Basics of the Control Panel
In the previous section of the book, we have seen that the Control Panel is the admin interface of Liferay. You can create different components and manage several aspects of Liferay using it. In this section, you will get familiar with the Control Panel interface and know that all the components can be created or managed using the Control Panel.
We will also discuss basic configuration, which can be done through the Control Panel. You will learn about detailed configuration in the next chapter, Chapter 4, Knowing Tips and Tricks—Advanced Configuration.
Visiting the Control Panel
Access to the Control Panel is modular. Let's visit the Control Panel and look at its different.
Log in with default admin credentials—test@liferay.com and password: test.
Move the mouse over to the Manage option in the Dockbar and click on Control Panel. This will take you to the Control Panel. You will see the interface displayed as shown in the following screenshot:
It is very easy to navigate through the Control Panel. It is divided into four main sections—Personal, Content, Portal, and Server. Each of the sections contains different links to the portlets. Let's get to know more about each section:
- Personal: The Personal section displays personal information of the logged in user. This is the place where you can view your profile and change your profile information. You can click on different links in this section to get information about your profile.
Every user, whether or not an admin user, will have access to this section.
- Content: The Content section contains links related to Liferay's content management portlets or functions. You will see name of the organization or category in this section with an arrow. When you click on the arrow it will display all the Organizations or Communities created in your portal instance. The content in Liferay has a scope of Organization or Community. It means, if you create content in one community, it will not be visible or accessible in another community or organization.
You can create or manage page, web content, document, image, bookmark, message board, poll, wiki, and so on using this section. Normal user does not have access to this section. A user will need special roles or permission to access this section.
- Portal: The Portal section is normally used by the Portal Admin to create and manage user, user group, organization, communities, roles, and so on. A portal admin can also use this section to configure password policies and do portal-specific settings.
This section cannot be accessed by a normal user. In the majority of cases, only the portal admin has access to this section.
- Server: The Server section is also used by the portal admin to do various configurations related to the server. The admin can do server administration, create virtual portal instances, and install new plugins from this section.
This section is not accessible to a normal user.
To recap our discussion, let's go over the following:
- Control Panel is an admin interface of Liferay.
- It is divided into four main sections. Access to control panel is modular.
- Control Panel can be used to create and/or manage a user, user group, role, organization, community, password policies, authentication options, default user association, server administration, file upload types, and so on.
- Control Panel contains admin portlets. A developer can create new portlets and those portlets can also be added into control panel. This has to be done programmatically and not through configuration.
Now, we will look at the use of some of the most commonly used links in the control panel. We will discuss detailed configuration using the control panel in the next chapter.
The following table describes links and their use:
The list of the links mentioned in the preceding table is only the links which are used very commonly. We will be using these links to create and manage various components of the portal in further chapters of the book.