By daemon on

I would like to pass a custom variable declared and set from node.tpl.php to be used in page.tpl.php, how can this be done? I have been searching all the documentation and forum posts already.

⋅ Categories: Drupal 6.x

Comments

marcvangend’s picture

marcvangend
he/him
Primary language Dutch
Location Amsterdam
commented

I think that depends on the variable, where it comes from, how it was calculated or generated... Can you be more specific?

daemon’s picture

daemon commented

I am working on a theme hack to allow comments and the comment form to placed anywhere in page.tpl.php, however, in order for things to function without break all the JavaScript I have to call a drupal_get_form function inside node.tpl.php or under template_preprocess_node.

Here is a snippet of the code in question and the variable I need to have passed to page.tpl.php.

 // in node.tpl.php

 if ($page == true && $node->comment == 2) {
	// Triggers the drupal_get_form for the JavaScript to be loaded.
	$node_comment_form = drupal_get_form('comment_form',array('nid' => $node->nid));
	// Todo, pass $node_comment_form variable to page.tpl.php to avoid having to render the form twice.
 }
nevets’s picture

nevets commented

Why can't you call that in page.tpl.php?

daemon’s picture

daemon commented

Still figuring out how it works to be honest, it does not have the intended effect when I call it from page.tpl.php.

nevets’s picture

nevets commented

What if you try adding it in hook_preprocess_page()?

daemon’s picture

daemon commented

It doesn't trigger what I need.

To explain, I'm turning disabling the comments in my node through the following (or the equivalent in the preprocess):

 //in node.tpl.php

 // Remove comment display appended to $content by disabling the node's comment variable
 $node->comment = 0;

Then I have to re-create the form on page.tpl.php (in the preprocess in this case)

 // in template_preprocess_page

	if (module_exists('comment') && isset($vars['node'])) {
		$vars['comments'] = comment_render($vars['node']);
		$vars['comment_form'] = drupal_get_form('comment_form',array('nid' => $vars['node']->nid));
	}

However, in doing so, all the JavaScript related to the form (Live Module JS, Comment-Notify Module JS, Textarea Resize JS, etc...) no longer appears. Through trial and error I noticed that if I run the following in node.tpl.php:

//in node.tpl.php

 // We only need the JavaScript on the full pages and if the node originally allowed commenting
 if ($page == true && $node->comment == 2) {
	// Triggers the drupal_get_form for the JavaScript to be loaded
	$node_comment_form = drupal_get_form('comment_form',array('nid' => $node->nid));
	// Todo, pass $node_comment_form variable to page.tpl.php to avoid having to render the form twice.
 }

However, the side effect is that the form are

  • actually rendered twice, minor performance issue
  • the displayed form is a duplicate with "-1" appended to its ID ("edit-form-1" and "comment-form-1"), which may cause errors with some JS that hard codes them
matt2000’s picture

matt2000 commented

By the time page.tpl.php is processed, the header section variables (e.g., $scripts) are already set.

I think you need to act before the theme layer is invoked at all; hence a custom module.

Implement hook_nodeapi('view') and the render the comment form as a property of the $node object. ($node->comment_form) Then the form will be available to you in page.tpl.php as $vars['node']->comment_form .

Or else, you may be able to force $scripts to be re-populated in theme_preprocess_page after you've rendered the comment form there, e.g.,

$vars['comment_form'] = drupal_get_form(blah,blah);
$vars['scripts'] = drupal_get_js();

But this is probably less efficient, since the scripts will be collected twice.

matt2000’s picture

matt2000 commented

BTW, I just figured out that Drupal 7 will fix this issue by adding $scripts , etc, later in the theme life-cycle.