Trying to get a plug in to appear anywhere within an article

timcs · **Joined:** Wed Jan 16, 2008 10:13 am **Posts:** 62

A friend of mine is putting together a plug in for me for my site. This works by entering a reference in an article so that it appears against it.

However looking at the tutorial and examples + trying to find answers in the documantation, we are struggling to get the reference to appear where ever it is enter in that article. Instead because we have tried OnBeforeContent event and OnAfterContent event these just make it appear either at the top or bottom of the article.

Which event is needed to achieve the above?

infograf768 · **Posted:** Fri Nov 06, 2009 8:35 am

Have you tried onPrepareContent ?

timcs · **Joined:** Wed Jan 16, 2008 10:13 am **Posts:** 62

infograf768 wrote:

Have you tried onPrepareContent ?

I may be doing some wrong here because when I use OnPrepareContent , I get no image now in the article (which is what replaces the reference that is entered)

We are doing :

Code:

$mainframe->registerEvent('onPrepareContent', 'pluginFunction');

Followed by :

Code:

function pluginfunction (&$article, &$params, $limitstart=0)

Is this right?

infograf768 · **Posted:** Fri Nov 06, 2009 11:33 am

( &$row, &$params, $page=0 )

timcs · **Joined:** Wed Jan 16, 2008 10:13 am **Posts:** 62

infograf768 wrote:

( &$row, &$params, $page=0 )

I have changed the pluginfunctions to the above but now the reference that is entered in the article is being displayed instead of the image, I assume this is down to the return value which currently

return $output

infograf768 · **Posted:** Fri Nov 06, 2009 4:30 pm

Difficult to help more without knowing what exactly this plugin is supposed to do.
Can you attach here?

timcs · **Joined:** Wed Jan 16, 2008 10:13 am **Posts:** 62

The plug in is replacing a reference {rating}<number>{/rating} with a set of images. On the first attempt the code was set to this at the start:

Code:

defined('_JEXEC') or die('Restricted access');
jimport('joomla.event.plugin');

$mainframe->registerEvent('onBeforeDisplayContent', 'getRating');

global $css_added;

function getRating (&$article, &$params, $limitstart=0)
{
  /** start of function **/
}

But this just put the rating at the top of the article whereas I need it to be where ever the reference is placed within the article.

Then we changed it thinking you meant us to do this :

Code:

defined('_JEXEC') or die('Restricted access');
jimport('joomla.event.plugin');

$mainframe->registerEvent('onPrepareContent', 'getRating');

global $css_added;

function getRating (&$article, &$params, $limitstart=0)

You then pointed out that the parameters for the function should be

Code:

( &$row, &$params, $page=0 )

so we changed it to this :

Code:

defined('_JEXEC') or die('Restricted access');
jimport('joomla.event.plugin');

$mainframe->registerEvent('onPrepareContent', 'getRating');

global $css_added;

function getRating ( &$row, &$params, $page=0 )

However this just showed the reference e.g. {rating}4{/rating} instead of the images on the page.

So is it a case of actually using the OnPrepareContent function in the plugin and then within that, have the code to find and replace the e.g. {rating}5{/rating} to an image?

ooffick · **Posted:** Sat Nov 07, 2009 12:47 pm

Did you enable the plugin as well?
Did you install the plugin? Or did you just copy the files to the server?

Olaf

infograf768 · **Posted:** Sat Nov 07, 2009 5:19 pm

Quote:

So is it a case of actually using the OnPrepareContent function in the plugin and then within that, have the code to find and replace the e.g. {rating}5{/rating} to an image?

Yes, call the regex then one can use a replacer or do it directly in the function.
Look at the way core content plugins are made.

Example with a simple replacer

Code:

function getRating ( &$row, &$params, $page=0 )
{
// simple performance check to determine whether plugin should process further
   if ( JString::strpos( $row->text, 'rating' ) === false ) {
      return true;
   }   
// Get plugin info
   $plugin =& JPluginHelper::getPlugin('content', 'getrating');

   // define the regular expression for the plugin
   $regex = "#{rating}(.*?){/rating}#s";
   
$pluginParams = new JParameter( $plugin->params );

   // check whether plugin has been unpublished
   if ( !$pluginParams->get( 'enabled', 1 ) ) {
   $row->text = preg_replace( $regex, '', $row->text );
return true;
}

   // perform the replacement
   $row->text = preg_replace_callback( $regex, 'getRating_replacer', $row->text );

   return true;
}

function getRating_replacer ( &$matches) {
$plugin =& JPluginHelper::getPlugin('content', 'getrating');
$pluginParams = new JParameter( $plugin->params ); // if you have parameters
$rate = $matches[1];
if ($rate == 1) {
$text=...
} else if...

etc.
}
return $text;
}

Hope this helps.

timcs · **Joined:** Wed Jan 16, 2008 10:13 am **Posts:** 62

Quote:

Did you enable the plugin as well?
Did you install the plugin? Or did you just copy the files to the server?

I did enable the plugin and I installed it from a zip file with all the required files inside that zip file using the administrator plug in install method. Its the same as i would do any other component,module,plugin if that helps.

infograf768 wrote:

Quote:

So is it a case of actually using the OnPrepareContent function in the plugin and then within that, have the code to find and replace the e.g. {rating}5{/rating} to an image?

Yes, call the regex then one can use a replacer or do it directly in the function.
Look at the way core content plugins are made.

Example with a simple replacer

Code:

function getRating ( &$row, &$params, $page=0 )
{
// simple performance check to determine whether plugin should process further
   if ( JString::strpos( $row->text, 'rating' ) === false ) {
      return true;
   }   
// Get plugin info
   $plugin =& JPluginHelper::getPlugin('content', 'getrating');

   // define the regular expression for the plugin
   $regex = "#{rating}(.*?){/rating}#s";
   
$pluginParams = new JParameter( $plugin->params );

   // check whether plugin has been unpublished
   if ( !$pluginParams->get( 'enabled', 1 ) ) {
   $row->text = preg_replace( $regex, '', $row->text );
return true;
}

   // perform the replacement
   $row->text = preg_replace_callback( $regex, 'getRating_replacer', $row->text );

   return true;
}

function getRating_replacer ( &$matches) {
$plugin =& JPluginHelper::getPlugin('content', 'getrating');
$pluginParams = new JParameter( $plugin->params ); // if you have parameters
$rate = $matches[1];
if ($rate == 1) {
$text=...
} else if...

etc.
}
return $text;
}

Hope this helps.

Cheers for this help infograf768, I know my friend has done a similar thing but I not sure if it is exactly as you have done here. I am sure this will help , thanks again for your help.

timcs · **Joined:** Wed Jan 16, 2008 10:13 am **Posts:** 62

Just an update for all who helped here, my friend as now resolved this part of the problem and has gone on to improve this further.

He may soon , once completed, add this to the extentions directory so look out for it !

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