Set default time for pub_date

14 Posts

chrisderover Reply #1, 13 years, 10 months ago

I wonder if it's possible to change the setting for the pub_date field so it defaults to a certain pre-defined time when a date is selected, for example 9:00 am, instead of the current time.
Any ideas if this is possible?

This question has been answered by chrisderover. See the first response.

[ed. note: chrisderover last edited this post 13 years, 10 months ago.]

534 Posts

exside Reply #2, 13 years, 9 months ago

I think it's possible, but how to do it is another story. What I know is that the pub_date is stored in the database as a unix timestamp, so the splitting up in date and time "pickers" happens in the manager itself and probably with extjs (which is nothing I can help anybody with...unfortunately). The closest I got when searching for the responsible code (for splitting up the timestamp into 2 parts) was in

// /manager/assets/modext/widgets/resource/modx.panel.resource.js line 586
{
            xtype: MODx.config.publish_document ? 'xdatetime' : 'hidden'
            ,fieldLabel: _('resource_publishdate')
            ,description: '<b>[[*pub_date]]</b><br />'+_('resource_publishdate_help')
            ,name: 'pub_date'
            ,id: 'modx-resource-pub-date'
            ,allowBlank: true
            ,dateFormat: MODx.config.manager_date_format
            ,timeFormat: MODx.config.manager_time_format // something here maybe??
            ,startDay: parseInt(MODx.config.manager_week_start)
            ,dateWidth: 120
            ,timeWidth: 120
            ,value: config.record.pub_date
        }

but I don't know if that really would help because that would basically not be the problem if the timestamp was recalculated on saving the resource and just taking the submitted pub_date timestamp and setting it to that date, but on 9:00. So it depends if that 9:00 should be set initially (when no pub_date is set yet) or when one is set by the editor and then saved it should be "reset" to 9:00 (form whatever time the editor has set probably manually...).

I'm not really sure if that is possible because it's not possible to set only a time with a unix timestamp (as far as I know), also when you just pick a time, it will automatically take the actual day.

So what I would try to do is write a plugin that sets the pub_date on OnDocFormPrerender or something similar, the problems I see there are:

the editor needs to check the pub_date every time he edits a resource to be sure it's set correctly.
if a "custom" pub_date" is set, it would be reset to "today at 9:00" every time the resource is edited (could probably be solved by checking if pub_date is empty or not in the plugin and then take different actions ie take todays date with time 9:00 or take the already set date and modifiy only it's time to 9:00)
don't see this work when creating new resources because you cannot access the fields of that new resource before it was saved to the db...

but I would be interested to see your approach if you decide to implement a plugin like that =) [ed. note: exside last edited this post 13 years, 9 months ago.]

24,544 Posts

BobRay Reply #3, 13 years, 9 months ago

Yes, you could definitely do it with a plugin attached to OnDocFormSave.

$timeString = $resource->get('pub_date') should get you the value. I'm not sure if you would have a human-readable date or a unix timestamp at that point.

What you'd do next depends on which form it's in.

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discuss.answer

14 Posts

chrisderover Reply #4, 12 years, 3 months ago

Stumbled upon my own post again after more than a year ;-)
Lost it's priority back then, but a similar question popped up in my mailbox this week, and this time I managed to come up with a solution.

The specific goal this time: Automatically set the time of the unpub_date field to 09:00 AM when selecting a date and saving the resource (By default the current time is entered and has to be changed manually).

I came up with this solution, a plugin that executes OnDocFormSave:

<?php
$template = $resource->get('template'); //get template id
$unpubdate = $resource->get('unpub_date'); //get current unpub_date
if ( !empty($unpubdate) && $template == 11 ) { //only execute when an unpub_date has been entered AND the resource has the desired template
    $date = new DateTime($unpubdate);
    $date->setTime(9, 00, 00); //set desired time
    $newDate =  $date->format('Y-m-d H:i:s');
    $resource->set('unpub_date', $newDate);
    $resource->save();
    }

This works for my case, though I'm by no means a php wizard, so please provide some feedback if this code can be improved (and it probably can).

24,544 Posts

BobRay Reply #5, 12 years, 3 months ago

It looks great. I don't think there's any way to make it significantly faster. You might shave a few milliseconds by reversing the terms in the test, depending on which is more likely, or using the code below, but I'm sure it wouldn't make a noticeable difference (if any).

/* Only execute when an unpub_date has been entered AND the resource has the desired template */
if ( empty($unpubdate) || $template != 11 ) { 
    return;
} else {
    $date = new DateTime($unpubdate);
    $date->setTime(9, 00, 00); //set desired time
    $newDate =  $date->format('Y-m-d H:i:s');
    $resource->set('unpub_date', $newDate);
    $resource->save();
}

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Answered Set default time for pub_date