GDmac

Sharing on the mobile platform

Many smartphone users (probably most) use dedicated apps for their social sharing. However, when clicking on a share button on websites, the user is redirected to the website instead of to the app for twitter and facebook. This document tries to offer an alternative route for sharing on mobile.

User story and technique

1. When a user clicks the share button for the first time
   ask if he/she wants to use an app or to go to the website.
   Use local storage (jstorage) or cookies to store user preferences.
2. When the user wants to use the app, use a small script to verify

GDmac

ProtectedPages extension

Make sections of your site (template) accessible to members only.

Quick Setup

Create a template with a loginform and the processform tag. The form should at least provide username, password and action. e.g.:

GDmac

<?php

$req = parse_url($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']);

// querystring
isset($req['query']) ? parse_str($req['query'], $req['query_arr']) : $req['query_arr'] = array();

// route
$req['route'] = substr($_SERVER['PHP_SELF'], strlen($_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME']));

GDmac

[select name="category[]" id="categories" multiple="multiple"]
{exp:gwcode_categories channel="locations_channel" style="linear"}
    {if "{new_group}"=="yes"}
      {if {cat_count}>1}
        [/optgroup]
      {/if}
      [optgroup label="{cat_group_name}"]
    {/if}
    [option value="{cat_id}"]{cat_name}[/option]
{/exp:gwcode_categories}

GDmac

{!--
// -----------------------------------------------------------------------
// template_group/fullcal_demo

--}
<script type='text/javascript'>
// for start_on and stop_before parameters format 2011-12-25 13:00
function myDate(d) {
  return d.getFullYear() + '-' +
    (d.getMonth() < 9 ? '0' : '') + (d.getMonth()+1) + '-' +

GDmac

$query = "
SELECT 
  c.cat_id, cat_name, count(t.status) AS count_posts
FROM 
  exp_categories c
LEFT JOIN exp_category_posts AS p  
  ON p.cat_id = c.cat_id  
    LEFT JOIN exp_channel_titles AS t
      ON t.entry_id = p.entry_id
      AND t.status != 'closed'

GDmac

/* ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 * This fetches the header only for a remote page.
 * 
 * Pro's:
 * - when fetching static stuff (images, css, html)
 *   you can first compare modified date or statuscode (304) 
 *
 * Con's:
 * - hitting a heavy webapp with dynamic content might be slow,
 *   you essentially hit the remote page two times

GDmac

/* Event Helper, set an event to april first
 * it won't show in the channel:entries
 * but the archive wil show an entry for april
 */

{exp:channel:entries channel="events" 
  dynamic='no' 
  year='2012' month='04'
  show_expired='yes' show_future_entries="yes"
}

GDmac

ExpressionEngine Snippets

Safe_cracker Select author

<select name="author_id">
  {exp:query sql="SELECT member_id AS member_author_id, username AS member_username, screen_name AS member_screen_name FROM exp_members"}
  <option value="{member_author_id}" {if member_author_id == author_id}selected="selected"{if:elseif  member_author_id == logged_in_member_id}selected="selected"{/if}>{member_screen_name}</option>
  {/exp:query}

GDmac

main template

{preload_replace:preload_trick="preload_replace"}
{embed="group/template" preload='{{preload_trick}:pre_url_title="special"}'}

embedded template

if called via embed you can override the preload_replace once more.
It will insert the embed-variable and parse it early.

{embed:preload}
{if segment_3==""}{preload_replace:pre_url_title="fallback"}{/if}