How to access custom portlet services in velocity template

By default we will have following property which won't allow us to use serviceLocator variable in velocity templates.

    #
    # Input a comma delimited list of variables which are restricted from the
    # context in Velocity based Journal templates.
    #
    journal.template.velocity.restricted.variables=serviceLocator


In order to access you need to change that property as below


journal.template.velocity.restricted.variables=


Default findServce(serviceName)  method (what we normally use) searches @ portal level where as other one with extra parameter as shown here  findService(servletContextName, serviceName) searches @ particular portlet level

TO add more to it here are the method signatures & implementations in ServiceLocator.java

        public Object findService(String serviceName) {
                Object bean = null;

                try {
                        bean = PortalBeanLocatorUtil.locate(_getServiceName(serviceName));
                }
                catch (Exception e) {
                        _log.error(e, e);
                }

                return bean;
        }


        public Object findService(String servletContextName, String serviceName) {
                Object bean = null;

                try {
                        bean = PortletBeanLocatorUtil.locate(
                                servletContextName, _getServiceName(serviceName));
                }
                catch (Exception e) {
                        _log.error(e, e);
                }

                return bean;
        }


HoW tO uSe


Suppose i have an custom Entity named MyEntity(defined through service.xml)


#set ($myEntityService = $serviceLocator.findService("", "com.rnd.common.portlet.service.MyEntityLocalService"))


I have a column named count under MyEntity, i can access as below


#set ($count =$myEntityService.getCount())


$count 


Hope that helps :)


Please feel free to add your comments. Cheers