Alerts 2.0

[slocker3]

These thoughts might be for a new plugin, but I will start here. I want to focus on this plugin being more of a utility as opposed to a fully-baked post type with additional technology.

Current alerts plugin goals

• Populate alerts in a banner on a single page or all pages depending on alert level.
• Apply a start and end time for the alert
• Create an archive for current and previous alerts

Goal I think the alerts plugin should focus on

• Populate alerts in a banner on a single page or all pages depending on alert level.
• The start and end time for an alert

I don't think a post type is necessary.

Why

I have seen a few scenarios where the alert plugin is used for general announcements (Swing the Fly) and for events (PFMC). In both cases redirects were created for the alert to point to the actual post. It would be handy allowing any post type to have the ability to populate something that is deemed important into a banner.

Approach

Settings

Once the plugin has been added to the site, somewhere in settings is a place to make a few decisions:

1. What post types should this functionality apply to (regular posts by default -- doesn't create a new post type)
2. Allow level names to be changed or more added (default: alert, broadcast, home highlight, normal)
3. Have a dropdown next to each term that tells the alert what to do (1. Populate on all posts, 2. Populate only on homepage, 3. Normal)
4. A place to toggle between two options for when there are multiple alerts - 1) Populate a single highest priority alert, or 2) Populate all alerts by priority, then newest.

Single post

• A single post that has Alert functionality is a section in the sidebar for selecting the alert level (via the names in settings) and times for the alert to appear at the current selected level. The alert post remains even when the time has ended. The time only removes the level and sets it back to default.
• The frontend should have a class added to body of the single post indicating the current level.

Banners

The banner should populate only the post head of the current alert. All the text should be wrapped in an a to the single post of the alert.

Note: default to only populating one post that has the highest alert level with newest date if there are multiple alerts at once. If the toggle in settings is set to show all current alerts for the banner, then they will be listed by highest alert, then date posted. No limit.

Other thoughts

• Should the user have the option to close alerts and have that stored in the browser so that they don't see alerts that they have closed? This could be an option in settings.
• The alert level should be a taxonomy, allowing to populate its terms into collection outputs like CAB.

Tasks

MVP

• Tag and "release" current version of Alerts as 1.0.x #4
• Remove the alerts post type from the plugin #5
• Register an alert level taxonomy for the post post type #6
• Add a post type support filter for the alerts plugin #7
• Filter body_class on single post views to include alert level #8
• Add meta to mark an alert level term as default #9
• Add meta to set date on which alert level should be set to default #10
• Set alert level to default term on alert expiration #15

Future release

• Create alerts/alert-banner block #16

[jeremyfelt]

Food for thought: how should a history of alert levels be tracked for a post?

[jeremyfelt]

Apply a start and end time for the alert

I've added an expiration date only now. Start time could be handled through scheduled posts.

[jeremyfelt]

Create an archive for current and previous alerts

I think this can be handled by the site/project now that this is a taxonomy.

[jeremyfelt]

We've shipped 2.0. The banner block can be handled separately.