preprocess functions

Sometimes, you need to change the HTML markup output by some module, and you want your changes to keep whichever theme you will use. The need came up for me recently when I had to provide special markup for pages that display a webform. I had to quickly put together a module for a client, a module that would provide a template file, which I decided to name (arbitrarily) page-webform.tpl.php.

The situation may arise for you as well, so I will share my technique with you. Say you want to provide a template file for all pages that display one node of a content type with machine-readable name CONTENT_TYPE_NAME. And say you want to use a module to provide such template. Say you decide to name your module special_page. Read more →

Administrators are presented with a special marker when content is new or has been updated in the Administration section of their site at webSite.com/admin/content/node. Additionally, in node lists, the module tracker informs any logged-in user if he or she hasn't read a particular (recently created) node (using the marker new), or if a node he/she's read already was modified (using the marker updated). You, the themer, may want everyone, including “anonymous users”, to be informed of updates to nodes right inside their content. This information may specify who last edited the node and when. Note that the last editor of a content may not be the creator of that content, and I'll take this into account in my “solution”. In the following theming tweak, you'll add Last edited by name some time ago information to your nodes' content. Read more →

In Wordpress, unlike in Drupal, terms are not lumped together in posts. Each Wordpress vocabulary has its own “template tag”, and the ones that come out-of-the box are: the_tags(), and the_category(). The following theming tweak is about putting order in Drupal terms before they're output to screen. It you need to break up your terms by vocabulary before you display them, read on.  Read more →

You want to add quick edit links to the teaser view of your nodes — one link to edit the node, and another to delete it, and you want these links to be shown only to users with the 'administer nodes' permission. Alternatively, you may want these links to be viewed only by the user with uid (user ID) 1. Read more →

The following exercise consists in theming the contact form in Drupal 6. Once we're done, it will look like we'll have created two fall-back-on 'pages' for contact forms, one page/form to 'request a quote' at Randy.com/contact/quote, and an other page/form for general inquiries at Randy.com/contact/info. The trick here — if there's one — consists in theming the contact form differently based on the requested URI.

This exercise will show you how to:

• recognize when a module has not registered a specific theming function for a form it generates,
• register a theming function for a Drupal form in your theme, using HOOK_theme,
• work with template suggestions,
• use the Devel module function dsm() to inspect complex variables, such as Drupal forms.

 Read more →