Liferay Search Container Example

Or how to implement a custom search container in Liferay

Overview 

Search Containers are used in Liferay to display the table data. This article shows a simple example of how to implement a custom search container. 

Example

<liferay-portlet:renderURL varImpl="iteratorURL" />

<liferay-ui:search-container total="<%= ProjectLocalServiceUtil.getProjectsCount(scopeGroupId) %>"

                            delta="10"

                            emptyResultsMessage="no-projects-found"

                            iteratorURL="<%=iteratorURL%>">

   <liferay-ui:search-container-results

           results="<%= ProjectLocalServiceUtil.getProjects(scopeGroupId, searchContainer.getStart(), searchContainer.getEnd()) %>"/>

   <liferay-ui:search-container-row className="com.sample.sb.model.Project" modelVar="project" keyProperty="projectId">

       <liferay-ui:search-container-column-text name="project.projectId" value="${project.projectId}" />

       <liferay-ui:search-container-column-text name="project.title" value="${project.title}" />

       <liferay-ui:search-container-column-text name="project.description" value="${project.description}" />

       <liferay-ui:search-container-column-text name="actions.label">

           <liferay-ui:icon-menu direction="left-side" icon="" markupView="lexicon" message="actions" showWhenSingleIcon="<%= true %>">

               <portlet:renderURL var="editProjectURL">

                   <portlet:param name="mvcRenderCommandName" value="/projects/edit_project" />

                   <portlet:param name="projectId" value="<%= String.valueOf(project.getProjectId()) %>" />

               </portlet:renderURL>

               <liferay-ui:icon message="action.edit" url="${editProjectURL}" />

               <portlet:actionURL var="deleteProjectURL" name="/projects/delete_project">

                   <portlet:param name="projectId" value="<%= String.valueOf(project.getProjectId()) %>" />

               </portlet:actionURL>

               <liferay-ui:icon message="action.delete" url="${deleteProjectURL}" />

           </liferay-ui:icon-menu>

       </liferay-ui:search-container-column-text>

   </liferay-ui:search-container-row>

   <liferay-ui:search-iterator markupView="lexicon" />

</liferay-ui:search-container>

Key Points

<liferay-portlet:renderURL varImpl="iteratorURL" /> Defines the URL for iterator (pagination);

<liferay-ui:search-container/> defines basic search container properties:

• total - total count of entities;
• delta - items per page by default;
• emptyResultsMessage - the message, which should be displayed, when no results found;
• iteratorUrl - the URL for iterator;

<liferay-ui:search-container-results/> defines the results for the current page (in “results” attribute).

<liferay-ui:search-container-row/> defines information about the entity displayed in the search container:

• className - entity class name;
• modelVal - local variable for the entity object;
• keyProperty - entity key property (usually the primary key in database);

<liferay-ui:search-container-column-text/> defines column information:

• name - the caption of column;
• value - the cell value;

<liferay-ui:search-iterator markupView="lexicon" /> renders the paginator in the bottom.

Enjoy 😏