I am working on an online newspaper/blogging application with CodeIgniter 3.1.8 (link to GitHub repo) and Twitter Bootstrap 4.
The application has themes. One of the themes uses a pager instead of pagination, so the Codeigniter default pagination is not well suited for it.
The "hack" I found for this problem relies on CSS.
In the Posts controller I have:
class Posts extends CI_Controller
{
public function __construct()
{
parent::__construct();
}
private function _initPagination($path, $totalRows, $query_string_segment = 'page')
{
//load and configure pagination
$this->load->library('pagination');
$config['base_url'] = base_url($path);
$config['query_string_segment'] = $query_string_segment;
$config['enable_query_strings'] = TRUE;
$config['reuse_query_string'] = TRUE;
$config['total_rows'] = $totalRows;
$config['per_page'] = 12;
if (!isset($_GET[$config['query_string_segment']]) || $_GET[$config['query_string_segment']] < 1) {
$_GET[$config['query_string_segment']] = 1;
}
$this->pagination->initialize($config);
$limit = $config['per_page'];
$offset = ($this->input->get($config['query_string_segment']) - 1) * $limit;
return array(
'limit' => $limit,
'offset' => $offset
);
}
public function index()
{
//call initialization method
$config = $this->_initPagination("/", $this->Posts_model->get_num_rows());
$data = $this->Static_model->get_static_data();
$data['base_url'] = base_url("/");
$data['pages'] = $this->Pages_model->get_pages();
$data['categories'] = $this->Categories_model->get_categories();
$data['search_errors'] = validation_errors();
//use limit and offset returned by _initPaginator method
$data['posts'] = $this->Posts_model->get_posts($config['limit'], $config['offset']);
$this->twig->addGlobal('pagination', $this->pagination->create_links());
// featured posts
if ($data['is_featured']) {
$data['featured'] = $this->Posts_model->featured_posts();
$this->twig->addGlobal('featuredPosts', "themes/{$data['theme_directory']}/partials/hero.twig");
}
$this->twig->display("themes/{$data['theme_directory']}/layout", $data);
}
public function search()
{
// Force validation since the form's method is GET
$this->form_validation->set_data($this->input->get());
$this->form_validation->set_rules('search', 'search term', 'required|trim|min_length[3]', array(
'min_length' => 'The search term must be at least 3 characters long.'
));
$this->form_validation->set_error_delimiters('<p class = "error search-error">', '</p>');
// If search fails
if ($this->form_validation->run() === FALSE) {
$data['search_errors'] = validation_errors();
return $this->index();
} else {
$expression = $this->input->get('search');
$posts_count = $this->Posts_model->search_count($expression);
$query_string_segment = 'page';
$config = $this->_initPagination("/posts/search", $posts_count, $query_string_segment);
$data = $this->Static_model->get_static_data();
$data['base_url'] = base_url("/");
$data['pages'] = $this->Pages_model->get_pages();
$data['categories'] = $this->Categories_model->get_categories();
//use limit and offset returned by _initPaginator method
$data['posts'] = $this->Posts_model->search($expression, $config['limit'], $config['offset']);
$data['expression'] = $expression;
$data['posts_count'] = $posts_count;
$this->twig->addGlobal('pagination', $this->pagination->create_links());
$this->twig->display("themes/{$data['theme_directory']}/layout", $data);
}
}
I the stylesheet, I hide the page items except the "Previous" and "Next" buttons:
.pagination li:first-child {
display: inline-block;
margin-right: auto;
}
.pagination li.active + li {
display: inline-block;
margin-left: auto;
}
.pagination li,
.pagination li.active {
display: none;
position: relative;
}
.pagination li:first-child a::before,
.pagination li.active + li a::before {
display: inline-block;
font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;
background-color: #0085a1;
border: 1px solid #006d83;
color: #fff;
font-size: 14px;
font-weight: 800;
padding: 15px 25px;
letter-spacing: 1px;
text-transform: uppercase;
}
.pagination li:first-child a::before {
content: 'Newer Posts';
padding-left: 35px;
}
.pagination li.active + li a::before {
content: 'Older Posts';
padding-right: 35px;
}
.pagination li:first-child a::after,
.pagination li.active + li a::after {
color: #fff;
position: absolute;
top: 50%;
transform: translateY(-50%);
}
.pagination li:first-child a::after {
content: '\2190';
left: 7px;
}
.pagination li.active + li a::after {
content: '\1F812';
right: 7px;
}
The result is illustrated below:
The problem
When I am on the last page, the "Newer Posts" button is linked to the first page instead of the previous.
I have reached the conclusion that what I miss is a way to always keep the "next" and "previous" links.
Question:
How do I always keep the "next" and "previous" links?
