How to combine bio and information of other modules using hook_user ? (possible solution included)

I am using the bio module together with a custom profile-node module to replace user profiles. Now, I've recently added the "favorite nodes" module to my site, which uses hook_user to add a favorites list to the user profile. Basically, I would like to access that information when creating my custom node to include it in the profile page.

At this point, this information is lost when bio_profile_alter unsets all fields except for the one containing my custom node, and I couldn't see any way to access the $fields information during the node creating in bio_user.

I've solved the problem by hacking into the bio module, basically moving the node creation from bio_user to bio_profile_alter and attaching the $fields variable to the custom node being created. (See code below). Is this the most straight-forward solution possible, or am I missing out on something much simpler (i.e. without hacking bio?)?

I'm not entirely sure if this doesn't break any other functionality in bio, but if not, possibly this could be patched into the official version, as it provides extra functionality and improves speed in two ways: (1) no need for node_load to be called twice in bio_user and bio_profile_alter and (2) through the extra functionality, module developers / themers won't need to manually call external modules a second time to get information to be included in a profile node.

Thanks + let me know what you think.

Karl Moritz

/**
 * Implementation of hook_profile_alter().
 */
function bio_profile_alter(&$account, &$fields) {
  // Replace user profile with user bio.
  if (variable_get('bio_profile_takeover', 0) && $bio = bio_for_user($account->uid)) {
	  
	  $node = node_load($bio);
	  $name = node_get_types('name', bio_get_type());
    $node->profile_fields = $fields;
    
    $fields[$name]['bio']['value'] = node_view($node, FALSE, TRUE, FALSE);
    
    $typename = node_get_types('name', bio_get_type());
    foreach ($fields as $key => $val) {
      if ($key != $typename) {
        unset($fields[$key]);
      }
    }
    $account->name = $bio->title;
  }
}

If profile takeover is enabled, hook_user will not do anything on "view":

/** 
 * Implementation hook_user().
 */
function bio_user($op, &$edit, &$account, $category = NULL) {
  // If there's no bio for this user, nothing to do here.
  if (!$nid = bio_for_user($account->uid)) {
    return;
  }

  switch ($op) {
    case 'view':
      // Add bio to main user profile page, if option is enabled and bio is accessible.
      if (variable_get('bio_profile', 0) && !variable_get('bio_profile_takeover', 0) && node_access('view', $node = node_load($nid))) {
        $name = node_get_types('name', bio_get_type());
        $bio[$name]['bio']['value'] = node_view($node, FALSE, TRUE, FALSE);
        return $bio;
      }
      break;
    case 'delete':
      node_delete(bio_for_user($account->uid));
      break;
  }
}

Code is taken from the last stable version (5.x-1.2), apologies for pasting the changes like this rather than as patch - still have to figure out how to create such files at some point.