Blog Time

This plugin adds a dynamic, functional clock to the admin bar (at top of all admin pages) to show the server time for the blog. The clock automatically updates as time passes, as you would expect of a digital clock.

This plugin also supports a static mode which puts a timestamp string at the top of all admin pages instead of the dynamic clock. This static admin time widget can be clicked to update the time in-place (without a page reload) to show the new current server time.

Also provided is a “Blog Time” widget providing the same functionality as the admin widget, but for your sidebars. You may also utilize the plugin’s functionality directly within a theme template via use of the template tag c2c_blog_time().

NOTE: For the front-end widget, if the “Use dynamic clock?” configuration option is unchecked, this plugin generates a timestamp and NOT a clock. The time being displayed is the time of the page load, or if clicked, the time when the widget last retrieved the time. It won’t actively increment time on the display. By default the widget displays a dynamic clock that does increment time.

This is most useful to see the server/blog time to judge when a time sensitive post, comment, or action would be dated by the blog (i.e. such as monitoring for when to close comments on a contest post, or just accounting for the server being hosted in a different timezone). Or, when used statically as a timestamp and not a clock, it can indicate/preserve when the page was loaded.

Thanks to Moment.js for the JavaScript date handling library.

Links: Plugin Homepage | Plugin Directory Page | GitHub | Author Homepage

Template Tags

The plugin provides one template tag for use in your theme templates, functions.php, or plugins.

Functions

• <?php function c2c_blog_time( $time_format = '', $echo = true ) ?>
  Returns and/or displays the formatted time for the site.

Arguments

• $time_format (string)
  Optional. PHP-style time format string. See www.php.net/manual/en/datetime.format.php for more info. Default is ” (which, unless otherwise modified, uses the default time forat: ‘g:i A’).

• $echo (bool)
  Optional. Echo the template info? Default is true.

Examples

• <?php // Output the site's current time.
c2c_blog_time();
?>

• <?php // Retrieve the value for use in code, so don't display/echo it.
$site_date = c2c_blog_time( 'M d, Y', false );
?>

Hooks

The plugin exposes four filters for hooking. Code using these filters should ideally be put into a mu-plugin or site-specific plugin (which is beyond the scope of this readme to explain). Less ideally, you could put them in your active theme’s functions.php file.

c2c_blog_time (filter)

The 'c2c_blog_time' hook allows you to use an alternative approach to safely invoke c2c_blog_time() in such a way that if the plugin were deactivated or deleted, then your calls to the function won’t cause errors in your site.

Arguments:

• same as for c2c_blog_time()

Example:

Instead of:

<?php c2c_blog_time(); ?>

Do:

<?php echo apply_filters( 'c2c_blog_time', '' ); ?>

c2c_blog_time_format (filter)

The 'c2c_blog_time_format' hook allows you to customize the default format for the blog time. By default this is ‘g:i A’ (though this may be different if modified by localization).

Arguments:

• $format (string): The default format for the blog time.

Example:

/**
 * Change the default blog time string
 *
 * @param string $format The default time format.
 * @return string
 */
function change_blog_time_format( $format ) {
    return 'b, g:i A';
}
add_filter( 'c2c_blog_time_format', 'change_blog_time_format' );

c2c_blog_time_toolbar_widget_for_user (filter)

The c2c_blog_time_toolbar_widget_for_user hook allows you to control if the admin toolbar clock widget should be shown, on a per-user basis. By default the admin toolbar clock is shown to everyone who can see the admin toolbar.

Arguments:

• $shown (boolean): Whether the admin toolbar clock widget should be shown. Default of true.

Example:

/**
 * Only show the admin toolbar clock for the 'boss' user.
 *
 * @param $show bool Status of whether the admin toolbar clock should be shown.
 * @return bool
 */
function restrict_blog_time_widget_appearance( $show ) {
    return 'boss' === get_current_user()->user_login;
}
add_filter( 'c2c_blog_time_toolbar_widget_for_user', 'restrict_blog_time_widget_appearance' );

c2c_blog_time_active_clock (filter)

The 'c2c_blog_time_active_clock' hook returns the boolean value indicating if the Javascript-powered dynamic clock introduced in v2.0 should be enabled or if instead the v1.x era behavior of a static timestamp that can be clicked to update the timestamp via AJAX should be enabled. By default the dynamic clock is enabled.

Arguments:

• $allow (boolean): Boolean indicating if the admin widget should be a dynamic clock. Default is true.

Example:

// Disable the dynamic clock and use the static timestamp (whcih can be clicked to update the time via AJAX) instead.
add_filter( 'c2c_blog_time_active_clock', '__return_false' );

Find out more at the plugin’s WordPress Plugin Repository page.

1. Install via the built-in WordPress plugin installer or download and unzip blog-time.zip inside the plugins directory for your site (typically wp-content/plugins/)
2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ admin menu in WordPress
3. Optional: Customize the time format used for displaying the time via the “Blog Time Format” setting found in Settings -> General.
4. Optional: Use the ‘Blog Time’ widget or the template tag c2c_blog_time() in a theme template file to display the blog’s time at the time of the page’s rendering.