TouchKit 4 app as a Liferay 6.2 portlet

Flow
1

Hi,

We’d like to serve customers with different devices (smartphone, tablet, ordinary PC etc.), and we think Liferay 6.2 with Vaadin Touchkit 4 portlet might be the solution. I am interested in the ProTools subscription, but before I make any investments, I’d like to have answers to my questions: is it hassle-free to deploy a TouchKit 4 application to Liferay 6.2 CE as a portlet, and what are the steps to implement this concept? Thanks in advance.

2

Even if possible, IMHO it would be better to deploy TouchKit app outside of Liferay and integrate with some communication. This will keep resulting application smaller and easier to manage (or You’ll need to build custom theme, modify Liferay jsps etc).

3

Thanks for the answer, Vasil. I was thinking the TouchKit 4 app could use authentication etc. services provided by Liferay. For mobile devices would be of course provided mobile optimized Liferay theme which includes the app in portlet; this portlet would cover maybe 90% of the screen space in small screens (or even 100% after login). Still, it would be nice to use the same app with a “ordinary PC” (mouse, keyboard, bigger screen) on Liferay. Do You think this idea does not make any sense in practice? :slight_smile:

4

Still, I’d use Liferay services with some remote communication mechanism. Even if you optimize Liferay theme, it wouldn’t be enough - you’ll need to remove unnecessary js (and select which are unnecessary) since they are adding additional overhead which is important in mobile apps.

Just my 2 cents.

5

Which version of Liferay You wrote about? We are targeting to Liferay 6.2 CE GA2, which has been marketed as a very mobile friendly platform.

6

Yes, it is. Mostly because of responsive layouts (+bootstrap) and new AlloyUI (lighter). But these technologies are more like vaadin alternatives (Alloy) and not really usable by vaadin application. To summarize:

  1. Not sure if initial requirement is possible (touchkit portlet);
  2. Need to make calculations, but let say it is possible, and Liferay data overhead is 100-120KB. This is insignificant for desktop web page, but for (old) mobiles, with slow network connection, can be a problem.
    Honestly said, I don’t like the performance of Touchkit on my old mobile (vaadin touchkit demos), and placing it in Liferay will not improve situation.
    And again, these are just random thoughts, will be glad if some expert here takes part in the discussion.
7

I think the Liferay Mobile SDK is for me. https://www.liferay.com/community/liferay-projects/liferay-mobile-sdk/overview