Publication Date

Description

The Publication Date module adds a "Published on" date for each node, containing the date when it was first published.

Without this, the only dates available for nodes are their created date and changed date, but these are often insufficient to meet the needs of publishing workflows. Sorting nodes by their created date doesn't account for content which is held in draft form for a time while being readied for publication. Sorting nodes by their changed date fails to account for content needing minor corrections after being published.

The "Published on" date can be used in any templates, or views. Publication date also incudes integration with the Display Suite module and has entity wrapper support, so it can integrate with modules like Rules that use the Entity API module.

The "Published on" date can be edited through the node edit form, allowing a custom published date to be set. If a custom date is set prior to publication, it will be respected when the node is published. The publication date is also retained when a node is unpublished and then republished.

Installation

1. Copy the publication_date folder to your modules directory
2. Go to /admin/modules, and enable this module.
3. If you want to give users access to edit the "Published on" date, then go
   to /admin/people/permissions and set permissions as desired.

This will add a new $node->published_at field to nodes, containing the published date, or FALSE if no published date has been set. You can then use this field in any templates. Moreover, this field is available in the views parameters.

IMPORTANT: For nodes that were published BEFORE the installation of this module, we can not know the exact date of publication, so $node->published_at will initially contain the creation date.

API

Other modules can use hook_publication_date_alter() to change the publication date when it is set. See publication_date.api.php for more documentation.

Upgrading from 1.0 to 2.x

Please pay special attention to the README and CHANGELOG, as there are some changes to the way the Published On date is handled. Notably in 2.x, once the date has been set for a node it will persist until manually changed, even if the node is unpublished and republished. In version 1.0 the date was lost when the node was unpublished.

Drupal 6 version

The D6 version of Publication Date is no longer being actively supported. New D6 maintainers are welcome.

Credits

The Publication Date module was originally written by Emmanuelle Gouleau and Tristan Marly from Clever Age

D7 version initially ported by joostvdl and maintained by dgtlmoon.

Publication Date is currently maintained by jstoller.