README.md

News Service

General Information

Repository object can create news items to inform users on changes within the object.

These news do not have specific recipients. They are attached to the repository object and every user having read permission for the object can access the news.

Depending on the settings these news may be published by RSS feeds.

Every news item belongs to a context being represented by a repository objects id (and type) and an optional subtype and id (e.g. a page in a learning module and its id).

News Items

Content and Title

Content and title can both be either represented by a language variable or by a text string (without translation).

News Priority

Automatically created news MUST have a priority of NEWS_NOTICE, manually created news items MUST be indicated with a priority of NEWS_MESSAGE.

Status of the Service

With ILIAS 5.4 the service is exposing a new interface through $DIC->news(). The interface tries to make the usage easy and clear, however it uses an older class ilNewsItem which is planned to be refactored in major parts in the future. Please avoid to use any deprecated methods of this class.

Basic Usage

Create

$ns = $DIC->news();
$context = $ns->contextForRefId($ref_id);
$item = $ns->item($context);
$item->setTitle("Hello World");
$item->setContent("This is the news.");
$news_id = $ns->data()->save($item);

Using Language Variables

$ns = $DIC->news();
$context = $ns->contextForRefId($ref_id);
$item = $ns->item($context);
$item->setTitle("crs_create_xtst");
$item->setContentIsLangVar(true);		// title
$item->setContent("xtst_delete");
$item->setContentTextIsLangVar(true);	// content
$news_id = $ns->data()->save($item);

Get News for Context

$ns = $DIC->news();
$context = $ns->contextForRefId($ref_id);
$items = $ns->data()->getNewsOfContext($context);

Update

$ns = $DIC->news();
$context = $ns->contextForRefId($this->object->getRefId());
$items = $ns->data()->getNewsOfContext($context);
if ($n = current($items))
{
	$n->setContent(((int) $n->getContent()) + 1);
	$n->setContentTextIsLangVar(false);
	$ns->data()->save($n);
}

Delete

$ns = $DIC->news();
$context = $ns->contextForRefId($ref_id);
$items = $ns->data()->getNewsOfContext($context);
if ($n = current($items))
{
	$ns->data()->delete($n);
}