I am trying to create my own CMS Blog for education purposes, and nearly every Blog has a reference in each article that generally says something like:

Updated: April 1, 1999 | Published: April 1, 1999 | Created: April 1, 1999

I have my model set up to allow manual entry of this through the view form, but I am assuming there is a way to do this via the model when the form is created.

I know I should be using DateTime.UTCNow to establish it, but I'm not sure how I should be triggering it.

Model

using System;
using System.Data.Entity;
using System.Web;
using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations;
using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations.Schema;
using System.Web.Mvc;

namespace JosephMCasey.Areas.Article.Models
{
    public class Articles
    {
        [Key]
        public int PostId { get; set; }
        [Required]
        [StringLength(256, MinimumLength = 1, ErrorMessage = "Title cannot be longer than 256 characters.")]
        public string Title { get; set;}
        [Display(Name = "Create Date")]
        [DataType(DataType.Date)]
        [DisplayFormat(DataFormatString = "{0:yyyy-MM-dd}", ApplyFormatInEditMode = true)]
        public DateTime? CreateDate { get; set; }
        [Display(Name = "Publish Date")]
        [DataType(DataType.Date)]
        [DisplayFormat(DataFormatString = "{0:yyyy-MM-dd}", ApplyFormatInEditMode = true)]
        public DateTime? PublishDate { get; set; }
        [Display(Name = "Modify Date")]
        [DataType(DataType.Date)]
        [DisplayFormat(DataFormatString = "{0:yyyy-MM-dd}", ApplyFormatInEditMode = true)]
        public DateTime? ModifyDate { get; set; }
        public string Author { get; set; }
        [Required]
        [NotMapped]
        public MvcHtmlString PageBody { get; set; }

        public string Body
        {
            get { return PageBody.ToHtmlString(); }
            set { PageBody = new MvcHtmlString(value); }
        }
        // Feature is the featured image of each blog
        public string Feature { get; set; }
        public bool Published { get; set; }
        public string Excerpt { get; set;}
        [Display(Name = "GMT of Create Date")]
        [DataType(DataType.Date)]
        [DisplayFormat(DataFormatString = "{0:yyyy-MM-dd}", ApplyFormatInEditMode = true)]
        public DateTime? CreateDateUTC { get; set; }
        [Display(Name = "UTC of Publish Date")]
        [DataType(DataType.Date)]
        [DisplayFormat(DataFormatString = "{0:yyyy-MM-dd}", ApplyFormatInEditMode = true)]
        public DateTime? PublishDateUTC { get; set; }
        [Display(Name = "GMT of Modify Date")]
        [DataType(DataType.Date)]
        [DisplayFormat(DataFormatString = "{0:yyyy-MM-dd}", ApplyFormatInEditMode = true)]
        public DateTime? ModifyDateUTC { get; set; }
        public string CanonicalUrl { get; set; }
        public string UrlSlug { get; set; }
        public string Category { get; set; }
        public string Tag { get; set; }
    }
    public class ArticleDBContext : DbContext
    {
        public DbSet<Articles> Articles { get; set; }
        public DbSet<Category> Categories { get; set; }
        public DbSet<Tag> Tags { get; set; }
    }
}

Possible Extension Method?

   //Where should the extension method be coded?
            internal static void SyncObjectsStatePreCommit(this DbContext dbContext)
            {
                foreach (var dbEntityEntry in dbContext.ChangeTracker.Entries())
                {
    
                    var trackableObject = dbEntityEntry.Entity as ITrackable;
    
                    // we need to set/update trackable properties
                    if (trackableObject == null)
                    {
                        continue;
                    }
    
                    var dateTime = DateTime.Now;
                    var dateTimeUTC = DateTime.UtcNow;
    
                    // set createddate only for added entities
                    if (entityState.ObjectState == ObjectState.Added)
                    {
                        trackableObject.CreateDate = dateTime;
                        trackableObject.CreateDateUTC = dateTimeUTC;
                    }
    
                    // set LastUpdatedDate for any case other than Unchanged
                    if (entityState.ObjectState != ObjectState.Unchanged)
                    {
                        trackableObject.ModifyDate = dateTime;
                        trackableObject.ModifyDateUTC = dateTimeUTC;
                    }
                }
            }

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