Using $_SESSION for node form

Yeah I would suggest adding a validation handler to the form. This would check if the user is anonymous, and if so, fail validation (after attaching form values to the session), and then reload the form and auto-trigger the popup. Then we can take it from there.

How much experience do you have with module writing?

Yeah that makes sense. Title is the only top-level field element, I hadn't traversed yet. Try this out. I tested locally on a relatively complex form and it seems to work pretty well. A couple things I'm unsure of at the moment are:

- It doesn't currently work for a CCK image field.
- I'm not sure if I need to worry about overriding form_build_id and stuff like that but I don't think so because they don't use #default_value.
- I'm sure other bugs will pop up.

I might at some point turn this into its own full-fledged module, but for now you can start with this:

function MODULENAME_form_alter(&$form, $form_state, $form_id) {
  switch ($form_id) {
    case 'NODETYPE_node_form':
      if (empty($form['nid']['#value'])) {
        _MODULENAME_set_session_values($form, $form_id);
        $form['#validate'][] = 'MODULENAME_NODETYPE_node_form_validate';
        $form['#submit'][] = 'MODULENAME_NODETYPE_node_form_submit';
      }
      break;
  }
}

function MODULENAME_NODETYPE_node_form_validate($form, &$form_state) {
  $_SESSION['form_values'][$form_state['values']['form_id']] = $form_state['values'];
}

function MODULENAME_NODETYPE_node_form_submit($form, &$form_state) {
  unset($_SESSION['form_values'][$form_state['values']['form_id']]);
}

function _MODULENAME_set_session_values(&$form = NULL, $form_id = NULL) {
  $values = $_SESSION['form_values'][$form_id];
  foreach (element_children($form) as $element) {
    if (isset($values[$element])) {
      $form[$element]['#default_value'] = $values[$element];
    }
    _MODULENAME_set_session_values($form[$element], $form_id);
  }
}

edit: Note that this doesn't take into account the anonymous user-checking aspect. You said you had that implemented already, so I left it out, but it's super super easy to add if you want it here instead.

Hi @evilgenius.

I've been way too swamped IRL lately. Keep bugging me about it and I'll get to it at some point in the not-to-distant future. I wanna at least get an admin form where you can configure the form_ids, and also do some code cleanup.

Glad to see it's working out for you in the mean time. :)

Hi Evilgenius,

Roper nicely provided me with the code you are using.
Unfortunately, I cannot adapt it to my needs, so I would like to understand more precisely how you used it.
Basically, I understand that you have:
1. anonymous users to fill in a node form
2. then they login or register via a pop-up window (modal window)
3. back to the parent node form, that has been refreshed
- BEFORE: the form data entered by users was lost
- NOW: thanks to Roper's code, the data is stored in the $_session variable, and displayed back into the form even AFTER it has been refreshed.
4. the newly created node is allocated to the authenticated user.

Can you confirm that's the way it's working?