Getting user's first and last name in Liferay 6.2 velocity template

Question

I'm trying to display something like:

Welcome John Doe

In my Liferay Velocity Based Template which is used in a WebContent on Liferay 6.2 GA1 CE

So far the code i have is the following:

#set ($userLS = $portal.getClass().forName('com.liferay.portal.service.UserLocalServiceUtil'))
#set ($userId = $getterUtil.getLong($request.get("theme-display").get("user-id")))
#set ($user = $userLS.getUserById($userId))

<div class="user-welcome">
    #if($user.isMale())
        <span class="welcome-msg">Bienvenido</span><br>
    #else
        <span class="welcome-msg">Bienvenida</span><br>
    #end
    <span class="username">$user.getFullName() $user.getLastName()</span>
</div>

The errors i'm having are:

1. $user.isMale() always returns false
2. in my span.username the output is the code itself. It doesn't print the value.

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

Edit: The answer to your question upfront, I'll leave the rest of the explanation below:

If you want to access the current user, you can get it from $permissionChecker. So just replace your first three lines with this:

 #set( $user = $permissionChecker.getUser() )

---

Here's my old explanation on why the technique used in your question didn't work:

Check $userLS.getClass().getName(): It's already not resolving properly. The reason most likely is this setting:

#
# Set a comma delimited list of Java classes the Velocity engine cannot have
# access to.
#
velocity.engine.restricted.classes=\
    java.lang.Class,\
    java.lang.ClassLoader,\
    java.lang.Thread

Check this Wiki article to learn about serviceLocator, but be aware that it is - for good reasons - also unavailable from templates.

#
# Set a comma delimited list of variables the Velocity engine cannot
# have access to. This will affect Dynamic Data List templates, Journal
# templates, and Portlet Display templates.
#
velocity.engine.restricted.variables=serviceLocator

If you're the only one writing templates (or if you trust everyone doing so) it's fine to change this configuration in portal-ext.properties: Configure serviceLocator to not be restricted, then call

#set($userLocalService = $serviceLocator.findExceptionSafeService(
    "com.liferay.portal.service.UserLocalService"))

On the positive side: This will ease error handling, as the exceptionSafeService will transparently ignore all exceptions - velocity can't handle them and without this behaviour you'd see no result (and no hint for the error message) at all, should an exception occur ever.