"Submitted by" line in Display Suite

I needed this today and I could not find how to display a proper submitted by-line using DS. There are the 'Author' and 'Post Date' fields but these don't really cut it. In core the submitted by-line is generated in template_preprocess_node(), so this is not available as a field in DS.

I ended up creating a custom field, with a bit of help from the Date module:

/**
 * Implements hook_ds_fields_info().
 */
function MODULE_ds_fields_info($entity_type) {
  $fields = array();

  $fields['submitted_by'] = array(
    'title' => t('Submitted by'),
    'field_type' => DS_FIELD_TYPE_FUNCTION,
    'ui_limit' => array('*|*'),
    'function' => '_MODULE_ds_field_submitted_by',
  );

  return array('node' => $fields);
}

/**
 * Render a "Submitted by"-line.
 */
function _MODULE_ds_field_submitted_by($field) {
  $date = new DateObject($field['entity']->created);
  $date_options = array(
    'start_date' => $date,
    'end_date' => $date,
    'interval_display' => 'raw time ago'
  );
  $timeago = '<span class="date-time-ago">' . t('!time ago', array('!time' => theme('date_time_ago', $date_options))) . '</span>';

  $account = user_load($field['entity']->uid);
  $username = theme('username', array('account' => $account));

  return t('Submitted !timeago by !username', array('!timeago' => $timeago, '!username' => $username));
}

Wouldn't it be a good idea to provide this too in DS? We are already providing custom fields for other node metadata such as the node title, 'read more'-link etc. It would be a nice addition, especially if some degree of customization would be provided.

makes sense yeah, but I don't want to depend on the date module for this one :)

No of course not ;) This was just something I bashed out quickly to meet a client request. I'll make a more fitting implementation.

@pfrenssen any progress on this?

I recently had the exact same problem and ended up creating a custom code field in DS which solved it for me but it just feels hacky.

Ouch I should not make false promises :) I have actually not done any further work on this, but thanks for putting it on my radar again.

Here's a patch. It adds a "Submitted By" field which supports standard date formats + a "time ago" format which is the default. I added a test as well.

Note: the 'Node Display' test throws a warning on PHP 5.4 atm, but this is due to a bug in core: #1525176: Using array_diff_assoc() for multilevel arrays in DrupalDefaultEntityController->cacheGet().

tagging

Thanks fixed!

I have reopened this ticket because I believe the accepted patch introduces a problem.

Creating the submitted_by field in DS clobbers the settings made using the submitted_my module.
http://drupal.org/project/submitted_by

Take a look at submitted_by_field_extra_fields().

For me the bug manifests itself as:
- the incorrect formatter displaying in the display view modes. ie. DS field has taken over
- a missing submitted by field when rendered.

When I comment out the patch, I get my old submitted_by field back.

I'm not sure what the best way forward is with this, given that the new DS field will be in use. I would suggest that the submitted_by module should have priority :) Maybe this new field could be renamed. Or even better, removed. The submitted_by module is already performing this task in a more flexible way as it allows the use of tokens.

That's unfortunate. Indeed if people have the Submitted By module enabled it is obvious that they would like this to manage their submitted by-lines.

There is a difference in implementation. DS is using its own pseudo-field system, while Submitted By adds a regular Field API field using hook_field_extra_fields(). We could check whether the 'submitted_by' field exists, but I think it is maybe cleaner to just skip our code when the Submitted By-module is enabled.

Here's a patch. Can you check if this solves your problem?

Thanks! That patch works for me. Nice solution.

Alright, committed and pushed, thanks!

Moving to 8.x though

Ported (as in, changed the machine name to ds_submitted_by)

Though this patch fixes the submitted by byline text problem with DS on the node itself it seems that the problem still exists when using DS in the node comments as my byline text in comments seems to be ignored.

I'm getting same type of problem. I cannot override the submitted by line in my template.php when I add this field via DS. If I add the same field to the node and don't use DS, my changes are respected.