Now that we have done a number of Graffiti installations for clients (and ourselves), I have become rather adept at extending Chalk.
In the next few days, I will be uploading to CodePlex the Actualize Chalk Extensions project and source code (C#) to create a community and, hopefully, get other developers to contribute to this project in an effort to make a really powerful Chalk Extension library available for Graffiti.
For example, some of the methods available currently:
- Accordian (int catID, string catNM) - builds a vertical menu system that's parent levels (category) can expand and collapse to reveal all the sub-categories and their posts. CSS Formatted. Supported files required.
- AddNoFollowToLink (string HTML) - applies rel='nofollow' to all <a href> tags in the passed HTML snippet. Great for SEO.
- BuildSideNav() - Creates a hierarchal vertical navigation structure based on Category / SubCategory structure. Uses default category posts and the link for the Category name, and lists all other published posts for each level. CSS formatted.
- CategoryHasAccordian (int catID) - boolean, returns whether the passed Category indeed even has subcategories or posts to Accordian.
- CommentsForPost (int PostId) - returns a CommentCollection object of all published comments for a Post
- GetAllPublishedPosts() - Returns a PostCollection object of all published Posts for the entire site.
- GetAllPublishedPosts(bool bSortByTitle) - Returns a PostCollection object of all published Posts for the entire site with the option of having them sorted by Title.
- GetAppKey (string key) - Returns a string value of the requested web.config key
- GetGraffitiArrayElement(int index, string[] arr) - returns the requested Array Element
- GetPostPart(string Post, int part) - Allows Post.Body to be split into 3rds, and the ability to retrieve each piece individually.
- GetPermalinkFromPostId(int id) - returns the canonical url of a particular post
- GetPost(int PostID) - Returns a specific Post
- GetPost(string PostID) - Returns a specific Post when passed the PostID as a string.
- GetPostsForCategory (int CatID) - returns a PostCollection object of all published posts for a Category. For some reason, Graffiti wants a specific number of Posts to be returned.
- GetPostTitleFromPermalink(string URL) - handy for custom templates where the post you want to display may be relevant to the URL but not necessarily the system's automatically selected post.
- GetValueFromForm(string Key) - returns a posted Form's specified field value. Great for processing form data in your view files.
- GetValueFromQueryString(string Key) - returns a requested QueryString value
- GetYear() - Returns the current year.
- InString(string strCheck, string strFor) - returns a boolean of whether a parent string has the requested string pattern
- Left(string str, int len) - returns the left len characters of a string
- NameFromPermalink(string URL) - returns the Post name from a permalink, again handy when doing customized layouts where the system's default post may not exactly be the post you want to display.
- ReplaceInText(string original, string textReplaceWhat, string textReplaceWith) - replaces text in a string
- SearchResults(string srch) - Returns a PostCollection of Posts that either the Title or Body match the search requested (and is published)
- SplitByString(string testString, string split) - returns an string array splitting a passed string with the passed delimiter
- SubCatsForCategory (int catID, string Sort) - Returns a CategoryCollection of subcategories for a specified category
- UserName(string UserID) - returns the ProperName of the requested UserID
I look forward to getting this going, as I have yet to really participate in any social code-sharing projects.