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1. ebedgert
   Member
   Posted 1 year ago #

   I have a blog where authors submit items to be later approved and published. These items can sometimes sit in a queue for days waiting for approval. Unfortunately our editors often don't remember to edit the timestamp on the submitted items... and don't update them to the current time, which means they don't show up on the index page at the top where you might expect once they are published.

   Is there any easy way to have a "Publish With Current Timestamp" option on these previously submitted items that bear older timestamps? (or is someone developing a plugin for this?) The problem here is that the editors forget to edit the timestamp themselves. Maybe even something like a popup reminder window would be helpful.

2. FishDogFish
   Member
   Posted 1 year ago #

   You can edit the "Published On" date and time from the post edit page, by clicking on the "Published On" link.

3. ebedgert
   Member
   Posted 1 year ago #

   Thanks, but that doesn't answer my question. As I explained... my editors routinely forget to do this.

   I'm looking for a way either to (a) remind them to do it automatically (pop-up window?) or (b) for WordPress to do it automatically when a story moves from an unpublished status to a published one. Do any such plugins exist for either approach?

4. esmi
   Theme Diva & Forum Moderator
   Posted 1 year ago #

   Have you tried using the_modified_date and/or the_modified_time in place of the_date() and/or the_time() in your theme's template files?

5. ebedgert
   Member
   Posted 1 year ago #

   I'll give it a shot and see if it helps. Sometimes the editors do not modify the draft post at all before publishing it, though, so substituting the_modified_date might not help in all instances.

   If my editors would just remember to do this, I wouldn't have this problem... this really cries out for a plugin, but unfortunately I don't know how to write them. Maybe it's time to learn.

6. ebedgert
   Member
   Posted 1 year ago #

   Actually I'm not sure your suggestion would help, esmi. It's not that I need to change something in the template (for display purposes at the bottom of a post), but I need to change the actual timestamp for the post. This is so that a story entered into the system 3 days ago but published today, goes to the top of the story list on the page, instead of appearing buried down where three-day-old stories have been pushed to.

   If only my editors would remember to change the timestamp when they publish the draft, this would be easy... but they don't (and it has caused big problems)... and I'm wondering if I can get WordPress to do it automatically for them, instead of them doing it manually.

   So I guess I'm looking for clues on what function for a plugin would change a draft's timestamp automatically to the current timestamp when it goes to Published status, and then I suppose I could use the 'publish_post' hook in a plugin for this?

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