The global culture is no longer text based.  We are visually driven by pictures, video, drawings, and related content.  One of the reasons is because visuals really do help make concepts easier to understand.  Liferay picked up on this idea when they announced via Dr. Dobb’s: The World of Software Development that “Liferay Developer Studio Adds Visual Workflow Designer.”  Liferay’s Developer Studio is based on Eclipse and its most recent update 1.6.0 has a new tool that provides workflow development support for Java programmers.  Java is one of the universal web coding languages, so it is about time that Liferay came out with the upgrade.
Here is what Java programmers can now do:

Kaleo Designer for Java publishes workflows in a visual editor using ‘new or existing’ workflow definitions retrieved from a previous installation. Developers can create workflow scripts in a Java/Groovy editor that provides Liferay API access, code assistance, code validation, and syntax-as-you-type error checking in a familiar Eclipse-based environment.  The firm confirms that a notification editor has also been included here to allow developers to create workflow notifications using Liferay Portal context variables in both FreeMarker and Apache’s Velocity.

Sounds like a much needed upgrade that will benefit Liferay users and developers.  Another thing to consider when upgrading your Liferay portal package, is adding a powerful open source search such as LucidWorks.

Whitney Grace, September 24, 2012

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.