Using pageListSelectMultiple for categories

[antknight]

I have set up a site that has a news section available for all site editors to post news items. They can select one or more sections using the 'section' field which is a pageListSelectMultiple.

I would like only the news items assigned a particular section to show up in that section. The code I am using on the section page works but I am unsure how it is doing it or whether it is the correct way.

Any feedback is much appreciated.

<?php
$section = $page;
$news = $pages->find("template=news-item, section={$section}, sort=-news_date, limit=5"); 
echo "<ul class='list'>";
foreach($news as $newsitem) {
echo "<li class='list-item'>";
echo "<section>";
echo "<h5><a href='{$newsitem->url}'>{$newsitem->title}</a></h5>";
echo "<em>{$newsitem->news_date}</em>";
echo "</section>";
}      
echo "</ul>";
?>

[adrian]

Looks good to me. The only feedback I have is that you could ditch the first line and replace $section in the second line with $page.

[Macrura]

and aren't you missing the closing </li>; also not sure why you need the section tag within the <li> item, unless you are outputting the full news article text?

[antknight]

Thanks guys. Quite right on all counts. The section tag has been left there from the many copy/paste/delete operations!

[arjen]

You can also ditch the ?>. You don't want any (invisible) characters after the >. I.e. trailing whitespace can lead to "headers already sent" errors. Those are notoriously hard to debug.

Another thing you might consider is using a function. This way you can re-use the function in other templates. This might seem trivial or even more work, but in the long run you benefit when you want to change someting.

function newsList($newsItems)
{
	if (!count($newsItems)) return "There are no news-items found.";
	$out = "";	
	$out .= "<ul class='list'>";
	foreach($news as $newsitem)
	{
		$out .= "<li class='list-item'>";
		$out .= "<section>";
		$out .= "<h5><a href='{$newsitem->url}'>{$newsitem->title}</a></h5>";
		$out .= "<em>{$newsitem->news_date}</em>";
		$out .= "</section>";
		$out .= "</li>";
	}
	return $out;		
}

echo newsList($pages->find("template=news-item, section={$page}, sort=-news_date, limit=5"));

Written in the browser, so not tested but I think you will get the idea.

[kongondo]

And you can even ditch $news in this bit

$news = $pages->find("template=news-item, section={$section}, sort=-news_date, limit=5"); 
.....
foreach($news as $newsitem) 
 

like this...  (assuming you've ditched $section as well)

foreach($pages->find("template=news-item, section={$page}, sort=-news_date, limit=5") as $newsitem) {

//do your stuff
} 

Power of nesting! Recently discovered this. It works a treat. For my testing, I have been leaving both styles in my code, commenting out the first of course, with notes about the second shorter version...for my learning purposes...

//Aside: Btw, dear gurus, does the 2nd style affect performance? Other issues? If too long maybe can cause readability issues...

[antknight]

I'm not sure I completely understand not having the ?> because the content following the PHP snippet is just plain HTML? All my templates look similar in structure to the head.inc included with the PW download.

Otherwise brilliant ideas. I guess learning PHP and ProcessWire is a progressive thing and I will gradually pick up the shortcuts. 

I gave it a go but I think there is something missing from the code

<?php
/*
    Function Name: newsList
    Arguments: $newsItems
    Returns:
*/
function newsList($newsItems)
{
	if (!count($newsItems)) return "There are no news-items found.";
	$out = "";	
	$out .= "<ul class='list'>";
	foreach($news as $newsitem)
	{
		$out .= "<li class='list-item'>";
		$out .= "<h5><a href='{$newsitem->url}'>{$newsitem->title}</a></h5>";
		$out .= "<em>{$newsitem->news_date}</em>";
		$out .= "</li>";
	}
        $out .= "</ul>";
	return $out;		
}

<?php
          include 'functions.php';
          echo newsList($pages->find("template=news-item, section={$page}, sort=-news_date, limit=5"));
          ?>

Should $news be $newsItems?

[diogo]

It's good practice to leave the php tag unclosed in the end of the file because it's not needed at all, and even a simple space after it can cause errors.

[arjen]

You're absolutely right antkinght. Didn't test the code so thanks for pointing that out. For more arguments and reasoning on the closing tag do a little research on Google.