Entry Post Date Format time since - X days ago

Question

Is there anyway to get my date formats looking like Facebook? I'd like to get my articles to have this as a date format: "5 min ago", "yesterday", "3 days ago", "4 months ago" and then once it reaches a full year ago, make it have a date format like "Dec 5, 2016".

If anyone has gotten this working, would you mind sharing with me(and the world) your code on how to achieve this in Twig?

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Chiming in with a solution made from reading the above solution and comments. I also wrapped it in a macro.

{% macro timeAgo(entry) %}

    {% set dateOneHourAgo = now.modify('- 1 hour') %}

    {% set elapsedMinutes = entry.myDateField.diff(now).m %}

    {% if not (entry.myDateField < dateOneHourAgo) %}

        {{ entry.myDateField.diff(now) | duration | split('and') | first }} ago

    {% else %}

        {{ entry.myDateField.diff(now) | duration | split(',') | first }} ago

    {% endif %}

{% endmacro %}

Answer 2

It looks as though Craft 3’s built-in duration Twig filter might help:

Posted {{ entry.myDateField.diff(now) | duration }} ago.

With a bit of additional logic, you can make this more useful, after an Entry leaves a specified window:

{% set dateOneYearAgo = now.modify('- 1 year') %}
{% set dateOneMonthAgo = now.modify('- 1 month') %}
{% set dateOneDayAgo = now.modify('- 1 day') %}

{% set elapsedMonths = entry.myDateField.diff(now).m %}
{% set elapsedDays = entry.myDateField.diff(now).d %}

{% if entry.myDateField < dateOneYearAgo %}
    {# Posted longer ago than one year... #}
    Posted on {{ entry.myDateField | date('M j, Y') %}
{% elseif entry.myDateField < dateOneMonthAgo %}
    {# Posted longer ago than one month (but more recently than one year, as we caught that, above)... #}
    Posted {{ elapsedMonths }} month{{ elapsedMonths != 1 ? 's' : '' }} ago
{% elseif entry.myDateField < dateOneDayAgo %}
    {# Posted longer ago than one day (but, as above, more recently than a month ago)... #}
    Posted {{ elapsedDays }} day{{ elapsedDays != 1 ? 's' : '' }} ago
{% else %}
    Posted {{ entry.myDateField.diff(now) | duration }} ago.
{% endif %}

The if statements compare the date objects, and returns true if entry.myDateField is earlier than the date one year ago (- 1 year), one month ago (-1 month), etc.

now.modify(…) is a convenient and human-readable way of getting a date relative to the current time—you can pass this method any relative date string.

The ternary statements (like {{ elapsedDays != 1 ? 's' : '' }}) are just a crummy way of properly pluralizing the units of time—I'd recommend using the Typogrify plugin, instead, as it offers some more declarative ways to handling this— say, {{ 'month' | pluralize(elapsedDays) }}.

Note: I've omitted special circumstances for things like “yesterday,” as these constraints can be layered in as new else if statements—just be sure to put the tightest constraints at the top, so that it matches your priorities (i.e. a test for “last week” should come after a test for “yesterday”). Anything you don't care about can fall through to the default duration filter.