In list view in the calendar, how do I access a global variable calculated in a <cms:php> section?

Background: I'm using Couch to set up a calendar for special events on a restaurant's website. For easy data entry and for display to the public, I'm using informal times in text such as 10am, 10:30am, 11am, etc.

I want to provide an "Add to Calendar" button for site visitors using addtocalendar.js from http://addtocalendar.com. This requires a datestamp formatted as Y-m-d H:i:s, e.g., 2017-06-23 14:30:00. I also want a "Make Reservation" button going to Opentable, which needs the time formatted more or less similarly.

In my template, I can use <cms:php> and global and CTX commands to convert the informal time to a global variable with the exact formatted time (modified from viewtopic.php?f=4&t=8173&view=next#p14479). When I display an individual page, I simply combine the Y-m-d of the event date with the H:i:s of the formatted time and this works fine. This method also works on an archive page where I list all the events for the month (without any calendar grid).

I like offering both the archive list view and the calendar grid view, and want to allow site visitors to switch between the two. I set up buttons to do this, but I didn't like the slowness of loading a page whenever I clicked on a button to switch to the other view. A much faster alternative is to use the "list view," i.e., calendar grid view, as the basis and have a javascript button that simply adds a CSS class to the calendar div that will override the table, hide days with no events, and present the events in a list similar to archive view. This is almost instantaneous, a huge improvement over the slowness of loading another page.

Where I'm running into trouble is accessing the calculated global variables for start_hour2 and end_hour2 within "list view". I copied the <cms:php> section that I used for page view, made unique variable names, and placed it within the <cms:entries> section and set skip_custom_fields=0. Here is a segment of code where start_time and end_time are the informal times and start_hour2 and end_hour2 are the calculated global variables I need:

Code: Select all

      <cms:set start_hour2='700' />
      <cms:set end_hour2='800' />
      <cms:php>
         global $CTX;
         $start_time_d2 = strtotime("<cms:show start_time />");
         $end_time_d2 = strtotime("<cms:show end_time />");
         $CTX->set( 'start_hour2', date('H:i:s', $start_time_d2), 'global' );
         $CTX->set( 'end_hour2', date('H:i:s', $end_time_d2), 'global' );
         echo "PHP Start Time: <cms:show start_time /> | ";
         echo 'Unix Time: ' . $start_time_d2 . ' | ';
      </cms:php>
      <cms:dump />

The PHP is working, as evidenced by echoing the variables within the PHP, including the accurate conversion from the informal time (start_time) to Unix Time (start_time_d2).

As in the code segment, when I have <cms:dump /> following the <cms:php> section, I see only the initial values set for start_hour2 (700) and end_hour2 (800) prior to <cms:php> instead of the values calculated within <cms:php> (dump list header is "entries").

To further confound this, I have more evidence that the <cms:php> is calculating the global variables, but I simply can't access them: When I include <cms:dump /> after </cms:calendar>, I see start_hour2 and end_hour2 with the correctly calculated and formatted times for the last event in the month (dump list header is "__ROOT__").

I have another project in the works that will require a calendar and an "Add to Calendar" button, so I'd like to get this figured out.

I'm stumped. Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Tim

[KK]

Hi,

Please try setting the same scope (i.e. 'global') for the initial statements too -

Code: Select all

<cms:set start_hour2='700' 'global' />
<cms:set end_hour2='800' 'global' />
<cms:php>
    ...

Please let me know if this helps.

It worked perfectly after setting the same scope. Thanks, KK!