Display specified number of characters in block

I think the idea is that quotes are short, so this wasn't necessary. In theory, this is the case, but in practice, I have seen some pretty long quotes. I suppose this could be handled with Drupal's standard teaser-handling. That is, a block would show the teaser with a 'read more' link, but the node's page and the 'quotes'/'my quotes' pages would show the full quote.

Thoughts?

/**
 * Truncates $text to near $size, but tries to find sentence / word borders
 *
 * @param $text
 *   The text to truncate
 * @param $size
 *   Desired length 
 * @param $ensure_limit
 *   when TRUE  - ensures returned text smaller then $text_length (default)
 *   when FALSE - similar behaviour as node teaser, may be larger then $text_length
 * 
 * Note remove ' ' => from the array in the if($ensure_limit) clause to always truncate on sentence borders 
 */
function custom_truncate_text($text, $size, $ensure_limit = FALSE) {
  // If short enough, do nothing.
  if (strlen($text) < $size) {
    return $text;
  }
  
  if($ensure_limit) {
    // We have to stay within limits, but don't want to truncate within a word   
    $max_text = truncate_utf8($text, $size);
    
    // Remove ' ' => 0 from the array, to always truncate at sentence borders.
    $breakpoints = array(' ' => 0, "\n" => 0, '. ' => 1, '! ' => 1, '? ' => 1, '。' => 3, '؟ ' => 1);
    foreach ($breakpoints as $point => $charnum) {
      if ($length = strrpos($max_text, $point)) {
        return substr($text, 0, $length + $charnum);
      }
    }
    // If a space could not be found, be blunt 
    return truncate_utf8($text, $size);
  }
  
  $breakpoints = array("\n" => 0, '. ' => 1, '! ' => 1, '? ' => 1, '。' => 3, '؟ ' => 1);
  foreach ($breakpoints as $point => $charnum) {
    if ($length = strpos($text, $point, $size)) {
      return substr($text, 0, $length + $charnum);
    }
  }

  // If all else fails, we simply truncate the string.
  return truncate_utf8($text, $size);
}
  

Contrary to the phpdoc, the default of ensure_limit is actually FALSE

If I implement a feature like this though, Heine, I am not going to re-code a lot of stuff like you suggest. Drupal already has built-in teaser-handling, so I will use what we already have. That way users can specify what should be included (by using <!--break--> for instance). Additionally, if they are using contrib modules like superteaser or excerpt, they will be used just like they are for other nodes.

Sorry, my piece of code was directed at the OP, not a suggestion how to implement it in Quotes. It's actually mostly node_teaser, but the problem with node_teaser is that it doesn't ensure text smaller than the cut off size.

You could do it in "quotes_block" under "case: 'view'". You'll find $quote = quotes_view(node_load($block['vid'])). Between that statement and the return, truncate "$quote->body".

I've been looking at lots of things here. The 6.x version of "node_teaser" is much improved and would do what is wanted here quite nicely with the addition of a simple setting for the block. So, IMHO, this should be a 6.x feature only.

Also see the patch in http://drupal.org/node/136557

@Heine: IMHO, that code should be in core. If it has not been proposed yet, please do. I may go ahead and stick it in the Helpers module any way.

The new 5.x-1.2 release does use the teaser now. I realize it doesn't fully meet the OP's needs, but it will be there in the 6.x release that I hope to have out tomorrow.

Fixed in 6.x-1.x-dev.

Thanks a lot for this snippet.
It really works when you are not using any views but displaying body/teaser using a custom module.

Thank you very much.

Regards.