Should I use JResponse::setBody or onContentPrepare for strings replacements?

Question

I am developing a shortcodes plugin that searches trough Joomla content and creates html outputs from the matched string.

Currently I am using this

   public function onContentPrepare($context, &$row, &$params, $page = 0){

        if ($this->run_plg != 1)return;
        require_once 'shortcodes.php';
        $row->text = shortcodes($row->text);

        return true;
    }

And it works very well. As you can see this runs trough every Joomla content basically , including modules ( Not sure about Virtuemart or some other 3rd party extensions ) . But if you were to use the shortcode in your template files it would not find it.

So I am thinking on placing the function in onAfterRender like this:

function onAfterRender() {
    require_once 'shortcodes.php';
    $body        = JResponse::getBody();
    $body       = shortcodes($body);
    JResponse::setBody($body);
}

This would match the string anywhere on the site. My concern is the performance. Here is simple example of shortcodes function.

https://eval.in/141437

the original one is refined with PREG_SET_ORDER and runs only if the string from $shortcode['type'] is found.

So the question is , what would you recommend and why if you have time to explain.

Thank you and CONGRATS :)

Answer 1

As with my other answer on plugin performance, the best way to find out is to test.

Take a look at the other answer for details, but it should be easy to add time logging statements using the JLog class to compare the timing results of each method.

That said, if you need to catch the shortcode everywhere on the site then onAfterRender is the quick, easy and perhaps only way (using plugins).

Answer 2

onContentPrepare is more or less build for the output of extensions. It is my opinion that there should be no where else a find/replace on load should be added. The reason I say this is to make sure that Joomla stays consistent with its methods.

So if some sort of find/replace is needed it can be best to put it in a custom HTML module instead (you can also create a custom layout for it and such). This way content plugins stay parsing your content, leaving your system plugins to adjust environment settings and such, or load extra libraries (basically, adjust Joomla's core and extend it).

Look into the nonumber extensions, mainly the Advanced module manager, it lets you target modules with many more settings. While it might not help you, the control they give can lead to alternate solutions you would not think of otherwise. http://www.nonumber.nl/