majordojo

One of the most common feature requests for Movable Type is entry pagination. It is actually a sticky problem for a system that utilizes static publishing like Movable Type though. As an aside, I am become very unfond of the term "static publishing" and am coming around to what I think is a more apt term: "pre-emptive caching." Anyways, there are a number of well supported techniques for pagination, and the one I send most people to is Mark Carey's Pagination plugin. But when people feel that is overkill, I often help them implement the following hack.

The hack is simple when you think about it:

• Create a template that outputs a relatively large number of entries.
• Segment the entries into several groups.
• Using some simple template code, wrap each group of entries with a simple PHP statement that will only be evaluated according to the current page being viewed.

It is simple and quick to implement. For example, here is the code I use on Chicago Now to achieve some simple pagination:

<mt:var name="currentp" value="0">
<mt:var name="limit" value="10">
<mt:var name="lastn" value="30"><?php
$page = $_REQUEST['p'];
if (!isset($page)) { $page = 1; }
?>
<mt:Entries lastn="$lastn">
<mt:setvarblock name="page"><mt:getvar name="__counter__" op="mod" value="$limit"></mt:setvarblock>
<mt:if name="page" eq="1">
<mt:setvar name="currentp" op="add" value="1">
<mt:if name="currentp" gt="1"><?php } ?></mt:if>
<?php if ($page == <$mt:var name="currentp"$>) { ?>
</mt:if>
<$mt:include module="Entry Summary"$>
<mt:if name="__last__"><?php } ?></mt:if>
</mt:Entries>
<div id="pagination">
<?php
$limit = <mt:var name="limit">;
$page_count = <mt:var name="currentp">;
if ($page < $page_count) {
  echo '<a id="next-page" href="?p='.($page + 1).'">&laquo; Older Posts</a>';
}
if ($page > 1) {
  echo '<a id="prev-page" href="?p='.($page - 1).'">Newer Posts &raquo;</a>';
}
?>
</div>

You see a live demo on Chicago Now...

Pros of this method

• Its free.
• Fast to implement
• Fast page load times
• More page views for your site and more ad impressions
• Achieves desired objective

Cons

• The more pages you want your users to be able to navigate back in time, the longer it will take to publish, cough I mean cache the page.
• You can't really go back in time infinitely. You have to choose a reasonable number of pages to allow your users to paginate through. On the plus side, most users most navigate that far back - rarely more than 10 pages in fact.

Anyways, I hope this hack helps you. If you have any questions, or need help, please let me know.

Filed in Movable Type and tagged chicagonow, demo, fast, free, hacks, movable type, pagination, php