Tag: smarty

A Simple Smarty Modifier to Generate a Chart Through Google Chart API

After the longest title of my blog so far follows one of the shortest posts.

The function has two required parameters – the first one is provided automagically for you by smarty (it’s the value of the variable you’re applying the modifier to). This should be an array of objects containing the value you want to graph. The only required argument you have to provide to the modifier is the method to use for fetching the values for graphing.

Usage:
{$objects|googlechart:”getValue”}

This will dynamically load your plugin from the file modifier.googlechart.php in your Smarty plugins directory, or you can register the plugin manually by calling register_modifier on the template object after you’ve created it.

function smarty_modifier_googlechart($points, $method, $size = "600x200", $low = 0, $high = 0)
{
    $pointStr = '';
    $maxValue = 0;
    $minValue = INT_MAX;
    
    foreach($points as $point)
    {
        if ($point->$method() > $maxValue)
        {
            $maxValue = $point->$method();
        }

        if ($point->$method() < $minValue)
        {
            $minValue = $point->$method();
        }
    }

    if (!empty($high))
    {
        $maxValue = $high;
    }

    $scale = 100 / $maxValue;

    foreach($points as $point)
    {
        $pointStr .= (int) ($point->$method() * $scale) . ',';
    }

    $pointStr = substr($pointStr, 0, -1);

    // labels (5)
    $labels = array();

    $steps = 4;
    $interval = $maxValue / $steps;

    for($i = 0; $i < $steps; $i++)
    {
        $labels[] = (int) ($i * $interval);
    }

    $labels[] = (int) $maxValue;

    return 'http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=lc&chd=t:' . $pointStr . '&chs=' . $size . '&chxt=y&chxl=0:|' . join('|', $labels);
}

The function does not support the short version of the Google Chart API Just Yet (tm) as it is an simple proof of concept hack made a few months ago.

A Plugin for Paginating in Smarty

First I’d like to apologize for the lack of updates here in the last weeks, but the days have been very busy. I’ve bought a new car (more details about that as soon as the snow disappears), written a complete publishing platform from scratch in a weekend to help out when Gamer.no got in trouble and in general done a load of stuff. Anyways, this post isn’t about all that, but rather something else I wrote some time ago.

A use case you’ll encounter very often is the act of paginating items, i.e. including a simple “jump to page x, jump to the next page, jump to the previous page” footer. If you’ve ever tried to implement the logic around this in your view, you know that it can get quite extensive. You have several other solutions, such as the PEAR_Pager, which actually looks like a good solution now (with 2.x). Anyways, this is a plugin for Smarty to make generating pagination links easier.

Download the plugin, drop it into your plugins/ folder in your Smarty library directory, and voilá, you have access to the new {paginator} element.

The module is quite configurable, but as I’ve only extended the parts I’ve had use for it our projects, it may still lack a few simple keys.

{paginator hits=$hits offset=$offset total_hits=$articlesFound class_inactive=paginatorInactive class_active=paginatorActive}

The template variables used here are hits, the number of hits shown on this page, offset, the offset from 0 and total_hits, the total number of available hits in the current list. By default the plugin appends ?hits=<hits>&offset=<offset>+<hits> to the current URL, you can give another URL through the url attribute. The class_ attributes provide the CSS classes to use for the elements that enclose the page numbers or links. See the source code (!) for more information about attributes which work.

As I mentioned previously, the plugin is written for my own personal use, so it’s not as streamlined as it could be. Feel free to update it, dissect it, break it, claim it’s yours .. or anything. I’d be happy if you submit any patches to me so I can update the link here, or simply leave a comment.

Hack aways! You can see the plugin in action at the bottom of lovethatfun.com.