George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School

Category: Web Development

List All Sites Using Custom Shortcode

Shortcodes make it easier to customize wordpress pages quickly. WordPress comes with pre-built shortcodes but we’re going to build one from scratch. You will need to add a function to your child theme’s functions.php file. This particular code builds an ordered list of all our wordpress sites under our sls.gmu.edu domain using the get_sites() function. This function will work on all WP platforms 4.3 and above.


/*
* Author: Matthew
* This function creates a shortcode usable in all sites using the scalia law theme to create an ordered list of
all multisites
*/
function scalia_list_sites() {

$subsites = get_sites(); //creates variable using get_sites

if ( ! empty ( $subsites ) ) {

$html = '

    '; //sets up class

    foreach( $subsites as $subsite ) {

    $subsite_id = $subsite->blog_id; //finds sites by id
    $subsite_name = get_blog_details( $subsite_id )->blogname; //creates variable for site name
    $subsite_link = get_blog_details( $subsite_id )->siteurl; //creates variable for site url
    $html .= '< li class="site-' . $subsite_id . '">< a href="' . $subsite_link . '">' . $subsite_name . '< /a >< /li >'; //builds individual list items
    sort($html);
    }

    $html .= '< /ol >';

    return $html; //returns the list

    }

    }
    add_shortcode('scalia_list', 'scalia_list_sites'); //calls function and sets up [ scalia_list ] custom short code

    This goes in your child-theme’s functions.php file.

How to Renew SSL Certificate for law.gmu.edu

  1. Log into cPanel (GoDaddy) and go to SSL/TLS

    2. SSL screenshot

  2. Generate CSR and fill out all the information.

  3. Request SSL certificate from ITS. Submit a request to get a certificate.

  4. Once you get it from ITS, go back to cPanel – SSL and then go to certificates

  5. Then upload the .crt file that ITS gave you

  6. Go to Manage SSL Sites. Scroll down to the Install an SSL Website and click Browse Certificates. Select the certificate that you want to activate and click Use Certificate. Click Install Certificate.

Force Update of PDFs

When replacing an existing PDF, browsers don’t serve the latest version. They usually serve the cached version. To change that, we use Apache directives as below:

# Instruct browsers to always check for the latest version of your files using Apache directives
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
<FilesMatch "(?i)^.*\.(css|htm|html|gif|jpg|jpeg|js|png|pdf)$">
Header set Cache-Control "max-age=0,must-revalidate"
</FilesMatch>
</IfModule>

The instruction above includes more than just PDF.

Another solution is using ?ver=x.x in the URL. For example:

https://www.law.gmu.edu/assets/css/2015/style.css?ver=2.0

x.x could be any number.

Source: “How to force an update of cached files, images, favicon”

PHP Script Swapping out GA codes

This script was used to delineate Google Analytic Tracking codes between four different sites sharing the same wordpress theme files. Originally placed in footer.php above the GA tracking code provided by Google.

<?php
$host = 'https://' . $_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'] . $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
if (strpos($host,'sls') !== false)
{
$gacode ="UA-792782-19";
}

elseif (strpos($host,'gai') !== false)
{
$gacode ="UA-792782-21";
}

elseif (strpos($host,'pep') !== false)
{
$gacode ="UA-792782-22";
}

elseif (strpos($host,'mvets') !== false)
{
$gacode ="UA-792782-23";
}

else
{
$gacode ="UA-792782-XX";
}
?>

The script checks the URL and replaces the $gacode variable with the correct analytics code inside the provided GA script.


<script>
(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){
(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),
m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)
})(window,document,'script','https://www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga');

ga('create', '<?phpecho $gacode; ?>', 'auto');
ga('send', 'pageview');

</script>

Homepage Featured Events Display Using DOM

The featured events on the Mason Law homepage is pulled from the master calendar’s RSS. To get the dates and times separated from the titles, accessing the DOM is needed. The following codes, which requires jQuery, make the magic happened:

$('.rssItemLink').each(
function(){
$this = $(this);
$this.
html('<em>' +
$this.
html().
replace(/((\d{1,2}\/){2}\d{2,4}\s*[0-9]{1,2}:[0-9]{1,2}\s*[apAP][mM]\s*to\s*[0-9]{1,2}:[0-9]{1,2}\s*[apAP][mM])/,
'</em><b>$1</b>'
)
);
}
);

Sticky Nav on Scroll

Here’s a little JavaScript function to make your site’s header or navigation stick to the top of the window when users scroll the page:

HTML:

<div id="navigation">
  <!-- your navigation code -->
</div>

CSS:

#navigation{
  position:absolute;
  top:120px;
  left:0;
}
#navigation.fixed{
  position:fixed;
  top:16px;
}

JavaScript:

// Handles the page being scrolled by ensuring the navigation is always in view.
function handleScroll(){
  // check that this is a relatively modern browser
  if (window.XMLHttpRequest){
    // determine the distance scrolled down the page
    var offset = window.pageYOffset
               ? window.pageYOffset
               : document.documentElement.scrollTop;
    // set the appropriate class on the navigation
    document.getElementById('navigation').className =
        (offset > 104 ? 'fixed' : '');
  }
}
// add the scroll event listener
if (window.addEventListener){
  window.addEventListener('scroll', handleScroll, false);
}else{
  window.attachEvent('onscroll', handleScroll);
}

