Smart Index / Counter (Pro?)field

[kater]

I'm currently discussing a project where we'd need some sort of automated, smart id/indexing to meet internal documentation standards.

Having this available as premade field may be very useful for many.

1) searchable

2) bind counting to template & case or sitewide

3) allow some smart pattern programming or excel-like logic: like range, steps, numbers, strings, external fields, time, day, month, rules, ....

4) example: invoice_2015-01-25_123_customername

5) optional overrideable with continuation or filling gaps

7) error states for overrides? (like exists, out of range, ...)

8) optional as array if it makes sense (not for me atm).

cheers!

[LostKobrakai]

That's quite a hefty feature set you're talking about, especially with the "smart programming" and "different binding" options. I'm not aware of any similar modules out there, but by now I think you would need to build such a thing by yourself. It doesn't necessarily need to be a new fieldtype as you could also use the existing fields and do the logic in a autoload module, which runs on page save. 

[kater]

Not all are my requirements but possible features.   Certainly a task but I'd always pay for "ryan-certified" pro-fields over some selfmade, non-native solution.

[LostKobrakai]

If it's only about the knowledge, there are more people besides Ryan here on the forums, which have the ability to build such modules. The thing is, there has to be a big  enough market to sell something like this to. But maybe this topic can act as a display for the need of such a module in the community.

[Martijn Geerts]

One possibility is to hook ProcessPageEdit::buildForm and build your wanted values from there. So no need for special fieldtype & Inputfield because it looks like overkill to me. Ps, the code here is not tested and written in the browser, it's more to give you an idea.

<?php

public function init() {
    $this->addHookAfter('ProcessPageEdit::buildForm', $this, 'afterPageEditBuildForm');
}

public function afterPageEditBuildForm(HookEvent $event) {

    $form = $event->return;
    $page = $event->object->getPage();
    $wantend_template = 'your-template'; // make this your template

    if (!$page->id) return;

    // return if wrong template
    $template = $page->template;
    $string = 'invoice_'; // for building your field value
    
    if ($template->name !== $wantend_template) return; // Skip if not wanted template
    
    $fieldnames = array(
        'invoice_date', // Field named invoice_date
        'customer', // Field named customer
        'follow_up', // integer field.
        );
    
    foreach ($fieldnames as $fieldname) {

        // Inputfield
        $obj = $form->getChildByName($fieldname);

        // Build field value
        if ($obj->type == 'FieldtypeDatetime') {
            $string .= strtotime('Y-m-d', $obj->value);
        } else if ($obj->type == 'FieldtypeInteger') {
            /**
             * Make some logic to find the follow_up number field value
             *
             */

            $integer = '123456789'; // calculate it here

            $obj = $form->getChildByName($fieldname);

            if ($obj->value != $integer) {
                $obj->value = $integer;
                $obj->resetTrackChanges();
                $obj->trackChange('value'); 
            }

            $string .= $integer;
   
        } else if ($obj->type == 'FieldtypePage') {
            $string .= $obj->value->name;
        }
    }
    
    // We use the title for your invoice value
    $InputfieldTitle = $form->getChildByName('title');
    $value = $InputfieldTitle->value;
    
    if ($string !== $value) {
        $InputfieldTitle->resetTrackChanges();
        $InputfieldTitle->trackChange('value');
        $InputfieldTitle->value = $string;
    }
}

Edited January 26, 2015 by Martijn Geerts