Introduce grouping by System Author, System Creation Date, and System Modification Date

[jensscherbl]

There is an option to group a datasource by author in the datasource editor. Doing so however leads to the following error in the xml output:

<error>The field used for grouping 'author' cannot be found. on 603 of file .../symphony/lib/toolkit/data-sources/class.datasource.section.php</error>

I'm also confused why this option is in the datasource editor in the first place. What's the difference to adding an author field to your section and grouping by that?

[brendo]

I'm also confused why this option is in the datasource editor in the first place. What's the difference to adding an author field to your section and grouping by that?

Because it doesn't require a field, and you can set the Author field to a value that is different to the currently logged in Author.

[brendo]

There is an option to group a datasource by author in the datasource editor. Doing so however leads to the following error in the xml output:

Wait hang on a second, I've just gone back to 2.1.2, and am pretty sure that grouping has never worked for Authors. There's some strange lines that have stood the test of time, but really do nothing and would have resulted in failure anyway.

[jensscherbl]

Because it doesn't require a field, and you can set the Author field to a value that is different to the currently logged in Author.

So this is smilar to System Date vs Date field? But there are still issues with these system settings.

• I can filter and sort by System Id, System Creation Date and System Modification Date, but not by System Author.
• I can only group by System Author (actually not working).
• I can ouptut everything as parameter.
• I can only output System Date as element.
• Is System Date the creation date or the modification date?
• System Modification Date is called System Modified Date in filters.
• Author should always be System Author.

[brendo]

So this is smilar to System Date vs Date field?

Yes, one is controlled by the CMS and can't be altered, the other can be contributed by Authors. That's why the author, creation date and modification date live in tbl_entries instead of a dedicated field table.

I can only group by System Author (actually not working).

You can't actually group by Author at all. It's been an outstanding bug since at least 2.1.2

Is System Date the creation date or the modification date?

It contains both

System Modification Date is called System Modified Date in filters.

Yep should be updated for consistency.

Author should always be System Author.

Irrelevant right? It's shown correctly except for the Group, which is already wrong.

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Proposed resolution:

• Remove Author from 2.5.0 for Grouping. It hasn't worked since 2.1.2 and introduces confusion.
• Update System Modified Date to System Modification Date in the filters.
• Introduce grouping by System Author, System Creation Date, and System Modification Date in a later build.

[jensscherbl]

Remove Author from 2.5.0 for Grouping. It hasn't worked since 2.1.2 and introduces confusion. Update System Modified Date to System Modification Date in the filters. Introduce grouping by System Author, System Creation Date, and System Modification Date in a later build.

Sounds good. What about the other inconsistencies?

• I can filter and sort by System Id, System Creation Date and System Modification Date, but not by System Author.
• I can only output System Date as element.

[brendo]

I can filter and sort by System Id, System Creation Date and System Modification Date, but not by System Author.

System Author, yeah sure. Should it filter by Author ID or Username?

I can only output System Date as element.

System ID is an attribute, Creation/Modification Date are included in System Date. And yeah, I guess System Author should be available.

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As a sidenote, would you actually use this? Or is it just noticing an inconsistency? Just asking because this hasn't worked since Symphony 2 and this is the first (public) request for it :)

[jensscherbl]

System Author, yeah sure. Should it filter by Author ID or Username?

I guess what's actually stored is the id? If I remember correctly, there is/was a dedicated datasource for authors that can be filtered by username, so sections should be only filtered by id (just like select box link) and could be chained with the authors datasource if filtering by username is needed. Makes sense?

As a sidenote, would you actually use this? Or is it just noticing an inconsistency? Just asking because this hasn't worked since Symphony 2 and this is the first (public) request for it :)

Never used any of the system attributes in a datasource so far. Just noticed the inconsistencies (and most other issues I filed recently) when bugfixing and testing the upcoming Multilingual update.

[brendo]

I guess what's actually stored is the id?

Both are stored and both can be sorted on. We could do the same as the SBL, which also accepts filtering by handles as well as ID (ID is far better for performance though!)

[jensscherbl]

We could do the same as the SBL, which also accepts filtering by handles

Are you sure? Never seemed to work for me that way.

Both are stored and both can be sorted on

Then filtering should also work for both.