Thread

I’m currently working on a feature for our site where we want our {exp:channel:next_entry} and {exp:channel:prev_entry} links to display a small bit of text from the body channel entry field when the you hover over the title link (see attached image to see what we want it to look like). The exp:channel:next_entry and exp:channel:prev_entry provide only id, path, url, and title, variables. My first thought is to write a simple plug-in to get the results I need, but before I dive too deep I wanted to make sure there wasn’t some built-in functionality or an existing add-on that does what I need. Am I missing an obvious solution?

A channel:entries loop into a PHP array with the entry id being the array [key]...done.

There might be other options but by the time you find one you could probably have yourself sorted, eh? 😊

Yeah, but I would end up with multiple channel entries tags and there is a performance hit for that right? I ended up writing a simple plug-in and it seems to work fine for my case. I’m just wondering if there is an “out-of-the-box” way. Your method does give that for sure, but I have been told channel entries is “expensive” and to avoid using multiples in a template if you can. Is that true? I know I could set caching on it though, so maybe it won’t be that bad?

It’s expensive because under the hood a single entry is actually a # of different tables and those table need to be joined. As far as I know, this is what the disable parameter helps to manage:

http://ellislab.com/expressionengine/user-guide/modules/channel/channel_entries.html#disable

If you just used a Query instead then I would think your overhead would be minimal. The other option might be to use the API.

Somethin’ like that, eh? 😊

Yup. By making a quick plugin I was able to get what i needed with a single simple query. It does have one join, but my guess is it’s more efficient than using the channel entries tag even with the ‘disable’ params.

If you do a formal test of one v the other please share.