8.2.1. Moon & Sun block

The Moon and Sun blocks are very simple blocks: they show the current Moon or Sun image, but technically they contain no dynamic components. The blocks incorporate an image with a fixed URL. It is left to the provider of the image (the U.S. Naval Observatory and the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center) to put whatever image is "current" into the that fixed URL. This simplifies the programming of the blocks substancially.

The Moon block shows the daily Lunar Phase. It also shows the Julian Date, and some Moon info and uses a simple cache to wait x minutes before grabbing the image again remotely. Stores image in temp cache folder on your site.

The Sun block grabs an image of the sun that is taken daily, and places it on your web page. Nice colored Solar Image, includes Sunrise and Sunset info, that can be customized. Also caches image on your site, and fetches the new image every x minutes.

The Moon & Sun block combines the two images in a single PHP-Nuke block, but omits the information and the caching functionality.

Caching

Even if your PHP-Nuke block does not come with a caching mechanism (which is especially useful in cases where the block's content does not change on literally every page request), this does not mean you are excluded from reaping its benefits! In Chapter 24 we discuss all the caching options you have in detail. You may want to use one of the standard solutions presented there, rather than implement a slightly different caching mechanism with each and every block you install on your site.