How can I find the range of a field covered by each page of a paginated set?

Question

I have a model Task(id, start_date, end_date, description). I use Paginator like

    $this->Paginator->settings = array(
        'Task'=>array(
            'contain'=>$contain,
            'limit'=> $limit,
            'conditions'=>$conditions,
            'order'=>'Task.start_date ASC',
            'page'=> $page,
    ));

What I'm after is to be able to know the range of start_date covered by each page of the paged set. Instead of page numbers (i.e. in view generated by $this->Paginator->numbers()) I'd like to create links like "2 weeks ago" and "Today" that jump to the page containing the first Task with start_date > NOW()-14Days, for example.

I fully understand I could alter my $conditions and set a range on the start_date, but I want the whole set.

Open to other ideas on how to achieve the same result, or any pointers in the right direction.

Answer 1

I ended up running my search twice, once paginated, once not. I then went through the unpaged results

$pgStarts = array();    
$pgCounter = 1;

foreach($tasks as $k => $task){
    if(($k % $limit) == 0){
        $pgStarts[$pgCounter] = $task['Task']['start_time'];
        $pgCounter++;
    }
}

Once I had the array of start dates for each page I could easily change the way the paging numbers were labeled. I was even able to break down the key event day by hour (most tasks are on this day).

I'm happy with the result, as I think it gives the paging more context. I'll continue to look for a better way of doing it, but this will do for now.