List of events in core

System events

boot, system
First event triggered. Triggered before plugins have been loaded.
plugins_boot, system
Triggered just after the plugins are loaded. Rarely used. init, system is used instead.
init, system
Plugins tend to use this event for initialization (extending views, registering callbacks, etc.)
ready, system
Triggered after the init, system event. All plugins are fully loaded and the engine is ready to serve pages.
pagesetup, system
Called just before the first content is produced. Is triggered by elgg_view().
shutdown, system
Triggered after the page has been sent to the user. Expensive operations could be done here and not make the user wait.

Note

Depending upon your server configuration the PHP output might not be shown until after the process is completed. This means that any long-running processes will still delay the page load.

regenerate_site_secret:before, system
Return false to cancel regenerating the site secret. You should also provide a message to the user.
regenerate_site_secret:after, system
Triggered after the site secret has been regenerated.
log, systemlog
Called for all triggered events. Used internally by system_log_default_logger() to populate the system_log table.
upgrade, system
Triggered after a system upgrade has finished. All upgrade scripts have run, but the caches are not cleared.
upgrade, upgrade
A single upgrade script finished executing. Handlers are passed a stdClass object with the properties
  • from - The version of Elgg upgrading from.
  • to - The version just upgraded to.
activate, plugin
Return false to prevent activation of the plugin.
deactivate, plugin
Return false to prevent deactivation of the plugin.
init:cookie, <name>
Return false to override setting a cookie.
cache:flush, system
Reset internal and external caches, by default including system_cache, simplecache, and memcache. One might use it to reset others such as APC, OPCache, or WinCache.

User events

login:before, user
Triggered during login. Returning false prevents the user from logging
login:after, user
Triggered after the user logs in.
logout:before, user
Triggered during logout. Returning false should prevent the user from logging out.
logout:after, user
Triggered after the user logouts.
validate, user
When a user registers, the user’s account is disabled. This event is triggered to allow a plugin to determine how the user should be validated (for example, through an email with a validation link).
profileupdate, user
User has changed profile
profileiconupdate, user
User has changed profile icon
ban, user
Triggered before a user is banned. Return false to prevent.
unban, user
Triggered before a user is unbanned. Return false to prevent.
make_admin, user
Triggered before a user is promoted to an admin. Return false to prevent.
remove_admin, user
Triggered before a user is demoted from an admin. Return false to prevent.

Relationship events

create, <relationship>
Triggered after a relationship has been created. Returning false deletes the relationship that was just created.
delete, <relationship>
Triggered before a relationship is deleted. Return false to prevent it from being deleted.
join, group
Triggered after the user $params['user'] has joined the group $params['group'].
leave, group
Triggered before the user $params['user'] has left the group $params['group'].

Entity events

create, <entity type>
Triggered for user, group, object, and site entities after creation. Return false to delete entity.
update, <entity type>
Triggered before an update for the user, group, object, and site entities. Return false to prevent update.
update:after, <entity type>
Triggered after an update for the user, group, object, and site entities.
delete, <entity type>
Triggered before entity deletion. Return false to prevent deletion.
disable, <entity type>
Triggered before the entity is disabled. Return false to prevent disabling.
disable:after, <entity type>
Triggered after the entity is disabled.
enable, <entity type>
Return false to prevent enabling.
enable:after, <entity type>
Triggered after the entity is enabled.

Metadata events

create, metadata
Called after the metadata has been created. Return false to delete the metadata that was just created.
update, metadata
Called after the metadata has been updated. Return false to delete the metadata.
delete, metadata
Called before metadata is deleted. Return false to prevent deletion.
enable, metadata
Called when enabling metadata. Return false to prevent enabling.
disable, metadata
Called when disabling metadata. Return false to prevent disabling.

Annotation events

annotate, <entity type>
Called before the annotation has been created. Return false to prevent annotation of this entity.
create, annotation
Called after the annotation has been created. Return false to delete the annotation.
update, annotation
Called after the annotation has been updated. Return false to delete the annotation.
delete, annotation
Called before annotation is deleted. Return false to prevent deletion.
enable, annotation
Called when enabling annotations. Return false to prevent enabling.
disable, annotations
Called when disabling annotations. Return false to prevent disabling.

River events

created, river
Called after a river item is created.

Notes

Because of bugs in the Elgg core, some events may be thrown more than once on the same action. For example, update, object is thrown twice.