Retrieving Most Viewed Articles and Their Author Names

Likaa · December 6, 2018, 4:17am

Hello,

Following this block plugin as an example I was able to retrieve a list of most view articles:

However, my requirements include displaying the author’s name instead of the journalName. This is where my difficulty starts.
The array $resultMetrics returned by the block component only contains [journalPath, journalName, articleId, articleTitle, metric].
I’m aware that I can use the articleId to find the authorId and name by searching through the DB, but I’m not clear on how to do so. I’m still very new to the OJS system.

Any advice would be appreciated.

ctgraham · December 6, 2018, 2:10pm

You have access to the Article object courtesy of:

github.com

ajnyga/mostRead/blob/2203e26d40f5b990c6274a3e2901027d556d4777/MostReadBlockPlugin.inc.php#L90



			$currentDate = date('Ymd');
			$weekAgo = date('Ymd', strtotime("-1 week"));

			$result = $metricsDao->retrieve(
				"SELECT submission_id, SUM(metric) AS metric FROM metrics WHERE (day BETWEEN $weekAgo AND $currentDate) AND (assoc_type='515' AND submission_id IS NOT NULL) AND (context_id='?') GROUP BY submission_id ORDER BY metric DESC LIMIT 5", (int) $context->getId()
			);

			while (!$result->EOF) {
				$resultRow = $result->GetRowAssoc(false);
				$article = $publishedArticleDao->getById($resultRow['submission_id']);	
				$journal = $journalDao->getById($article->getJournalId());
				$articles[$resultRow['submission_id']]['journalPath'] = $journal->getPath();
				$articles[$resultRow['submission_id']]['articleId'] = $article->getBestArticleId();
				$articles[$resultRow['submission_id']]['articleTitle'] = $article->getLocalizedTitle();
				$articles[$resultRow['submission_id']]['metric'] = $resultRow['metric'];
				$result->MoveNext();
			}
			$result->Close();			
			$cache->setEntireCache($articles);
			return $result;

Because an Article is a Submission, you also have access to super handy methods like getFirstAuthor(), getAuthorString(), getShortAuthorString():

github.com

pkp/pkp-lib/blob/1641e2a4f230767de6f882586ff527610f9bb543/classes/submission/Submission.inc.php#L250-L317


	/**
	 * Return first author
	 * @param $lastOnly boolean return lastname only (default false)
	 * @return string
	 */
	function getFirstAuthor($lastOnly = false) {
		$authors = $this->getAuthors();
		if (is_array($authors) && !empty($authors)) {
			$author = $authors[0];
			return $lastOnly ? $author->getLastName() : $author->getFullName();
		} else {
			return null;
		}
	}

	/**
	 * Return string of author names, separated by the specified token
	 * @param $lastOnly boolean return list of lastnames only (default false)
	 * @param $nameSeparator string Separator for names (default comma+space)
	 * @param $userGroupSeparator string Separator for user groups (default semicolon+space)

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Choose your favorite and add it into the $articles[] array.

Likaa · December 7, 2018, 6:50am

Thanks. I was stuck at attempting to get the author string and was using getAuthors():
$articles[$resultRow['submission_id']]['articleAuthors'] = $article->getAuthors();

instead of getAuthorString().
I’m able to display the journal author now.