Raw HTML from database table always being encoded into html_entities

Sorry - text above wasn't clear. The contents of the source database table is like:

<a href="http://www.example.com" rel="nofollow">link</a>.

But the View converts the HTML to entities, so < becomes < etc.

I need the HTML unchanged so that links etc. actually work in the View!

I know that I could theme the output of a specific field by creating a views--view--FIELDNAME.tpl.php file for EACH field I want to output raw data, but surely there could be an internal hook set in TW that tells Views to allow Full HTML for that field? Maybe a content type checkbox on the admin screen (next to where you choose to Ignore fields?)

Bump...

Hi Mike -

Thanks for the reply.

Yeah I think this would be a feature request (not a bug) but still would be really handy; it would allow the inclusion of HTML directly from a TW-linked db table. Obviously care would need to be taken on the admin side to cleanse/validate the HTML in the db table, but if the option were available to choose Text or Full HTML in the schema options in TW, it wouldn't be any different to choosing an Input Format when editing a page.

For example, if you make a custom Content Type using CCK fields, you can include HTML in them and it will be rendered (not encoded) in Views. Clearly there is a way to tell Views on a field-level basis "leave the HTML alone in this field" - and to be able to control that likewise in TW would be great!

However I don't have an idea of the LoE for this - I'm sure it could be trickier than it seems.

I really can't believe NO-ONE out there has HTML in external database tables that they wish to bring in to a Drupal View and display as-is. How are other people doing it?

Since no-one else has commented on this, and it doesn't look like it's going to make it as a feature (tho I really think it should) I developed a work-around.

1) Create a theme_preprocess function in your template.php file for the function that renders the view fields:

function YOURTHEME_preprocess_views_view_field(&$variables) {
	// Create new variable $outputHTML for each field
	$variables['outputHTML'] = filter_xss_admin($variables['row']->{$variables['field']->field_alias});
}

2) Modify the display by creating a views-view-field.tpl.php file in your theme

	$viewTag = $view->tag;
	$fieldName = $field->options['field'];

	if (($viewTag=='tw') && (strpos($fieldName, 'HTML_') === 0)) {
		print $outputHTML;
	}
	else {
		print $output;
	};
	unset($viewTag, $fieldName);

This basically says:
"If this field is coming from a view tagged "tw" (TableWizard) AND column name in the db starts with the string "HTML_" then use the HTML output instead of the encoded default output.

As you can see, my HTML output uses filter_xss_admin() to strip out any script or style tags, but leaves everything else. You could modify this to be stricter, or make several different vars available for display.

Hope this helps some people out! Comments/improvements welcome.

Goz

@wapnik - this is awesome! Such a nice simple solution - now I can import and display HTML without needing to write tpl.php files. I hope this patch will get rolled into a release - even tho TW is being depricated for the Data module, this would be a worthy minor release IMHO.

Thanks again.

@wapnik I just updated my TW to the latest 6.x.1.x-dev build (2010-Nov-12), and applying the patch #13 white-screens any page using TW on my site too. Looks like a fatal error since no PHP errors are returned to screen.

Maybe this only occurs if you have existing TW definitions prior to the patch, and there is some conflict between existing settings and the new UI?