Views Content Pane can't get argument from URL when inside a Panel

In your view, the argument should have a select box for "Action to take if filter value does not validate".

Set this to "Display a summary". One downside here is that it's not completely replicating the list that's available for no filter value, and I only just now saw this. This may be a bit of an error from the update, but my hope is that it will take the same values. Anyway, give that a try -- if your PHP argument code returns NULL, NULL will never validate, and it will take this action.

If you can't make that work, then this will have to change to a bug report.

Pretty sure I understand what you mean - I had this problem.

To fix it, in the edit view window for the content pane, under pane settings you need to set the "Argument input" field. There's lots of different options here, but to get the pane to behave in the same way as a block, select "From context".

Hope that helps!

Edwin

@Karl,

Could you post how you did your argument?

Thanks

I'm having a similar issue. I've got a content type set to display as a two column panel, with one views content pane in each column. I want the content panes to inherit the arguments from URL, and I can't figure out how to pass them.

I have the filter set to Provide default value > Raw value from URL and it works when I enter contextual filters in the views preview, but not when I'm viewing the content type itself. I feel like there must be some way to pass these arguments but I'm just missing it.

A little more experimenting and I figured it out. As #4 posted, the solution was in the Argument input field. In my scenario, the context is the node being viewed. And the URL arguments I wanted happen to correspond to field values on the node. So I was able to set the Argument input to From context and the Required context to the specific field on the node. You could pass Created date or other properties of the node this way as well.

Ok, I think I see the base problem.

When describing this, you need to be clear that you're using a page manager page that does not give you control over the URL.

For example a standard page manager page allows you to enter the url: 'foo/%/%' for example. That allows you to then add arguments which turn those URL elements into contexts. So when you say "get arguments from the URL" that is exactly what that does and what I assume people are using.

However, if you're using a system page, such as node_view, you do not have control over the URL. If someone visits node/1/foo you do not have access to the 'foo'. Am I correct in believing that 'foo' is the thing you want to access?

You can build a custom context plugin that will do this; this will be the fastest way. Probably CTools should just contain a context plugin to do this so that we can read arbitrary values from the URL, but I've resisted.

Here is proof of concept code, taken from a copy/paste of the string context. This is untested so it will probably NOT work correctly out of the box but may need some adjustment. You'll need to go through the full process of adding a context plugin (implement hook_ctools_pluging_directory() and put this in the right location, probably plugins/contexts)

/**
 * @file
 *
 * Plugin to provide a URL part as a string context
 */

/**
 * Plugins are described by creating a $plugin array which will be used
 * by the system that includes this file.
 */
$plugin = array(
  'title' => t('URL part 3'),
  'context' => 'ctools_context_create_url_part',
  'keyword' => 'url',
  'context name' => 'string',
);

/**
 * It's important to remember that $conf is optional here, because contexts
 * are not always created from the UI.
 */
function ctools_context_create_url_part($empty, $data = NULL, $conf = FALSE) {
  $context = new ctools_context('string');
  $context->plugin = 'string';

  if ($empty) {
    return $context;
  }

  // The magic is right here:
  $context->data = arg(2);
  $context->title = check_plain($data);
  return $context;
}

To be done right it should also have a form that lets you select which part of the URL rather than hardcoding to arg(2). Would make a valuable patch.

This support request is now considered to be answered satisfactorily and is being closed. If this is not the case, please clarify your issue and set the status back to active.

I know this issue has been closed, but I recently came across exactly this problem. I was using panels to override node_view to display group content. I had wanted to filter the group content based on a taxonomy term in the URL. However I found it quite difficult retrieving the argument from the URL ("group/group-name/term"). I finally managed to do it by using a view pane and using "raw value from URL" instead of "taxonomy term id from URL" in the "provide default argument" section of the context settings. However, using this method meant I needed to use the term ID in the URL instead of the term name, because if there were any spaces or any other odd characters in the term the argument wouldn't be correct.

I was just wondering whether there may now be easier methods to pass a URL argument rather than coding as outlined in #16 (which would test my php/drupal skills rather)?