How about putting the date in the alias field with dashes instead of slashes?
You could write a utility snippet that would do it for you.
There is an idea I hadn’t though of, though this will need to be dead simple for my client to be able to do it (Ideally it would be done automatically)
I’m a programmer by trade, so I’ll see what I can come up with. Any documentation about creating utility snippets?
I didn’t mean to imply that there was such a thing as a utility snippet. It would be a regular snippet, but would just alter the database rather than producing output for site visitors (although you’d probably want it to print feedback on what it was doing).
Essentially, it would just walk through the modx_site_content table (using the MODx DB:API) and use the createdon field to generate what you want, put it in the alias field, and update the DB.
BTW, a plugin could do this for new documents (filling the alias field automatically from now()) -- though that would be trickier -- so the client wouldn’t have to be involved at all.
I’d suggest some code, but there are people here a lot better than me at date manipulation and DB interaction.
I’m great with the PHP date functions and database stuff. As stated, I do this for a living. I’m simply new to the world of Modx (Recommended to me by this client)
So, I need a plugin that will run after the content is created or edited. Said plugin will read the published on date and alter the entry with a new alias automatically. So I guess I only have 2 questions:
1. How do I create a plugin that runs automatically when content is saved (Or a link to a plugin that already does this would work..I could work backwards from it)
2. What variables would I access to get to the content ID and published date?
I’m not sure, but I think you’d want your plugin to listen for the OnBeforeDocFormSave event and all you’d need are the the ’alias’ field and either the ’createdon’ or ’publishedon’ fields (depending on whether you want the date it was first saved, or the date when it last changed from unpublished to published).
The fields should be available at that point as $_POST[’fieldname’] and if you change that it should do what you want -- I know it works in MODx Revolution.
$pubdate = $_post['publishedon'];
// your code here to create the $output string from $pubdate
$_POST['alias'] = $output;
Note that this wouldn’t effect any documents until you edited and saved them. The utility snippet I described above would reset all of them.
Also, I’m not sure it would work with new documents since the publishedon date might not be set at that point. If so, you could detect that (empty($_POST[’publishedon’]) ) and use time() to generate the contents of the alias field. You’d only want to do that if $_POST[’published’] == ’1’.
Thank you for the detailed information. I assume plugins are easily transferred to upgrades...?
Another question - Should I choose to simply do friendly URLs and NOT modify the alias, will Modx automatically detect if there is an identical title (IE /news/article-title.html) and auto-correct that? Just curious how the system handles that particular situation.
Thanks again. I’ll look more at the plugin docs later tonight.
I just looked at the plugin docs and this is going to be a breeze. Just 30 seconds of coding should do exactly what I need to do.
Thank you for your direction here.
Now you seew why programmers love MODx.
Any plugins you create won’t be touched on upgrade.
MODx won’t mess with the aliases and collisions could be a problem with friendly aliases on. You could avoid collisions by adding the pagetitle or some other field (ID probably isn’t available at that point for new docs) into the alias somewhere.
Indeed - I’ve already coded what I need it to do and it’s working perfectly (Collisions and all)
Now my next question, since I’ve got you here - I need to GREATLY simplify the manager interface for my client. For example, for entering a news article, I only need her to see 2 fields - Title and Text (I assume here somehow renaming the title and content fields would be appropriate) - Everything else can be hidden, as it will simply confuse her. Then, for say, a testimonials section, those fields might be testimonial subject, testimonial submitter, testimonial text. I found ManagerManager, which *appears* to do what I’m looking to do, but I so far am having no luck getting it to work. It’s installed and activated, and I’ve copied the default rules into the rules file, but I see no changes when editing page contents. Any tips or links for this one?
Thanks again. I’m liking this more and more.
