Sorry, but a content plugin is the wrong place for such kind of stuff. This belongs to the component controller or model. You can for example use the controllers postDeleteHook to do that.

There are other methods in that plugin which should never have been put there. The only valid one is the onContentAfterSave which sends a notification.
Plugins are (or should be) optional. They can be disabled by the user and the system should still work without getting corrupt data. That is not the case here for the onContentBeforeDelete (prevents deleting non-empty categories) and onContentChangeState (updates UCM table with changed state) andf your proposed new method. If that plugin is disabled, you would get wrong data entries.

ok i've got your point,
but following this logic all stuff done by the joomla content plugin wich can be disabled are misplaced
even onContentAfterSave

BTW used the postDeleteHook now

but following this logic all stuff done by the joomla content plugin wich can be disabled are misplaced even onContentAfterSave

The onContentAfterSave is fine. It's sort of a coupling between com_content and com_users and sends a message to the admins when a new article is submitted in frontend. It's a completely optional feature and nothing breaks here if the plugin is disabled.

All the other stuff is in the wrong place.

BTW used the postDeleteHook now

Looks much better to me now. Thanks!

so we need some kind of deprecation for these that are misplaced ?
or they are simply bad pattern

Probably yes, but first rewrite them in a B/C manner to use the models :)

What about move the action to JTableObserver?
Means create a new observer like JTableObserverFeatured.

For now I do not know how to do that because there no exists onAfterDelete method but it is onBeforeDelete.
I would put a new observer here:
https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/blob/staging/libraries/legacy/table/content.php#L35

and in subclass override that method:
https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/blob/staging/libraries/joomla/table/observer.php#L106

This way we can better simulate foreign key relationship "ON DELETE CASCADE".

As this is a referential integrity issue, it is a responsibility of the model. Why not simply override the delete method in the model and add the extra code there? The controller should not be involved at all.

Adding observers to JTable is more for cross-cutting concerns that need to work across multiple components. This code is specifically tied to articles, as I understand it.

Yeah, no need for an observer as it is strictly com_content code.

Either the controllers postDeleteHook or an overridden delete method in the model does the job correctly. @chrisdavenport has a valid point there as well.

@chrisdavenport do you mean to add the delete for #__content_frontpage item here https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/blob/6aaae6e07d7b345c9a926f2b3db31bd600716c82/libraries/legacy/model/admin.php#L748

something like is already made for Associations ie when $context is com_content.article ?

No. That is a generic library model, your code is com_content code only.
But you can override that delete method from JModelAdmin in ContentModelArticle. Eg

public function delete(&$pks)
{
    $return = parent::delete($pks);

    if ($return)
    {
        do your stuff here
    }

    return $return;
}

That will use the delete method from the JModelAdmin (parent::delete()) and if that was successfull afterwards you do the additional work.

thanks @Bakual for the explanation make perfect sense now ;).

That way if you want to delete a few articles and for the not first one you:

• do not have access (ex. 1 article is not your) or
• plugin on before or after delete event failed for at least one article

then featured item won't be deleted but some articles will be deleted.

Simple test.
First article is my, second is your (I do not have access to delete your article).
I want to delete them, but then featured items won't be deleted.

@csthomas can we go step by step, before this pr, frontpage items won't have deleted at all

I have tested this item ✅ successfully on 255488e

Tested successfully when a featured item is completely deleted (trash is emptied) then the item is removed from the frontpage table

I have tested this item ✅ successfully on 255488e

works like described, thanks!

RTC