XF 1.5 Custom Sidebar Block with Current Date and Time

[Amaury]

I've created a custom sidebar block to be used to display the current date and time with respect to the user's selected time zone or the time zone set for guests. I may end up changing it to two separate blocks for aesthetics reasons, but all the same, really.

Anyway, I'm not able to get it to work, so I am obviously doing something wrong. This is my current setup:





As you can see below, it doesn't work:



What am I doing wrong? Thanks.

Edit: A mock-up of what I'm trying to achieve.

 

[Paul B]

If you want to use variables in a phrase, there must be supporting back end PHP code for them.

The template code would also look something like:

{xen:phrase phrase_name, 'date={xen:datetime $foo}', 'time={$xen:datetime $bar}'}

Otherwise you can just add the relevant code directly to the template, assuming the variables are available in that template.

 

[Lukas W.]

Phrases are text only unless you hand them over a variable as additional parameter when you call them.

 

[Lisa]

<h3>Current Time and Date</h3>
{xen:datetime $serverTime, 'absolute'}

Something like that?

 

[Amaury]

Yes, However, without the "at" and a dot separator instead as seen my code, though I may end up having two separate blocks for the date and time if that's possible. Although for the "at" I realize that comes from the same the phrase that displays the time on posts, conversations, etc., and that I went left as is, so I'm not sure if that's possible.

 

[Lisa]

Is that Month, Day, Year you have?

{xen:date $serverTime, 'm/d/y *  g:i A'}

 

[Amaury]

Yup! Although wouldn't that just follow the format I have set in the options? M/D/YYYY. No leading zeroes and full year. I guess not, though, eh?

Also, for two separate blocks, then, would this be correct?

{xen:date $serverTime, 'm/d/yyyy'}

{xen:date $serverTime, 'g:i A'}

 

[Lisa]

You don't want four y's

If you want the full four digit year, a capital Y will do it

{xen:date $serverTime, 'm/d/Y'}

{xen:date $serverTime, 'g:i A'}

Do you mean on two lines in the same sidebar widget? Or two completely separate sidebar widgets?

 

[SneakyDave]

Various other PHP Date and time formats can be found here:

http://php.net/manual/en/function.date.php

 

[Lisa]

Double post - sorry.

If you want it in the same widget, then just wrap it in some divs and give them a class so you can make it pretty

Rough concept:-

<h3>Current Time and Date</h3>
<div class="amaury_date">{xen:date $serverTime, 'm/d/Y'}
</div>
<div class="amaury_time">{xen:date $serverTime, 'g:i A'}        </div>

CSS:-

.amaury_time {
    color: red;
}


.amaury_date {
    color: green;
}

Play around to your hearts content

 

[Amaury]

Ah, right. Now I remember. My brain was wrapped around OpenOffice, where M/D/YYYY is what I would want. For PHP, if I don't want leading zeroes and the full year, I want n/j/Y like what I have set in the language.

Now, one last question: I'd want to keep the phrase for the display in the template rather than have it hard-coded (unless it's not necessary in this case?), so would this be correct?

{xen:phrase phrase_name {xen:date $serverTime, 'g:i A'}}

In any case, I'll work on this later after I'm done with classes.

Thanks, Lisa. You're awesome!

 

[Lisa]

Personally, I wouldn't bother - but I'm lazy like that. If I'm already in the template I'd just put there lol

And you're welcome

 

[Amaury]

All right.

In reality, with something like this, I guess it doesn't really matter. If you had just plain text like, "This is my site!" then yeah, use a phrase since you may want to change it later to forum or something and having it as a phrase will make it a whole lot easier, especially if used in multiple locations, but the current date and time is something that's essentially permanent and won't change.

 

[Lukas W.]

The Display Format for dates may differ depending on your country/language, so you could store the format only into a phrase - haven't tried doing so yet though, so can't say for sure that it works, depends on what is execute first in XenForo.

 

[Amaury]

Sorry, @Lisa. I lied. One last question. This isn't as important, but is it possible to add a GMT indicator?

 

[Lisa]

It's not something I've ever done, but I would assume using T P in the $serverTime line somewhere should do it. I'll check when I wake up properly

 

[Amaury]

@Lisa, have enough coffee yet?

So I got it styled:

<div class="section">
    <div class="secondaryContent">
        <h3>{xen:phrase khflare_current_date}</h3>
        <center><font size="3">{xen:date $serverTime, 'n/j/Y'}</font></center>
    </div>
</div>

<div class="section">
    <div class="secondaryContent">
        <h3>{xen:phrase khflare_current_time}</h3>
        <center><font size="3">{xen:date $serverTime, 'g:i A'}</font></center>
    </div>
</div>

However, I then got to thinking that that clutters things up a bit (even if it had been the original idea of the date and time in the same block) and makes the sidebar unbalanced.--longer than the categories and forums. So I thought of adding the current date and time to the Forum Statistics block. (They technically count as forum statistics, yes?) What do you think? I feel that looks a little better myself.



Under the time would be the time zone (GMT -8 or -7 in my case).

 

[Lisa]

@Lisa, have enough coffee yet?

Is that even possible. Sorry, one of the daughter-in-law's is overdue to have her baby and we had a couple of days running back and forth from the hospital with false alarms and I completely forgot.

I think it looks neater in the Stats block. . . . not sure it would be classed as a stat, mind you. But then, I don't really understand the necessity of it being there in the first place

 

[Amaury]

No worries, Lisa. When you get the chance.

 

[Martok]

The date and time wouldn't be classed as statistics, which is a collection of data (in this case from your forum).

I think that date and time in the stats block is completely lost in there. Presumably you're wanting to show users what the date and time are? I doubt many will notice it there.

Also your date format, whist OK for those in the US, Canada and a couple of other countries, sucks for the rest of the world

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_format_by_country

Personally I wouldn't bother with the date and time on the forums, they're already displayed on the devices that your users are accessing the site with.