I posted this in the forum because I thought I should only post here when I have an "issue/problem" with a module. But maybe I am suppose to post it here? If not, don't hesitate to delete -- and apologies in advance.

I'm trying to figure out if "custom formatters" module will solve my problem but I haven't been able to find any documentation that would help me and I'm too inexperienced to understand the nuggets I do find. I have a content type with a custom field (department). Now I've been told that every instance of department has to be linked to the respective departments page.

Easiest way is to simply add html code but that could cause the tech-phobic admin assistant a problem.

I downloaded customer formatters and read the readme but didn't find much help there in understanding how it works. I've cruised the issues in custom formatter and searched the forums. And I've googled. Still don't understand it.

Can someone explain how it works...more important, will it solve my problem? I do not know php; I'm not a code developer.

Comments

deciphered’s picture

deciphered
Primary language English
Location Ballarat, Victoria, Australia
commented

Hi nwwoman,

This is the right place to post, as here you will get the response from the module developer (me), where as you can't guarantee a module developer will be monitor every single forum post.

Not having a full understanding of your requirements makes it difficult to give you an exact answer, but I will do my best.

Custom formatters are basically themes for Content (CCK) fields, so if the field was a text field you could use a Custom Formatter to wrap HTML around the text.

Example:
Field value - text
Formatter - <a href="/">[value]</a>
Result - <a href="/">text</a>

That is only a very basic example, but hopefully it helps wrap your head around it.

If there's anything else I can help you with just let me know.

Cheers,
Deciphered.

Sunshiney’s picture

Sunshiney commented

That explanation is VERY helpful. I am trying to imagine, though, what the end result looks like to a user who has to enter a url. Here's an example in order to elaborate....

Let's say there's a field called "name" in a content-type and each node using that content-type has already been populated with the name of each person in the group. And now, a year after the fact, I use a Custom Formatter to create a hyperlink from the name to each person's personal page. When the admin assistant goes to edit each node (to add the url), what will she see?

Someone else has been kind enough to show me how to do what I need to do using Views and configuring the field to "rewrite output of the field" but your formatter looks like it's not only an alternative solution but might also be helpful to me in other scenarios. Earlier, I clicked on project/custom_formatters/ Resources Home page but the text on the image displayed at stuar.tc/lark/s/module/custom_formatters is too small for me to read, even with my reading glasses on! I right clicked hoping to get a bigger image but that didn't work.

Thanks for your contribution of this module!

deciphered’s picture

deciphered
Primary language English
Location Ballarat, Victoria, Australia
commented

Hi nwwoman,

To give you a better answer I need more specific details on the field:
Does the field contain a single user name or multiple user names?
Are the user names valid Drupal user names or are they just names?

Let me know.

Cheers,
Deciphered.

deciphered’s picture

deciphered
Primary language English
Location Ballarat, Victoria, Australia
commented
Status: Active » Fixed

Status: Fixed » Closed (fixed)

Automatically closed -- issue fixed for 2 weeks with no activity.