Selector with dates and checkboxes

[arjen]

Hi,

I've strangled my brains around - what it seems easy selector issue - but I can't seem to get the right results. The situation is:

I've got a template called 'post' with a checkbox field called 'frontpage' and a date field called 'max_date'. The frontpage checkbox is to let the editor know to place the article on the homepage and the max_date is to give a post an optional maximum date on the frontpage so the post will not show if that date has passed.

On the homepage I would like to load:

The last created 10 posts with the checkbox frontpage checked and if there is a max_date check if it's greated than today otherwise load the post.

The following code works, but won't load the post with no max_date filled in. I could use the ->not() function, but then the limit won't work.

$today = strtotime( date('Y-m-d'));$pages->find("template=post, frontpage=1, max_date>=$today, limit=10, sort=-created");

I'm on PW version 2.2.9.

Any thoughts? Thanks!

edit: I would like to use pagination.

[DaveP]

There is probably a better way just using 1 selector string, but you could do two, and then sort the resulting pagearray -

$my_pages = $pages->find("template=post, frontpage=1, max_date>=$today, limit=10");
$my_pages .= "|" . $pages->find("template=post, frontpage=1, max_date='', limit=10");
$my_pages->sort("-created");

(Written in browser, but should work.)

***Edited since arjen's reply below but still doesn't work. I give up 

Edited February 14, 2013 by DaveP

[arjen]

See post below.

[DaveP]

I have edited my code. As always there are many ways to do the same thing in PW.

As far as pagination goes, you will need a LIMIT clause somewhere, I think.

[arjen]

Thanks DaveP,

I should've noticed that I'm using pagination on the homepage. Your code results in the following id's: 1016|1018|1057|10591020. Notice the last id is missing a pipeline.

Another options would be:

$today = strtotime( date('Y-m-d'));$pages->find("template=post, frontpage=1, max_date>=$today")->add($pages->find("template=post, frontpage=1, max_date=null"));

But then my pagination won't work. If I can get a limit=10 in the selector the pagination will work. Food for thought!

As always there are many ways to do the same thing in PW.
 

True. Thanks for your ideas.

[ryan]

Eventually we will support this type of OR expression in selectors. But currently you can't do this: (max_date>=$today OR max_date=0). So the current strategy of your setup does not lend itself well to pagination in ProcessWire. What I recommend doing instead is one of the following:

• Have a separate checkbox for "frontpage_always" or something like that. When checked, it is always used, regardless of max date setting.
• Rather than checkbox toggles, use page references to provide options like: "Frontpage till max date", "Frontpage always", and possibly others. 

Another thing to note is that you don't need to convert $today to a timestamp (though it doesn't care if you do). You can just pass in the YYYY-MM-DD string and it'll be fine with that too. 

[arjen]

Thanks Ryan, How would you build the selector using the frontpage_always strategy? (Or even the page reference strategy)

$pages->find("template=post, frontpage_always=1, max_date>=$today");

will still only return items with the max_date greather than today. So posts without a date but with the checkbox frontpage_always will be discarded. Thanks for your note about the timestamp thing. Didn't knew that!

Additional:

I think i've found another way to fix this. It feels hackish, but the following seems to work.

$latestPosts = $pages->find("template=post, frontpage=1, max_date>=$today")->add($pages->find("template=post, frontpage=1, max_date=null"));

$pages->find("id=$latestPostsMaxDate, limit=3, sort=-created");

Now both the checkbox and the maximum date seems to work.

[a-ok]

Any update on this? I'd like to show only pages where the date field hasn't passed yet:

<?php $today = strtotime(date('Y-m-d')); $events = $pages->find('parent=/events/, date>$today, sort=date'); ?>

[tpr]

PW recognizes standard PHP date strings as I know, so this should work:

<?php $events = $pages->find('parent=/events/, date>today, sort=date'); ?>

https://processwire.com/api/selectors/