-- all -- People Communities
[Browse] [Tag cloud]

Welcome to Elgg's documentation

This is the place to find documentation on all aspects of Elgg. If you would like to contribute your own documentation please do; we want this to be a real community effort!

From Elgg Documentation

Contents 1 Is there a definitive list of template keywords that are available in core Elgg? 2 How can I find... 2.1 The current page owner ID? 2.2 The current user ID? 2.3 The current username? 2.4 The current page type (blog, files etc)? 2.5 What does includes.php actually include? 2.6 What's contained in $CFG and how do you use it? 2.7 Where does user_info() come from and when/how can you use it? 2.8 How do you write code that checks the current user's permissions and ensures permissions on objects are respected? 3 Is there a definitive list of the contexts that are defined within Elgg and how they can be used? 4 What classes / functionality does Elgg implement to handle the database? How do I use them? 5 How do the templates_draw and templates_page_draw functions work

[edit] Is there a definitive list of template keywords that are available in core Elgg?

gyfjyr There is a list of template keywords located here: Theme keywords

[edit] How can I find...

[edit] The current page owner ID?

The function page_owner(); should return this appropriately in the latest version of Elgg.

When creating custom pages make sure you configure the .htaccess file correctly. I.E. RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z0-9]+)\/my_custom\/?$ _custom/index.php?profile_name=$1&var1=$2

the ?profile_name (get string) must be present or page_owner does not work.

[edit] The current user ID?

$_SESSION['userid'] is your friend. This is set to -1 if the user is logged out.

And is set to 0 is the user isn't logged in - i.e. is a guest?

[edit] The current username?

$_SESSION['username'] - but check that $_SESSION['userid'] isn't -1.

[edit] The current page type (blog, files etc)?

You can find this by checking the constant 'context'.

[edit] What does includes.php actually include?

It includes all necessary files to run the system. This also includes plugins in mod/.

[edit] What's contained in $CFG and how do you use it?

$CFG will contain configuration parameters, initially set in config.php. It is a global variable, so an example usage in a function will be:

function my_function() {
    global $CFG;

    echo $CFG->wwwroot;
}

[edit] Where does user_info() come from and when/how can you use it?

It has been defined in lib/userlib.php and it will return the value the value of a specified (user related) field, given a user ID. E.g. user_info("username", $USER->ident) will return the user name of the currently logged in user.

[edit] How do you write code that checks the current user's permissions and ensures permissions on objects are respected?

[edit] Is there a definitive list of the contexts that are defined within Elgg and how they can be used?

Each of the top-level items have a context:

1. blog
2. profile
3. friends
4. files
5. admin
6. account
7. network

Any plugin can also set its own context. (If you're unsure about the context a particular page is in, check its source - you'll find a call to define('context','context-name'); towards the top.)

These can be accessed through the 'context' constant, and used to alter the way menus display, things are added to the sidebar, etc, in the module_init and module_pagesetup functions.

[edit] What classes / functionality does Elgg implement to handle the database? How do I use them?

All database related code lives in lib/datalib.php. This is a wrapper around AdoDB. datalib.php is well documented, you'll find example usage in the code.

[edit] How do the templates_draw and templates_page_draw functions work

• templates_page_setup() sets up the templating system
• templates_draw() wraps the body (your content) in the standard content holder
• templates_page_draw() returns the rendered page, use an echo statement to send it to the user's browser

Back to Development frontpage