How to use Text Helper

This is a community-contributed tutorial. This tutorial is over a year old and may not apply to your version of Concrete CMS.
Oct 17, 2019
By hissy for Designers
// >= 8.5.2
$text = app('helper/text');

// <= 8.5.1
$text = Core::make('helper/text');

// Like sanitize, but requiring a certain number of characters, and assuming a tail.
// You can set a max number of characters by the second parameter.
// You can set the tail by passing a string to the third parameter.
$string = $text->shortText($string, 255, '...');

// Alias of ->shortText()
$string = $text->shorten($string);

// Shortens and sanitizes a string but only cuts at word boundaries.
$string = $text->shortenTextWord($string, 255, '...');

// Alias of ->shortenTextWord()
$string = $text->wordSafeShortText($string);

// Leaves only characters that are alpha-numeric.
$string = $text->alphanum($string);
$string = $text->filterNonAlphaNum($string);

// Leaves only US-ASCII characters.
$string = $text->asciify($string);

// Leaves only characters that are valid in email addresses (RFC).
$string = $text->email($string);

// Scans passed text and automatically hyperlinks any URL inside it.
// If you want to set target=_blank, pass true to the second parameter.
// You can set default protocol with the third parameter.
$string = $text->autolink($string, true, 'https://');

// Scans passed text and automatically add hyperlinks to any twitter style @usernames in a string.
// If you want to set target=_blank, pass true to the second parameter.
// If you want to add hyperlinks to #hashtags also, pass true to the third parameter.
$string = $text->twitterAutolink($string, true, true);

// Takes a string and turns it into the CamelCase or StudlyCaps version.
$string = $text->camelcase($string);

// Takes a CamelCase string and turns it into camel_case.
$string = $text->uncamelcase($string);

// Takes a string like "Blah Blah" and turn it into "blah-blah".
$string = $text->handle($string);

// Takes a handle-based string like "blah_blah" or "blah-blah" or "blah/blah" and turns it into "Blah Blah".
$string = $text->unhandle($string);

// Always use this instead of htmlentities()
$string = $text->entities($string);

// Decodes html-encoded entities
$string = $text->decodeEntities($string);

// Always use this instead of htmlspecialchars()
$string = $text->specialchars($string);

// Combination of strip_tags(), autolink, nl2br
$string = $text->makenice($string);

This is not a complete list of the functions of text helper. To see it, please visit API document.

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