Copyright Update
Created: Last updated:
I have finally made some improvements to the copyright message you see in the footer.
Until now it was more or less a static message, i.e. it worked pretty well for websites under my brand but not as a distribution platform.
Configuration based
Base information for the copyright message is now coming from the application's configuration and the data therefore is unique per website. Due to the dynamic nature it will be also easier later on to implement changes on the fly. For instance, we can still use the main widget for the copyright but simply feed other data into to the widget.
Configuration keys
Because the data is now within the application's configuration we have a wide open format and can store always anything in it. With a database you are always restricted to add either tables or columns to tables to extend the amount of data.
Existing keys moved to the configuration are "since" and the "credit".
Company/copyright "since" year
The "since" key is used for the year with the copyright. The widget already took the current year and added a since year, i.e. a year in the past that was prepended. The year in the config is also smart proof, i.e. a year in the future is ignored as well as a year before 1720. This year is based on the "Bubble Act". Google it if you like.
Company name and a "trademark"
The company is usually taken from the siteMainTitle in the database but it can now be overridden with the config. While the siteMainTitle can still be used for the website title tag in the document head I can now have a different name in the copyright.
More importantly there is the "trademark" key which if it translates to true appends the trademark [ ™ ] sign to the company name.
Give "credit" where credit is due
The credit message was always hardcorded but is now only some default message leading to my main project and can be overwritten with the config.