diff --git a/src/_posts/2019-08-30-civicrm-mailing-validation.md b/src/_posts/2019-08-30-civicrm-mailing-validation.md index 5db7dea..853ab05 100644 --- a/src/_posts/2019-08-30-civicrm-mailing-validation.md +++ b/src/_posts/2019-08-30-civicrm-mailing-validation.md @@ -7,10 +7,19 @@ category: howto date: 2019-08-30 --- -Some of our clients use [CiviCRM](https://civicrm.org/) which is a popular open source "constituent relationship management" platform. One of those clients regularly uses the "Mailing" features to send out emails to their supporters and we found out they're experiancing a bug where a user sends out a mailing with the same name (not subject line, just the internal identifier 🙄) as an existing mailing, it'll cause the CRM to -freeze up at a later time. +Some of our clients use [CiviCRM](https://civicrm.org/), a popular open source +"constituent relationship management" platform. One of those clients regularly +uses the "Mailing" features to send out emails to their supporters, and told us +that they're experiancing a bug: if a user sends out a mailing with the same +name (not subject line, just the internal identifier 🙄) as an existing one, +it'll cause the CRM to freeze up elsewhere. -As an added challenge, the mailings feature of CiviCRM [now use AngularJS](https://docs.civicrm.org/dev/en/latest/framework/angular/) following a recent rebuild by the developers, and there aren't many tutorials or examples out there of workarounds to this issue. Luckily, the CiviCRM developer community was super-helpful, and we managed to sort out some in-form validation to prevent duplicate mailing names for our client and now for you, too! +As an added challenge, the mailing features of CiviCRM [now use +AngularJS](https://docs.civicrm.org/dev/en/latest/framework/angular/) following +a recent rebuild by the developers, and there aren't many tutorials or examples +out there to customise it. Luckily, the CiviCRM developer community was +super-helpful, and we managed to sort out some in-form validation to prevent +duplicate mailing names for our client… and now for you, too! ## Create a new extension @@ -18,13 +27,19 @@ Using [`civix`](https://github.com/totten/civix), we set up a new CiviCRM extens civix generate:module mailing -(We called our extension `mailing`, because our creative director was occupied with an Art at the time) +(We called our extension `mailing`, because our creative director was occupied +with an Art at the time) -Our client sensibly keeps their custom CiviCRM extensions in `git`, at this stage we initialised a repository, added the boilerplate template code, and pushed. +Our client sensibly keeps their custom CiviCRM extensions in `git`, so at this +stage we initialised a repository, added the boilerplate template code, and +pushed. ## Set up the AngularJS hook -A function called `mailing_civicrm_alterAngular()` will get executed whenever an AngularJS page loads, and you can use a `ChangeSet` to edit an AngularJS template – and, because AngularJS templates specify form logic, also change the validation behaviour. Our hook function looks like this: +A function called `mailing_civicrm_alterAngular()` will get executed whenever +an AngularJS page loads, and you can use a `ChangeSet` to edit an AngularJS +template. Because AngularJS templates specify form logic, this also lets you +change the validation behaviour. Our hook function looks like this: function mailing_civicrm_alterAngular($angular) { $changeSet = \Civi\Angular\ChangeSet::create('mailing_name_unique') @@ -41,11 +56,15 @@ A function called `mailing_civicrm_alterAngular()` will get executed whenever a } -Setting `crm-ui-validate` to `validateName` directly fired the event _way_ too many times, so instead `validateName` is only called when focus leaves the field, `ng-blur`, which then sets the `isValid` variable that's checked by `crm-ui-validate`. +Setting `crm-ui-validate` to `validateName` directly fired the event _way_ too +many times, so instead `validateName` is only called when focus leaves the +field, `ng-blur`, which then sets the `isValid` variable that's checked by +`crm-ui-validate`. ## Create the `validateName` function -Then, the code which queries the CiviCRM API to check for mailings with duplicate names: +Then, the code which queries the CiviCRM API to check for mailings with +duplicate names: var validating = false; @@ -90,10 +109,14 @@ Activate the extension, e.g. with `cv` $ cv en mailing -Now, open a mailing and try to give it the same name as an existing one – you should see the field border turn red, and you'll be prevented from continuing or sending the mailing: +Now, open a mailing and try to give it the same name as an existing one – you +should see the field border turn red, and you'll be prevented from continuing or +sending the mailing: ![](/assets/images/civicrm_validation.png) -(As a bonus, the extension also sends a notification to the user using `CRM.alert` to explain the error) +(As a bonus, the extension also sends a notification to the user using +`CRM.alert` to explain the error) -It does seem like a red border sometimes hangs around the field label even after the value is valid again.. but apart from that, the feature is working great! +It does seem like a red border sometimes hangs around the field label even after +the value is valid again… but apart from that, the feature is working great!