Objects

Liferay 7.4+

With Liferay Objects, you can build and deliver applications without having to write code or deploy modules. Each application built with Objects is integrated with Liferay’s core frameworks, so you can quickly develop and manage flexible solutions that adapt Liferay DXP to your business needs while maintaining a seamless user experience.

When creating an object definition, you can add data fields, relationships to other definitions, and actions that execute under specified conditions. You can also design layouts and views to determine how fields and relationships appear during entry creation and in the object’s application page.

From the time of creation, all objects are fully integrated with Liferay’s core frameworks to provide a unified experience across the platform and leverage all of Liferay’s capabilities. This includes automatically generating Headless REST APIs for every object, so you can interact with your objects through defined endpoints. These APIs can also be used with the Job Scheduler integration to configure Talend jobs to sync object data dynamically with external systems.

Every object is integrated with Workflows, so you can guide object entry creation through a defined review and approval process. Objects are also integrated with Forms, so you can design forms that map to object fields and receive user input for creating object entries.

Once entries are created, you can leverage Liferay’s Info framework to create dynamic user experiences by displaying object entries with Page Fragments and Display Page Templates. You can also add an object to site pages as a widget.

All objects are integrated with Liferay’s Permissions framework, so you can assign application and resource permissions to manage access to objects and their entries. Together with scoping, role-based access control can help you secure your data and ensure it can only be accessed by the appropriate users.

With Objects, you can also extend and configure system services registered with the Objects framework. This includes adding custom relationships and actions.

See Creating Objects to get started building custom applications or Understanding Object Integrations to learn more about how Objects leverages Liferay’s core frameworks.

Object Types

There are three object types: Custom Objects, Modifiable System Objects, and Unmodifiable System Objects.

Custom Objects are objects you create from scratch and own entirely. All the customizability and features of the objects framework apply to these objects.

Modifiable System Objects are created by Liferay. They are native objects and can benefit from many of the same configurations as custom objects, and can be displayed like custom objects](../displaying-object-entries.md). As the name implies, modifiable system objects are highly customizable. Examples include Liferay’s cookies and Data Set entities.

Unmodifiable System Objects are system objects created with legacy backend frameworks, then integrated with objects to leverage some of its capabilities. They are far less customizable, but you can extend them in certain ways. See Extending System Objects. Examples include Users, Organizations, and Commerce entities.