Cannot make hook_view() to display extra data

I cannot disagree on what you are saying, its just that I have chosen that path as it seems easier to me. Fiddling with CCK blindly without any decent documentation did not get me anywhere for two days, while writing my own module did (up to this point).

My problem here is not actually theming the output but adding more information to the actual output contained by the node. In my example I try to show on the page static text (John Smith) but it doesnt work although I follow the API description. For the time being although I use kind of theming (as this is how the API show the example), I dont really care how the output would look like, I only want to make the static text to pop out on the page. Any suggestions?

Thanks very much for the help so far,

Pimmy

Mooffie,

This was one of the most precise and valuable advices I have received so far in this forum. I did get it working at the end and now I can happily display formatted text in addition to the node data.

For all muppets like me who are just starting with Drupal and jump directly onto D7, here is how the .module file looks like:

<?php
// $Id: person.module,v 1.0 2010/06/17 22:22:55 pimmy Exp $

/**
* @file
* Enables my new Drupal site to add display additional to the node text/data 
*/

/**
* Implementation of hook_node_info().
*/
function person_node_info() {
  // We return an array since the final module would define multiple node types.
  // In this case we only define one node type, type 'person'.
  return array(
    'person' => array(
      'name' => t('Person'), // Required.
      'base' => 'person', // Required.
      'description' => t('Persons data like names, dob, etc..'), // Required.
      'has_title' => TRUE,
      'title_label' => t('Full Name'), // This is where you set the label for the title of the node type
      'has_body' => FALSE,
    )
  );
}

/**
 * Implement hook_form() with the standard default form.
 */
function person_form($node, $form_state) {
  return node_content_form($node, $form_state);
}


/**
 * Implements hook_menu().
 *
 * We are providing a default page to illustrate the use of our custom node view
 * mode that will live at http://example.com/?q=examples/person
 */
function person_menu() {
  $items['person'] = array(
    'page callback' => 'person_page',
    'access arguments' => array('access content'),
    'title' => 'VC Person',
  );
  return $items;
}


/**
 * Custom callback that builds our content and returns it to the browser.
 *
 * @return
 *   a build array
 *
 */
function person_page() {
  $build = array();
  $sql = 'SELECT nid FROM {node} n WHERE n.type = :type AND n.status = :status';
  $result = db_query($sql,
    array(
      ':type' => 'person',
      ':status' => 1,
    )
  );

  // Loop through each of our node_example nodes and instruct node_view
  // to use our custom "person_list" view.
  // http://api.drupal.org/api/function/node_load/7
  // http://api.drupal.org/api/function/node_view/7
  foreach ($result as $row) {
    $node = node_load($row->nid);
    $build['node_list'][]= node_view($node, 'person_list');
  }

  return $build;
}

/**
* Implementation of hook_load().
*/
//function person_load($node) {
//    THIS IS WHAT AM I GOING TO IMPLEMENT NEXT
//}

/**
* Implementation of hook_view().
*/
function person_view($node, $view_mode = 'full') {

  // Use Drupal's default node view.
  $node = node_load($node->nid);
    
  // Now add the content.
  $node->content['name_first'] = array(
    '#markup' => theme('person_name_first', array('name_first' => 'First Name: John')),
    '#weight' => 2
  );

  $node->content['name_last'] = array(
    '#markup' => theme('person_name_last', array('name_last' => 'Last Name: Smith')),
    '#weight' => 3
  );

  return $node;
}

/**
* Implementation of hook_theme().
*/
function person_theme() {
  return array(
    'person_name_first' => array(
      'variables' => array('name_first' => NULL),
    ),
    'person_name_last' => array(
      'variables' => array('name_last' => NULL)
    ),
  );
}

function theme_person_name_first($variables) {
  return '<div class="person-name_first">' . $variables['name_first'] . '</div><br />';  
}

function theme_person_name_last($variables) {
  return '<div class="person-name_last">' . $variables['name_last'] . '</div>';  
}

Thanks a million for your help. Jumping now onto the db layer...

Cheers,

Pimmy