Dito and atom: ordering by publish date

I’ve a call:

[[Ditto? &startID=`449,333,231,125,55` &orderBy=`pub_date DESC` &format=`atom` &tpl=`atom_tpl` &summarize=`20` &total=`20`]]

and the template chunk has placeholders:

<entry>
<title>[+atom_escaped_pagetitle+]</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="[+url+]" />
<author><name>[+atom_author+]</name></author>
<id>[+url+]</id>
<updated>[+atom_editedon+]</updated>
<published>[+atom_createdon+]</published>
<content type="xhtml"><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">[+content+]</div></content>
</entry>


But I can’t find placeholder for publish date and atom. The result seem to be that the entries order themselves by the edited date, rather than publish date. Any ideas how I might change this?

Your code is not sorting by "pub_date" database field because this field is not retrieved by Ditto at all for the purpose of generating atom’s output item. In order to do such sorting, you need to extend/modify "atom.format.inc.php" in your MODx installation: 1) add/introduce placeholder for pub_date, 2) add date conversion function for introduced placeholder (atom rss uses its own format instead of Unix timestamp), 3) add placeholder to tpl, 4) finally test. I did for you steps 1-3 in attached "atom.format.inc.txt" (rename it to .php and place in correct location of your MODx installation; all my intrusions are marked with #### ...added/modified stuff... ##). You need to do step 4. Please let me know whether it works or not.

Another way is to add "atom_date", like rss_date, as a parameter for the template, too bad we have to touch the source...



then you can set dateSource in Ditto to pub_date like you would for rss format. you can just add that line at line 46 to atom.format.inc.php.

Thanks both: I’ll try these and post how I get on. Sorry I’ve not replied sooner!