Reusing elements in a compound CCK field

[yhager]

I am writing an application in which I need a compound cck field - a
nodereference and a numerical value. The underlying database table MUST
keep both values in the same record (no "delta" based value matching, like
CCK multigroup does), so I reverted to writing my own CCK compound field
module.

However, I am having a hard time understanding if I can reuse the elements
declared by the nodereference and the number module for my case. I am
trying, for example, to use '#type' => 'nodereference_autocomplete' in my
element #process function, but maybe I do not need to define an element at
all? Maybe I should just use it in hook_widget? Also, How can I convince
nodereference and number to work on MY definition of #columns? This goes
for validation, autocompletion and value (stripping out the "[nid:]"). I am
not finding good documentation for this, and the code for other modules who
do similar stuff is rather confusing (I looked at a few). Before I revert
to voodoo or code duplication - can anybody shed some light on the subject?
If needed, I can paste my (non working) code here.

There are a few documentation points for this on the net - the best I've
found is http://poplarware.com/cckfieldmodule.html by Jennifer Hodgdon.
Thank you Jennifer, this is a great guide. However, this guide delegates a
lot of functionality to filefield/imagefield, and my case is quite
different. CCK documentation on these hooks is rather laconic, or not up to
date with the latest version.

This also makes me wonder if one can write a generic compound CCK field
module, that will allow the user to reuse existing fields and build a new
one using the UI only. But first things first - the specific case should
work before the generic one :)

Cheers,

--yhager

[Bill Fitzgerald]

Have you seen http://drupal.org/node/119102 ? -- you might want to skip
to the second page and only read comments 301-600  --

You could also check out http://drupal.org/project/education_field and
http://drupal.org/project/employment_field, although the approach used
in the patch will likely allow more options over time.

Cheers,

Bill

Yuval Hager wrote:

> I am writing an application in which I need a compound cck field - a
> nodereference and a numerical value. The underlying database table MUST
> keep both values in the same record (no "delta" based value matching, like
> CCK multigroup does), so I reverted to writing my own CCK compound field
> module.
>
> However, I am having a hard time understanding if I can reuse the elements
> declared by the nodereference and the number module for my case. I am
> trying, for example, to use '#type' => 'nodereference_autocomplete' in my
> element #process function, but maybe I do not need to define an element at
> all? Maybe I should just use it in hook_widget? Also, How can I convince
> nodereference and number to work on MY definition of #columns? This goes
> for validation, autocompletion and value (stripping out the "[nid:]"). I am
> not finding good documentation for this, and the code for other modules who
> do similar stuff is rather confusing (I looked at a few). Before I revert
> to voodoo or code duplication - can anybody shed some light on the subject?
> If needed, I can paste my (non working) code here.
>
> There are a few documentation points for this on the net - the best I've
> found is http://poplarware.com/cckfieldmodule.html by Jennifer Hodgdon.
> Thank you Jennifer, this is a great guide. However, this guide delegates a
> lot of functionality to filefield/imagefield, and my case is quite
> different. CCK documentation on these hooks is rather laconic, or not up to
> date with the latest version.
>
> This also makes me wonder if one can write a generic compound CCK field
> module, that will allow the user to reuse existing fields and build a new
> one using the UI only. But first things first - the specific case should
> work before the generic one :)
>
> Cheers,
>
> --yhager
>
>  

--

Bill Fitzgerald
http://funnymonkey.com
FunnyMonkey -- Click. Connect. Learn.
ph. 503 897 7160

[yhager]

On Tuesday 30 June 2009, Bill Fitzgerald wrote:
> Have you seen http://drupal.org/node/119102 ? -- you might want to skip
> to the second page and only read comments 301-600  --
>

I've seen this in the past, but was happy to find out it was committed
finally into CCK. Thanks for the pointer!

I tested this briefly and it seem to work quite nicely. Although it doesn't
comply with the "same record for all fields" requirement, I can use a
simple JOIN (both on vid and delta) to overcome this.
What is the status of this code? Building a site on not-released code can be
quite frustrating (underlying changes, untested, upgrade path), and I
prefer not to go that route if possible.

My application is going to be centered around this data, and it should go
into production soon - I wonder whether I should build it around content
multigroup, or write my own - which will have less features, but I will
have more control on, and better table structure (and thus my original
question about the implementation).

> You could also check out http://drupal.org/project/education_field and
> http://drupal.org/project/employment_field, although the approach used
> in the patch will likely allow more options over time.
>

These are both for D5, and the author abandoned efforts to port these to D6.
I think there are more cases like this.

--yuval

> Cheers,
>
> Bill
>
> Yuval Hager wrote:
> > I am writing an application in which I need a compound cck field - a
> > nodereference and a numerical value. The underlying database table MUST
> > keep both values in the same record (no "delta" based value matching,
> > like CCK multigroup does), so I reverted to writing my own CCK compound
> > field module.
> >
> > However, I am having a hard time understanding if I can reuse the
> > elements declared by the nodereference and the number module for my
> > case. I am trying, for example, to use '#type' =>
> > 'nodereference_autocomplete' in my element #process function, but maybe
> > I do not need to define an element at all? Maybe I should just use it
> > in hook_widget? Also, How can I convince nodereference and number to
> > work on MY definition of #columns? This goes for validation,
> > autocompletion and value (stripping out the "[nid:]"). I am not finding
> > good documentation for this, and the code for other modules who do
> > similar stuff is rather confusing (I looked at a few). Before I revert
> > to voodoo or code duplication - can anybody shed some light on the
> > subject? If needed, I can paste my (non working) code here.
> >
> > There are a few documentation points for this on the net - the best
> > I've found is http://poplarware.com/cckfieldmodule.html by Jennifer
> > Hodgdon. Thank you Jennifer, this is a great guide. However, this guide
> > delegates a lot of functionality to filefield/imagefield, and my case
> > is quite different. CCK documentation on these hooks is rather laconic,
> > or not up to date with the latest version.
> >
> > This also makes me wonder if one can write a generic compound CCK field
> > module, that will allow the user to reuse existing fields and build a
> > new one using the UI only. But first things first - the specific case
> > should work before the generic one :)
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > --yhager

--
Yuval Hager
[T] [phone]
[@] yuval@...