Liferay wintersky theme updated, now with IE support

By karl | Published: October 7, 2009

For anybody following updates the the Liferay theme I released:

WinterSky ver-11

Theme now looks correct in IE7 and IE8.
IE6 is functional, only sub color schemes (to do with selectors in the color scheme css), and png images need work.

Added extra option in templates/init_custom.vm:
$custom_places = true ## will replace the communities/my places menu with a simplified view hiding any public community view from non community owners. (Beta feature added to simplify the my places menu for sites that only use private pages)

Head tag also employs google chrome frame if enabled for better rendering in IE6.

Update can be installed now via the software catalog directly in Liferay.

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Installing Debian Lenny on my DNS-323

By karl | Published: September 2, 2009

I finished upgrading my Dlink DNS-323 to Debian Lenny today. I followed the instruction at:

http://www.cyrius.com/debian/orion/d-link/dns-323/install.html

The install took quite a while, I selected the standard package list. Then because it gets quit hot here in Griffith I really wanted to have fan control back, so instruction here were also followed.

As I wanted to install to an 8GB Flash drive I had handy I first uploaded the netboot.img firmware, turned off the DNS-323, removed the hard drives and left only the flash drive inserted, then powered up and followed the installation instructions.

I like keeping root on the flash drive as the hard drives can be stopped all day when not in use to save temp and power.

Fans are also controlled by lm-sensors and the unit seems to run about 47degC most of the day.

I use the unit mostly for irc (screen/weechat), rsync backup target and samba media server. It handles all that pretty well but I do notice it bog a fair bit with only 64mb ram and hard drive transfer rates are not as good as I am used to, but on the whole a great little unit (now that it runs debian).

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Review: Liferay Portal 5.2 Systems Development

By karl | Published: June 17, 2009

Liferay Portal 5.2 Systems Development

Life Portal 5.2 Systems Development

  • Author: Jonas X. Yuan
  • Pages: 552
  • Publisher: Packt Publishing
  • Rating: 9/10
  • ISBN: 1847194702
  • Summary: A Java developer’s guide to developing custom intranet systems, based on Liferay’s platform

As one of only a few books on advanced Liferay Portal development Jonas had a LOT of material to cover. My two weeks of experience with Liferay up to this point had only involved deployment, configuration and theme development. After been impressed with the results so far my next three aims were customising the WYSIWYG editor with styles more specific to the site, adding layout templates to support quick deployment of content and some custom portals for integrating our other information management systems. A week later with the book and I have the first two knocked over and am on my way with the portals. Read More »

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Liferay theme release – WinterSky

By karl | Published: June 9, 2009

And now announcing the release of my first Liferay theme. Details about the wordpress theme it is based on is available in my previous post (Liferay Inroads).

Requisite Screenshot

Requisite Screenshot

It has made a perfect intranet theme for our uses. Most appreciated is the simplified interface look.

I have finished most visual touchups. Things left on my to do list are submenu indicators, tools menu rearrangement and rethemeing the chat portal.

If anybody has ideas on integrating the chat portal visuals closer I’d be happy to listen.

DOWNLOAD and INSTALL: The theme should now be available from the theme installer in liferay-5.2.2 installs and the WinterSky theme page on Liferay is here.

Now to work on some new portals. Till next time.

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Liferay inroads

By karl | Published: May 25, 2009

After installing Alfresco and admittedly suffering a few hiccups with it I seem to be making enough progress that I also decided to investigate Liferay as an alternative to Plone as our intranet portal and internal information site.

There are some areas that Plone really does well such as the content type handling and content workflow. But lack of documentation in other areas has left me pulling my hair out at times, such as ldap user and group integration with openldap and active directory, debugging modules and some new gotcha each time something is updated in a buildout.

Liferay has also had a steep learning curve, but I found it no where as bad as Plone. No messing in the ZMI for setting up ldap auth, changing database backends or setting portal defaults. Just one config file. I have found the speed surprising compared to Plone on the same hardware too. With java webapps I have tried in the past I have been left with the impression of them being bloated, memory hungry and slow. But I am slowly coming around thanks to Alfresco and Liferay. Read More »

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