Utilities

URLs

`cleanUrl(string $type, string $slug = null, int $page = null, string $category = null): string`

Single source of truth for all front-end URLs.

cleanUrl('home')                         // https://example.com/
cleanUrl('article', 'my-article')        // https://example.com/article/my-article/
cleanUrl('articles', null, 2)            // https://example.com/articles/page/2/
cleanUrl('category', null, null, 'news') // https://example.com/category/news/

`getBaseUrl(): string`

Base URL with a trailing slash. Derives the CMS sub-directory from CMS_ROOT compared against $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'], falling back to SCRIPT_NAME — reliable regardless of which entry script handles the request, including from plugin subdirectories.

`url_slug(string $type): string`

Localized URL prefix for a content type, from the active front-end locale. Supported: article, articles, project, projects, page, pages, category, tag.

`getThemeResourcePath(string $resource, string $file = ''): string`

Relative path to a resource inside the active theme directory.

`loadThemePartial(string $name, array $vars = []): ?string`

Loads theme/{active}/partials/{name}.php, returns buffered output, or null if not found (caller supplies its own fallback).

`loadThemeTemplate(string $template, array $params = []): void`

Includes theme/{active}/{template}.php, cascading to theme/default/ for any missing file.

SEO & data

`generateSEO(string $pageTitle, string $type, string $slug, array $data, array $settings): array`

Merges item-level SEO overrides with site defaults. Returns ['title' => ..., 'description' => ...].

`getCategoryPath(string $categorySlug, array $data): string`

Full hierarchical slug path of a category, e.g. 'naturopathy/supplements'.

`getCategoryDescendants(string $categorySlug, array $categories): array`

Every descendant slug at any depth below the given category — what powers category pages including content from their sub-categories.

`output_canonical_url(?array $pageData = null): string`

<link rel="canonical">, from $pageData['canonical_url'] if set, otherwise auto-generated from the current URI.

Settings & themes

`loadConfig(): array`

Loads and merges config.json with defaults. Handles the theme-preview token (_tp) to override active_theme per-request without touching disk, and sets the configured timezone for all date() calls. (Renamed from loadSettings() in the 1.3.3 restructure — settings.json itself was renamed to config.json at the same time.)

`getAvailableThemes(): array`

Scans /theme/, returns folder names containing a valid css/style.css.

Page detection

`is_home(): bool`

`is_current_page(string $type, string $slug = ''): bool`

if (is_home()) { echo '<div class="hero">…</div>'; }
if (is_current_page('article', 'my-article')) { /* … */ }

Formatting

`format_date(string $date): string`

Formats a Y-m-d[ H:i] string per the site's configured date_format. Returns '' for an empty input — a theme checking !empty($item['date']) before calling this is the correct guard.

`sanitizeSlug(string $text, bool $allowSpecialChars = false): string`

URL-safe slug, transliterating accented characters.

`decodeHtmlEntities(string $text): string`

Decodes entities (ENT_QUOTES | ENT_HTML5, UTF-8).

`get_social_icon(string $platform): string`

Inline SVG icon. Supported: instagram, x (and legacy twitter, kept for backward compatibility), facebook, github, linkedin, youtube, tiktok, discord, whatsapp, snapchat, pinterest, threads, twitch, telegram, reddit, mastodon, bluesky — 18 platforms total.

`_clean_excerpt(string $html, int $length = 150): string`

Strips shortcodes and HTML, truncates at a word boundary. Raw primitive — prefer get_article_summary() in templates.

`_asset_version(string $absPath): string`

?v=<mtime> cache-busting query string; '' if the file doesn't exist. Used internally by render_header_scripts().

i18n

`__t(string $key, string $fallback = ''): string`

Translated string for the active locale.

`_e(string $key): void`

Direct echo of __t().

`__n(string $singular, string $plural, int $count): string`

Plural-aware translation — picks the singular or plural locale string based on $count.