By wrburgess on

Is there a definitive guide for how to theme an Add Node Form for a Custom Content Type in Drupal 7? I've read a number of posts regarding this issue, but none of the solutions seem to work.

Here are the links I've tried to follow thus far (without anything working):

Questions regarding theming Drupal 7 edit node forms

What I've tried, none seem to work

For the sake of simplicity, I'll say the name of the custom content type is "event" and the name of the theme is "customtheme."

Thus, I'm trying to theme the /node/add/event page

If I can figure this out, I'll be glad to document the entire process for future Drupal developers. However, I'm pretty lost at the moment.

⋅ Categories: Drupal 7.x

Comments

markosaurus’s picture

markosaurus commented

Overriding node edit DOES work using template.php
Posted by .zLaW on January 14, 2011 at 7:49pm new

Howdy,

I made a custom content type containing two taxonomy term reference fields with checkboxes. My goal was to theme the two checkbox fields to show up beside each other using float: left divs. The content type (machine name) is "elisa" and the two fields are "field_elisa_type" and "field_elisa_var".

I'm using a subtheme of Adaptive Theme for D7 called lab_book, if it matters. Just a stock copy of the starter subtheme, actually.

I added the following to my template.php file:

function lab_book_theme() {
return array(
'elisa_node_form' => array(
'arguments' => array('form' => NULL),
'template' => 'elisa',
'render element' => 'form',
),
);
}

Then I made a "elisa.tpl.php" file, sitting in the root folder of my subtheme that contains the following code:

Custom content type override in Drupal 7
print drupal_render($form['title']);
print drupal_render($form['body']);
print drupal_render_children($form['field_elisa_type']);
print drupal_render_children($form['field_elisa_var']);
print drupal_render_children($form);

Works as wished for, rendering titel/body/floated checkboxes and finally the rest of the form and buttons.

Notice that the title and body fields are printed with "drupal_render" and the other fields (including the rest of the form at the end) are printed with "drupal_render_children". Why? I am not sure but it only works this way. Any insights would be appreciated.

Hope that this helps someone.

.zLaW

wrburgess’s picture

wrburgess commented

Yep. I gave that a try. It didn't work for me. There was no effect on the page at all. Not even an error.

markosaurus’s picture

markosaurus commented

Did you try doing;

print_r($form);

That should dump all of your form array/object so you can see what is set and what values are assigned.

skripatch’s picture

skripatch commented

Same for me, can`t get to see anything from the custom tpl, seems like it is being ignored...
tried to "print", "echo", "die"... nothing has any effect.

FR6’s picture

FR6 commented

If you want to make it work in D7 you must absolutely create a module, you can't use template.php (wasn't working for me tough).

YOUR_MODULE.module:

function *YOUR_MODULE*_theme($existing, $type, $theme, $path){
	return array(
		'*FORM ID*' => array(
			'arguments' => array('form' => null),
			'path' => drupal_get_path('theme', '*YOUR_THEME_NAME*').'/templates/forms',
			'template' => '*CONTENT_TYPE_NAME*--node-form', //name of your template file, it can be anything
			'render element' => 'form'
		)
	);
}

sites/all/themes/*YOUR_THEME*/templates/forms/*CONTENT_TYPE_NAME*--node-form.tpl.php:

print drupal_render($form['title']);
print drupal_render($form['body']);
print drupal_render_children($form); 
...

I hope it will help someone else!

Credits goes to the user "Csabbencs": http://drupal.org/node/983864#comment-3939860

airstarh’s picture

airstarh commented

Hi Sir!
But what if I wanna create tpl.php file for more than one content type form?
I cannot grasp the idea of structure...

And I can not understand this piece of code, sorry

form', //name of your template file, it can be anything
'render element' => 'form'

fureigh’s picture

fureigh commented

About that piece of code:

'template' => '*CONTENT_TYPE_NAME*--node-form', //name of your template file, it can be anything

It means to replace "*CONTENT_TYPE_NAME*" with the machine name of your content type, so if your content type was 'blog', you'd say:

'template' => 'blog--node-form',

The comment "//name of your template file, it can be anything" just means that because the template file isn't being autodetected based on a naming convention, you could instead call your template file something else — for instance, custom-blog-form-template.tpl.php (I'm not endorsing this choice, just explaining) — in which case you'd need to here write:

'template' => 'custom-blog-form-template',

Basically, that piece of the line should be replaced with your template file's filename, minus the '.tpl.php' extension.

ChocolateTeapot’s picture

ChocolateTeapot commented

If I can figure this out, I'll be glad to document the entire process for future Drupal developers. However, I'm pretty lost at the moment.

Did you ever figure it out and did you ever document it? I've read some posts etc but a lot of it is suggestions and it's hard to know whether they are correct or not?

Thanks in anticipation.

Enzman’s picture

Enzman commented

https://drupal.org/node/1124036

It took me a couple of hours to figure it out.