Creating Templates for Module Output via phpTemplate

Hiveminds | Fri, 2007-04-06 07:40 tags: Developer Zone, Drupal

authors commentssubscribe to feedfriendly: printshare: delicious, digg, reddit, icerocket

While implemeting a network of Drupal sites we have run into a problem it is one that is solved in a the SmileTag Chat module but now we need something on a larger scale. The problem is using Drupals forms API or any internal forms and HTML does not have a templating system. So designers are forced to manipulating module code to produce layouts.

Hopefully it will keep us from having to make a template system per module (file_get_contents is what we are using now). The follwing method implemented is simple enough from a designers point of view as it is a nice standard way of doing things.

Solution: catch the theme, but pass it on to phptemplate to render

<?php

function flashgame_page() {
    $form['title_f'] = array(
  '#type' => 'textfield',
  '#title' => t('Subject'),
  '#default_value' => 'titlenothing',
  '#required' => TRUE,
  '#weight' => -5);
  $form['body_f'] = array(
    '#type' => 'textarea',
    '#title' => t('Body'),
    '#default_value' => 'bodynothing',
    '#rows' => 20,
    '#required' => TRUE);
    $output = drupal_get_form('flashgame_page',$form);
  return $output;
}
function theme_flashgame_page($form) {
  $output = 'start form theme in module->';
    $output .= form_render($form['body_f']);
  $output .= form_render($form['title_f']);
  $output .= '<div class="foo">';
  $output .= '<div class="bar">';
  $output .= '</div></div>';
  $output .= form_render($form);
  return $output.'<- end form theme in module';
}
?>

template.php

<?php

/**
* Catch the theme_item_list function, and redirect through the template api
*/
function phptemplate_flashgame_page($items = array(), $title = NULL) {
  // Pass to phptemplate, including translating the parameters to an associative array.
  // The element names are the names that the variables
  // will be assigned within your template.
  return _phptemplate_callback('flashgame_page', array('form' => $items));
}
?>

flashgame_page.tpl.php

<?php

    $output .= 'start templated form theme';
    $output .= form_render($form['body_f']);
    $output .= '<div style="background:red"> Stop you have to fill in this page!!!</div>';
  $output .= form_render($form['title_f']);
  $output .= form_render($form).'';
  print $output.'<- end templated form theme';
?>