changing dates?

[ryanc]

is there a mod to allow us to easily change the date of a post (without going into the different files and doing it the hard way)? i'd like to migrate a blog over to GM and don't mind manually copy-and-pasting the old entries into GM.

[coldstone]

I am pretty sure this is a manual file modification.

You could paste everything by hand, then go in and modify the 'archive' cg files and you might have to touch the gm-entrylist.cgi (but I think that would be rebuilt if you cleared it out and did a 'Diagnostic and Repair').

[hazelorb]

There is a mod from the gm 1.2 or 1.3 era that i have that lets you do this, however i have it installed on one site and for some reason it is being buggy (one of my hostees uses it and it keeps blanking her times in the gm-entrylist but for the life of me i cannot duplicate the error). so i guess i would not recommend it for right now??

[coldstone]

Out of curiosity, is this a feature someone wants? I am wondering what the motivation is behind wanting to change the date (maybe the motivation can be satisfied another way)?

I can see for a 'Draft' type feature, people would want the Draft to have the date it was finished, not started. This is a feature I and Pete have been looking at, so comments/opinions welcome.

[petefinnigan]

Hi Guys,

I think the need for changing date would be where somone wanted to migrate from another blog software to GM where there is no automated tool to do so. They would cut and paste posts to GM and post in the normal way but the dates of the posts would be now not the dates they were originally posted ohn the other software.

I think the real requirement would be provide migration software from other blog platforms to GM. I am not aware of any in existance - does anyone know of any migration code written in the early days? and also what do others think about the usefulness of adding a migration module to GM?

cheers

Pete

[hazelorb]

I have used it to migrate as well as for draft type entries. Personally I just go edit the date manually now if I need to change the date or time but a lot of users don't know how to do this + it's really easy to mess something up if you don't know what you're doing i guess. also that hack version i have is for some reason working perfectly when i try to post but i think my friend must be typing something in wrong to make it keep blanking the time. i can post it if anyone is interested, but in the future i would suggest drop down boxes instead of textfields bc it's easier to mess up with text fields.

[petefinnigan]

Hi,

Sorry I am confused. Are you saying that you have hacked GM and added fields to the post entry page to allow manual date and time entry, rather than letting GM add the dates automatically?

If so then this is a useful mod that other blog software has. i know MT has the ability to forward date (time bomb) posts. I read a lot of Oracle blogs and know some guys used to create posst in the evening for them to show up and be dated the follwoing morning.

cheers

Pete

[coldstone]

The issue with this (pre-dating, to show up later, or is it post-dating?) of course is that since GM is static, it won't automatically show in the morning. Unless someone comments on another topic, then the front page would be refreshed, and then the new topic would have to exist, but be unlinked to.

[hazelorb]

i didn't do it, someone else did, but i have a copy of it. here i put it online for you.
bunnie.net/cgi-bin/date/gm.cgi
its just un View pw hack. ill take it down in a day or send it to you if you want it or whatever. personally i still say you should use drop down boxes not textboxes if you implement this. dont really want ppl hacking my site thru this. yea.

[petefinnigan]

Hi,

Thansk for posting the version to see. It would be useful if you could send it, my email is in my sig, I agree about drop-boxes as it limits the input. If we add it it should be turned on/off in config.

cheers

Pete

[coldstone]

So I gather no input validation on the fields? If the server doesn't check the values of the date fields, its still susceptible. People can still send the form with whatever values they want, having droplists would just make it easier to use.

[becky]

i LOVE greymatter, but the main thing i want to use it for is to upload my photos into a blog for my family. i want them to be arranged by the dates i took the photos not the date i uploaded them to the net.

if you have any other options for this, im open.

[coldstone]

I too would like to see gm be stronger when dealing with photos, as I think that is becoming a bigger part of the standard blog.

The way I handled this was by creating a connected file that displays a custom template. So when I upload new photos, I simple modify Custom One Template with a new row (its a table) and make some comments on the photos. Would this help? Its more of a manual sorting process then, but if you use css like here:
www.alistapart.com/stories/practicalcss/

You won't have to deal with table rows.

[hazelorb]

just so you know,
that modded gm i sent out i found the bug
it was updating the entry files but not the entrylist
so the entrylist would be in order if the entries were backdated after being added, but would be out of order if half were edited while posting and half while editing so the list went

3/20
3/19
3/18
3/20
3/16

bc all the entries were added 3/20 but the others were edited when posting and not when editing. so then gm died and did 00/00 as the date

so i fixed the line that did that to update the log too and now it works. i feel like i used gm to backdate a lot of my entries and it never did that so now i am wondering why that is. hrm... oh well.

[coldstone]

You can always delete the gm-entrylist.cgi and Diagnosis and Repair will rebuild it.