisplay.getPathMain()</path-main>
    <path-theme-images>$themeDisplay.getPathThemeImages()</path-theme-images>
    <plid>$themeDisplay.getPlid()</plid>
    <portal-url>
        $httpUtil.removeProtocol($themeDisplay.getPortalURL())
    </portal-url>
    <real-user-id>$themeDisplay.getUserId()</real-user-id>
    <scope-group-id>$themeDisplay.getScopeGroupId()</scope-group-id>
    <secure>$themeDisplay.isSecure()</secure>
    <server-name>$themeDisplay.getServerName()</server-name>
    <server-port>$themeDisplay.getServerPort()</server-port>
    <time-zone>$themeDisplay.getTimeZone().getID()</time-zone>
    <url-portal>
        $httpUtil.removeProtocol($themeDisplay.getURLPortal())
    </url-portal>
    <user-id>$themeDisplay.getUserId()</user-id>
    <portlet-display>
      <id></id>
      <instance-id></instance-id>
      <portlet-name></portlet-name>
      <resource-pk></resource-pk>
      <root-portlet-id></root-portlet-id>
      <title>Web Content Display</title>
    </portlet-display>
  </theme-display>
  <parameters />
  <currenturl>
    $htmlUtil.escape($themeDisplay.getURLCurrent())
  </currenturl>
</request>
xmlRequest.xml