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Liferay makes your Web look like a Mac

The winning theme (or skin) mimics the look-and-feel of the Apple Macintosh OS
Written by Dana Blankenhorn, Inactive

LiferayLiferay has finished its contest for new ideas that make its Linux-based enterprise portal sing.

The winner was the Apple Macintosh.

Principal consultant Brian Cheung said the winning theme (or skin) mimics the look-and-feel of the Apple Macintosh OS. "It even has the icon tray at the bottom, which expands when you mouse over it. They used javascript to do it. They also incorporated drag and drop."

Enterprises use portals as front-ends on their Intranets because they deliver both personalization and security, Cheung says. "For the user there’s extended flexibility, being able to designate which applications they use and where they show up, how they’re viewed, the features of each that show up. From the administrator point of view there’s greater control and flexibility in laying out the site, how functions are propagated, and security."

Liferay is offered under the MIT License, a version of the BSD Cheung says offers enterprises enormous flexibility. "There is an initiative from open source companies to whittle down the number of licenses and make the language of those licenses easier to understand. From our perspective, we’ve always touted the flexibility of our license. You could repackage Liferay, give it a new name, put it in a box and sell it, and our license allows that."

And if you don't like the Mac, that's cool, too. "You can make Liferay look however you want it to. The great thing is these themes are hot-droppable, with the click of a mouse you can change from one to another. That’s more than you can even say with Windows."

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