Source: “Detachable navigation using JavaScript“

EMS Master Calendar Modification

  1. Connect to the server via Microsoft Remote Desktop
  2. Locate: C:\inetpub\wwwroot\MasterCalendar (under My Computer, C drive)

In order to add the Mason Law logo in the master calendar of events, I had to modify the master template file (Calendar.master). Scroll down to line 105, you’ll see this:

<div>
<input type="hidden" name="__VIEWSTATEGENERATOR" id="__VIEWSTATEGENERATOR" value="28B11E50" />
<input type="hidden" name="__VIEWSTATEENCRYPTED" id="__VIEWSTATEENCRYPTED" value="" />
</div>
<div id="ctl00_HeaderContainer" class="HeaderContainer show-large">

<!--MASON LAW BY DONNY-->
<div style="background-color:#063; width:100%;"><a href="https://www.law.gmu.edu/"><img src="https://sls.gmu.edu/cdn/shared-img/cal-head-logo.png" alt="Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University" ></a><a href="http://events.law.gmu.edu/MasterCalendar/"><img src="https://sls.gmu.edu/cdn/shared-img/cal-head-text.png" alt="Calendar of Events" ></a></div>
<!--/MASON LAW BY DONNY-->

<div class="row po">
<div class="twelve columns">
<div id="ctl00_Header_imgBannerDiv" class="imgBanner centered pointer"><img src="http://events.law.gmu.edu/MasterCalendar/ImageWriter.aspx?data=IPkf9F3DB014d7Mcuxnr02hg194Zr%2fYICmc%2b3DyQmrlgKN39%2bJJQUIYsuFOrpOhm" alt="Banner Image" style="border-width:0px;" /></div>
</div>
</div>

This template needs to be update every time the EMS calendar is upgraded.

Simple RSS Parser With lastRSS

LastRSS makes displaying RSS feed easy. Here’s an example:

<?php
// include lastRSS
include "./lastRSS.php";

// Create lastRSS object
$rss = new lastRSS;

// Set cache dir and cache time limit (1200 seconds)
// (don't forget to chmod cahce dir to 777 to allow writing)
$rss->cache_dir = './temp';
$rss->cache_time = 1200;

// Try to load and parse RSS file
if ($rs = $rss->get('http://www.law.gmu.edu/rss/news_all')) {
// Show website logo (if presented)
if ($rs[image_url] != '') {
echo "<a href=\"$rs[image_link]\"><img src=\"$rs[image_url]\" alt=\"$rs[image_title]\"  /></a>\n";
}
// Show clickable website title
echo "<h1><a href=\"$rs[link]\">$rs[title]</a></h1>\n";
// Show website description
echo "<p>$rs[description]</p>\n";
// Show last published articles (title, link, description)
echo "<ul>\n";
foreach($rs['items'] as $item) {
echo "\t<li><a href=\"$item[link]\">".$item['title']."</a>".$item['description']."</li>\n";
}
echo "</ul>\n";
}
else {
echo "Error: It's not possible to reach RSS file...\n";
}
?>

Simple CAS Authentication

The following script makes a private web site accessible only to authenticated users. For example, if you have a career services web site and you only want students to access the materials using their email (university) credentials, this script would do the trick. You don’t need to create separate accounts  for the site.

1. Download phpCAS and unzip/untar it: https://wiki.jasig.org/display/CASC/phpCAS.

2. Place the entire phpCAS directory on your server.

3. Place the following codes in at the top of any .php file that you want the contents to be private. If you want to make the entire site private, just add the script to an include file in the header. The following script is based on a simple CAS client:

<?php

/**
* Example for a simple cas 2.0 client
*
* PHP Version 5
*
* @file example_simple.php
* @category Authentication
* @package PhpCAS
* @author Joachim Fritschi <jfritschi@freenet.de>
* @author Adam Franco <afranco@middlebury.edu>
* @license http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 Apache License 2.0
* @link https://wiki.jasig.org/display/CASC/phpCAS
*/

// Load the settings from the central config file
// require_once 'config.php'; /*commented out by Donny*/
// Load the CAS lib
require_once $phpcas_path . '/CAS.php'; /*This is the path that to the CAS directory on your server, not the URL*/

// Uncomment to enable debugging
phpCAS::setDebug();

// Initialize phpCAS
phpCAS::client(CAS_VERSION_2_0, $cas_host, $cas_port, $cas_context);
//example: phpCAS::client(CAS_VERSION_1_0, 'login.gmu.edu', 443,'');

// For production use set the CA certificate that is the issuer of the cert
// on the CAS server and uncomment the line below
// phpCAS::setCasServerCACert($cas_server_ca_cert_path);

// For quick testing you can disable SSL validation of the CAS server.
// THIS SETTING IS NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PRODUCTION.
// VALIDATING THE CAS SERVER IS CRUCIAL TO THE SECURITY OF THE CAS PROTOCOL!
phpCAS::setNoCasServerValidation();

// force CAS authentication
phpCAS::forceAuthentication();

// at this step, the user has been authenticated by the CAS server
// and the user's login name can be read with phpCAS::getUser().

// logout if desired
if (isset($_REQUEST['logout'])) {
phpCAS::logout();
}

// for this test, simply print that the authentication was successfull
?>

4. Add the following script to your HTML file to indicate if the user is logged in and also to the allow the user to sign off.

<div>Not <strong><?php echo phpCAS::getUser(); ?></strong>? <a href="?logout=">Sign out</a></div>