Automatically alternate templates

webGóbé · 01.09.2005, 19:32

Hi! I need to automatically change the default template on given criteria (like hour of the day, or day of the week, for example I have a blue theme for monday, and a pink one for friday

) Any ideea how can I do this? The cron job is out of question, unfortunately...

designveteran · 15.09.2005, 22:05

This is one way to do it...

1. Paste this code into your editor then name the file weekday.php

Code:

<? 

function switch_template_by_weekday(){
$date = getdate(); 
$dayofweek = $date['weekday']; 

 switch($dayofweek)
   {
       	case "Monday";
       	echo "<SCRIPT language=\"JavaScript\">
		<!--
		window.location=\"http://someplace.com?mos_change_template=Mondaytemplatename\";
		//-->
		</SCRIPT>";
       	break;
      
	  	case "Tuesday";
       	echo "<SCRIPT language=\"JavaScript\">
		<!--
		window.location=\"http://someplace.com?mos_change_template=Tuesdaytemplatename\";
		//-->
		</SCRIPT>";
       	break;
		
		case "Wednesday";
       	echo "<SCRIPT language=\"JavaScript\">
		<!--
		window.location=\"http://someplace.com?mos_change_template=Wednesdaytemplatename\";
		//-->
		</SCRIPT>";
       	break;
		
		case "Thursday";
       	echo "<SCRIPT language=\"JavaScript\">
		<!--
		window.location=\"http://someplace.com?mos_change_template=Thursdaytemplatename\";
		//-->
		</SCRIPT>";
       	break;
		
		case "Friday";
       	echo "<SCRIPT language=\"JavaScript\">
		<!--
		window.location=\"http://someplace.com?mos_change_template=Fridaytemplatename\";
		//-->
		</SCRIPT>";
       	break;
		
		case "Saturday";
       	echo "<SCRIPT language=\"JavaScript\">
		<!--
		window.location=\"http://someplace.com?mos_change_template=Saturdaytemplatename\";
		//-->
		</SCRIPT>";
       	break;
		
		case "Sunday";
       	echo "<SCRIPT language=\"JavaScript\">
		<!--
		window.location=\"http://someplace.com?mos_change_template=Sundaytemplatename\";
		//-->
		</SCRIPT>";
       	break;
   }

}

	
?>

2. Edit weekday.php, changing the site path and template name in each switch statement. Upload the file to the root directory of the mambo installation (same place configuration.php is).

3. Open up Administrator, Template Manager, select a template, then click on "Edit HTML" Add the following code to each of your templates:

Code:

<?php include ("weekday.php"); ?>

switch_template_by_weekday();

Put the code right after these tags at the top of the <head> tag:

Code:

<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />

Let me know if it works for you. Post a link when you get done because I'd be interested to see how it turns out.

01.11.2005, 21:44

I am giving this a whirl later. The only thing that I don't understand is the window location line. Say if my mambo is running under www.mysite.com/mambo does that mean that the line should be (using solar flare for instance)

window.location=\"http://www.mysite.com/mambo?mos_change_template=/templates/rhuk_solarflare_ii\";

Just wondering if my logic is flawed because I also think that the weekday.php file as written will continually call itself, therefore never actually finishing the page load. Just my 2¢. Which I will test in an hour or so.

01.11.2005, 21:51

Just gave that javascript line a twirl on the intranet. As I suspected, the page never loads, although it does so progress in the bar at the bottom for a bit.

Perhaps you have a default template, with the line in it. And it calls the other templates which don't. That should eliminate the loop

designveteran · 02.11.2005, 07:24

Are you trying to use it with Joomla?

If so, you need to change the command to jos_change_template

02.11.2005, 07:32

No, haven't fired up Joomla yet. Got it working with m4.5.2 but had to publish the template changer. I used one template to call the others. If you put the code in each template, they never load, just a constant request for the page, over and over.

This is running only at my test server so can't show it to you. I just changed your script to change by the hour. And it works. If you already have the template loaded when it changes, you don't get them, it keeps the current template.

I am sure that with some more hacking on it, can get that running too. But, got to get up for work in 4 hours!