Automatic title field from date field

Kirby 3 Solved ✅
1

I’m trying to create a kind of blog where page titles are not really used. Since the title is required for every page, I thought it might be a good idea to auto-generate it from the date. I’m wondering if this is possible.

I have set up this hook in config.php:

<?php

return [
    'debug' => true,
    'hooks' => [
        'page.create.after' => function ($page) {
            if ($page->template() == 'entry') {
                $newTitle = $page->createdAt()->toDate('l, j F Y');
                $page->changeTitle($newTitle);
                $page->changeSlug(str::slug($newtitle))
            }
        }
    ]
];

However this results in a blank page (frontend and backend). What am I doing wrong?

2

Wouldn’t it make more sense to use the Custom Add field plugin?

3

Ah right, I see how I can use this plugin to set the title automatically by skipping the dialog.

I am just curious, though, was there something wrong with my hook? Because I would also like to automatically change a page status to listed, but $page->changeStatus('listed') does not work.

In any case thank you!

4

Should be page.create:after, with a colon.

5

Ah right, of course. It still leads to a blank page, but I guess for the title I can just use the plugin. However, since $page->changeStatus('listed') also doesn’t work, I must be doing something wrong. I haven’t been able to find any examples in the docs of how to actually write one of these hooks, so maybe I’m looking in the wrong place.

6

There’s also a semi-colon missing after that line…

Other than that, $page->changeStatus('listed'); should work just fine.

7

This works! Only after the page creation, the title is changed, but the panel still tries to send me to the old page, which then is not found. Is there a way for the hook to redirect me to the new page?

8

Hm, that’s strange, if you change the slug, yes, but changing the title only shouldn’t have such an effect. Are you using the plugin now?

9

This is without the plugin—just changing the title and slug with the hook that I wrote. I suppose I could leave out changing the slug so that it would still work.

10

Yes, changing the slug from a hook is not such a great idea, because there is no way to redirect to the new location within the hook.

11

Ah right, thanks.

12

That’s why I suggested using the plugin… gives you more freedom without having to use page.create:after hooks.

13

Yep, I am probably going to use both—the plugin for the title/slug and the hook to change the status to listed. In any case, thank you again for all your help!

1 Like
14

Sorry to bother you again, but I was thinking setting the title and slug as a unix timestamp would work—they would function kind of like UUIDs. So I’ve been trying to enforce this for all posts, through a page.update:after hook. However, slugs and titles do not seem to change with the code below. Am I doing something wrong?

<?php

return [
    'debug' => true,
    'hooks' => [
        'page.create:after' => function ($page) {
            if ($page->template() == 'entry') {
                $page->changeStatus('listed');
            }
        },
        'page.update:after' => function ($newPage, $oldPage) {
            if ($newPage->template() == 'entry') {

                $oldTitle = $newPage->title();
                $newTitle = $oldPage->createdAt()->toTimestamp();
                $newSlug  = str::slug($newTitle);

                try {

                  $updatedPage = page($oldTitle)->update([
                    'title' => $newTitle,
                    'slug'  => $newSlug, 
                  ]);

                  echo 'The page has been updated:';

                } catch(Exception $e) {

                  echo $e->getMessage();

                }
            }
        }
    ]
];
15

This doesn’t make sense, should be $newPage->update(). The $oldTitle variable is not needed here.

You will run into the same issue as before when updating the slug from the hook…

16

Ah of course. Thank you!

However with $newPage->update() nothing seems to happen either…

You will run into the same issue as before when updating the slug from the hook…

Right—I wasn’t sure if this would happen, so I thought I would try it out and see what happens.

17

Sorry, I’m not fully awake yet, to change the slug, you have to use $page->changeSlug()and $page->changeTitle() to change the title.

18

That’s what I had been trying before:

<?php

return [
    'debug' => true,
    'hooks' => [
        'page.create:after' => function ($page) {
            if ($page->template() == 'entry') {
                $page->changeStatus('listed');
            }
        },
        'page.update:after' => function ($newPage, $oldPage) {
            if ($newPage->template() == 'entry') {

                $oldTitle = $newPage->title();
                $newTitle = $oldPage->createdAt()->toTimestamp();
                $newSlug  = str::slug($newTitle);

                try {

                  $newPage->changeTitle($newTitle);
                  $newPage->changeSlug($newSlug);

                  echo 'The page has been updated:';

                } catch(Exception $e) {

                  echo $e->getMessage();

                }
            }
        }
    ]
];

However nothing seems to change.

19

Hm, I think using a page model which overrides the create() method probably makes more sense here than the hooks. Don’t know if it works with the before hook as suggested by @distantnative

20

Good luck and happy holidays!

1 Like