Preview/Discussion: RockDaterange. Fieldtype + Inputfield to easily pick daterange or timerange

[bernhard]

How crazy is that piece of software called ProcessWire?? Exact matches are now possible using the string notation of date ranges. Writing this down and looking at the screenshot I realize that it would make a lot of sense to be consistant in the format when transforming a RockDaterange object into a string and vice versa.

Amount of code necessary to support this? 10 Lines ?

[bernhard]

On 2/23/2020 at 5:02 PM, bernhard said:

Writing this down and looking at the screenshot I realize that it would make a lot of sense to be consistant in the format when transforming a RockDaterange object into a string and vice versa.

I've put huge amounts of work into that module in the last few days. I had to take two steps back to take the next step forward: It turned out, that I needed a more robust and flexible setup when dealing with date ranges. And what I did is - thinking about it now - quite obvious:

A RockDaterange now consists of two RockDatetimes.

I've put a lot of effort into developing the RockDatetime module. It is already available on Github and has lots of examples and docs in the readme: https://github.com/BernhardBaumrock/RockDatetime

Highlights:

// calculating FROM/TO for RockDaterange
case 'hour':
  $from = new RockDatetime("{$obj->date} {$obj->time}:00:00");
  if($isTo) $to = $from;
  else $to = $from->copy()->move("+1 hour");
  break;

// check if FROM starts at 00:00 on that day
if($this->from->equals($this->from->firstOfDay()) ...

// formatting
$d = new RockDatetime("25.02.2020 14:00");
echo $d->format(); // 25.02.2020 14:00
echo $d->format("%A, %d.%m.%y (%H:%M Uhr)"); // Dienstag, 25.02.20 (14:00 Uhr)
echo $d->format(['time' => "%H|%M|%S"]); // 25.02.2020 14|30|00

 

 

I've also totally rebuilt the date parsing engine!

Finding pages using the API

$tpl = "template=event";
$pages->find("$tpl,range=2020"); // find all events in 2020
$pages->find("$tpl,range=2020-02"); // find all events in Feb 2020
$pages->find("$tpl,range=2020-02-26"); // find all events on 26. Feb 2020

// other possible selectors
$pages->find("$tpl,range=2020-02-10 - 2020-02-20");
$pages->find("$tpl,range=2020-02-10 7:30 - 17:30");
$pages->find("$tpl,range=2020-02-10 7 - 9");
$pages->find("$tpl,range=2020-02-10 12:00 - 2020-02-20 18:00");

// find events in Feb 2020 sorted by range duration
$pages->find("$tpl,range=2020-02, sort=-range.duration");

 

Creating pages using the API

$p = new Page();
$p->setAndSave("range", "2020");
// from = 2020-01-01 00:00:00
// _to = 2020-12-31 23:59:59
// to = 2021-01-01 00:00:00

$p->setAndSave("range", "2020-12-24 16:00 - 18:00");
// from = 2020-12-24 16:00:00
// _to = 2020-12-24 17:59:59
// to = 2020-12-24 18:00:00

 

Formatting in action:

// left column
echo $range->format(['date' => "%A, %d.%m.%Y", 'time' => '']);

// right column
echo $range->format(['date' => "%a, %d.%m.%Y"]);

Note that the last date does NOT show "07.03.2020 09:00 - 07.03.2020 12:00" - since the event ends on the same day as it starts we don't show that date again. RockDaterange will take care of all those tedious details!

[gebeer]

1 hour ago, bernhard said:

I've put a lot of effort into developing the RockDatetime module. It is already available on Github and has lots of examples and docs in the readme: https://github.com/BernhardBaumrock/RockDatetime

Thank you so much for all your efforts in putting this together! I'll be using this soon to replace date range logic in 2 live projects that deal with events.

[bernhard]

It would be very easy to create a RockDatetime field based on the core Datetime field but waking up having a RockDatetime object instead of a timestamp. Maybe you want to experiment with that and create a PR?

[gebeer]

54 minutes ago, bernhard said:

t would be very easy to create a RockDatetime field based on the core Datetime field but waking up having a RockDatetime object instead of a timestamp. Maybe you want to experiment with that and create a PR?

I thought I'd just use your new inputfield type ? Won't have time for implementing this before April. If I see room for improvement on your module, I am happy to make a PR. Thanks again!

[bernhard]

RockDatetime is not an Inputfield. It is just a PW module that returns a RockDatetime object you can use for whatever you want. You could use the core InputfieldDatetime though and turn it into a RockDatetime like this:

$d = new RockDatetime($page->getUnformatted('datefield'));
echo $d->format();

Range input/output is not part of RockDatetime!

[bernhard]

@d'Hinnisdaël mentioned in the recent new post that there's a library called "carbon" for managing date/times. I've put together a module to include that library into PW for quick testing if anybody is interested: https://github.com/BernhardBaumrock/RockCarbon

Using this library handling timezones should be quite straightforward. Dates in the DB could be stored in UTC format and displayed based on the users/systems timezone:

[DavidBerlin]

@bernhard

I was playing around with your RockDatetime module and i have problems getting the right locale.
I need german and the the results are all english. Do i have to set language somewhere else other than html lang="de"?

$d = new RockDatetime($event->getUnformatted('event_startdate'));
$format = "Jeden %A, %H:%M Uhr";
echo $d->format($format); // Jeden Thursday, 10:00 Uhr !

 

[dragan]

1 hour ago, DavidBerlin said:

Do i have to set language somewhere else other than html lang="de"?

Well, that's in your HTML. PHP doesn't care about that, or even knows about it ?

Set it somewhere in your template, at the top (if you have a multi-lang setup, you probably need to detect the user language first)
https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.setlocale.php

or globally in site/config.php

[LuisM]

@bernhard I recently installed your RockDateTime module and noticed some strange Errors

I'm sorry, couldnt investigate further for now. 

[bernhard]

Hi @LuisM

Thank you, that's a known issue https://github.com/BernhardBaumrock/RockDatetime/issues/1 and thx to @Jan Romero we already know the reason. I have some more important stuff to do at the moment and I think I'll refactor my module to use the https://carbon.nesbot.com/ library for handling single timestamps as it has everything already done and is well tested and maintained ? 

[michelangelo]

Hello @bernhard, this field looks great! Is it possible for us to use it as well? I would like to implement it in a current project and it seems like it will work perfectly.
I saw the module on github but is the inputField also available?

Edited July 26, 2020 by michelangelo
didn't look through the end of the thread

[gornycreative]

@bernhard Curious, do you still use this module/function? Is it something you plan on submitting as a module to the directory?

[bernhard]

Hi @gornycreative it's used in a production project but I don't have it where I want it to have. And I don't have use for it right now, so it's nothing to happen soon.