AssetFileModified v1.0.5

Details

Enables publishing of assets and/or asset metadata, sorted by actual upload time!

Can't we already do that?

No.

Current functionality

The current version of the plugin does the following:

• Schema modification upgrade and existing asset survey: Perform an upgrade procedure which creates a file_mtime column in the mt_asset table and populates each asset record with the modification time of the file it represents. (n.b.: If you have a lot of assets, you may want to use the command line script MT_HOME/tools/upgrade).

• mt:Assets sorting by assetfile modified time: The file_mtime column is indexed which means template designers can use it to sort mt:Assets: <mt:Assets sort_by="file_mtime">

• Provides a template block tag, mt:AssetsUploaded, which is exactly like mt:Assets except more predictable, well-behaved and has fewer characters to type.

• Provides a standard MT date template tag, mt:AssetFileModified, which outputs the file modification time in your desired format for the asset in context.

• Each time an asset is uploaded (both new assets and overwrites) this plugin sets the file_mtime value accordingly in the asset record.

• When a user navigates to an asset listing screen, the plugin ensures that all assets on the current page of the listing also have a populated value for file_mtime.

• When a user navigates to any asset editing screen, the plugin flushes the file_mtime value and re-reads it from the filesystem. This provides a way to force-refresh an asset's file_mtime property which may be needed if the asset is replaced or modified directly on the filesystem.

INSTALLATION

Unzip the download archive. Move the resulting folder to $MT_HOME/plugins/ (where $MT_HOME is your MT or Melody application directory).

If you use Git, you can do the following:

cd $MT_HOME/plugins
git clone git://github.com/endevver/mt-plugin-assetfile-modified.git

METHODS

All of the following methods can be found in the AssetFileModified package.

hdlr_asset_file_modified($ctx, $args)

This method is the handler for the mt:AssetFileModified template tag which returns the modification timestamp (mtime) of the file represented by the asset in context.

Attributes

• Same as mt:Date

Example

The following:

<mt:Assets><mt:AssetLabel> was uploaded <mt:AssetFileModified relative="1">
</mt:Assets>

Could be used to output something like this:

IMG_1195.JPG was uploaded 1 hour ago
IMG_1194.JPG was uploaded 3 days ago
n599367413_1714467_7256.jpg was uploaded 3 months ago
ohhai.jpg was uploaded Dec 23 2009

hdlr_assets_uploaded($ctx, $args)

This method is the handler for the mt:AssetsUploaded block tag which is provided simply as a shorter way of writing:

<mt:Assets sort_by="file_mtime" sort_order="descend">
    [...]
</mt:Assets>

Attributes

After applying the sort paramters and loading the assets, this method hands them off to the mt:Assets handler method to do the rest of the work. Because of that, mt:AssetsUploaded supports all of the same attributes and attribute values as mt:Assets and produces the exact same results.

NOTE: Using a sort_by value with mt:AssetsUploaded will not override file_mtime but instead be applied as a secondary sort:

<mt:AssetsUploaded sort_by="somefield">

becomes

<mt:Assets sort_by="file_mtime,somefield">

on_upload( $cb, %params )

This method is the handler for the cmsuploadfile.file callback which is triggered whenever a file is uploaded via the CMS. It ensures that all newly uploaded files (including replacements of existing files) have a file_modified property.

cb_list_assets_param( $cb, $app, $param, $tmpl )

This method is a template param callback handler for the list_assets mode. It is triggered anytime a user navigates to an asset listing screen at which point it ensures that all assets on the current page of the listing have a C property stored in their asset metadata record.

This is mostly just backup for the upgrade script. Probably isn't necessary anymore....

cb_edit_asset_param( $cb, $app, $param, $tmpl )

This method is a template param callback handler for the edit_asset mode. It is triggered anytime a user navigates to an asset's editing screen at which point it flushes the C property of the asset and causes it to be read again from the file system.

This provides a way to force-refresh an asset's file_modified property which may be needed if the asset is replaced or modified directly on the filesystem. Since this plugin only updates the C property upon upload through the CMS (for performance reasons), such manipulations would not be automatically recognized by the system.

upgrade_set_file_modified( $upgrader_app )

This method is the upgrade handler for the plugin which is responsible for populating the file_modified property for all asset records.

$asset->file_modified

This method provides the file_mtime value for the asset in question or does the work of deriving it and saving it back into the asset record when necessary. Passing undef as the only argument will flush and refresh the value cached in the database:

my $new_mtime = $asset->file_modified(undef);   # Already saved!

LIMITATIONS

This plugin does not currently have the capability to automatically detect direct modification of asset files on the filesystem.

HELP, BUGS AND FEATURE REQUESTS

If you are having problems installing or using the plugin, please check out our general knowledge base and help ticket system at help.endevver.com.

Compatibility

Movable Type versions: 4.3

License

Perl Artistic