Any way to change the name of url argument "sort_bef_combine"?

I don't believe there is an easy way to change the query string param via hook_form_alter() or similar because of the way that Views renders exposed form elements. But I haven't tried, so if you do find a way, please report back!

Marking this as a feature request -- it would not be that hard to make the combined sort ID a user-configurable field.

"sort_bef_combine" in page urls is good enough for development, but it's inappropriate for production. The end user will not understand this.

This only appears in the query string as a argument name. As such, it doesn't usually have much user interaction. Or am I missing somewhere else it shows up?

This feature would really help me out right now. I have 2 different Views exposed forms with BEF on the same page and I am experiencing collisions caused by non-unique query parameters.

After some research, this required a bit of find and replace, but wasn't too bad. This patch will provide a new option under the Advanced fieldset for setting the HTML name of the combined form element.

@ethanhinson: Thank you for the patch. In the future, feel free to set the issue to "needs review" if there's a patch or something for the maintainer to review.

1. +++ b/better_exposed_filters.module
   @@ -12,11 +12,17 @@ function better_exposed_filters_theme($existing, $type, $theme, $path) {
   +      'variables' => array(
   +        'combine_param' => NULL,
   +      ),
   ...
   +      'variables' => array(
   +        'combine_param' => NULL,
   +      ),
   

   If we're going to add this, we should add it for all the theme functions, not just checkboxes.

2. +++ b/better_exposed_filters.theme
   @@ -193,17 +193,21 @@ function theme_select_as_hidden($vars) {
   -        $hidden = array(
   -          // Custom ID for each hidden field based on the <select> element's
   -          // original ID.
   -          'id' => drupal_html_id($element['#id'] . '-' . $key),
   -          'name' => check_plain($element['#name']) . '[]',
   -          'value' => check_plain($key),
   -        );
   +        // Custom ID for each hidden field based on the <select>'s original ID.
   +        $id = drupal_html_id($element['#id'] . '-' . $key);
   +
   +        // Very similar to theme_hidden()
   +        // (http://api.drupal.org/api/function/theme_hidden/7).
   +        $hidden = '<input type="hidden" '
   +          // Brackets are key -- just like select.
   +          . 'name="' . filter_xss($element['#name']) . '[]" '
   +          . 'id="' . $id . '" '
   +          . 'value="' . check_plain($key) . '" '
   +          . drupal_attributes($element['#attributes']) . ' />';
   ...
   -            '#children' => theme_hidden(array('element' => $hidden)),
   +            '#children' => $hidden,
   
   @@ -493,11 +497,11 @@ function theme_select_as_links($vars) {
   -      $element['#value'][check_plain($index)] = check_plain($item);
   +      $element['#value'][filter_xss($index)] = filter_xss($item);
   ...
   -    $element['#value'] = check_plain($element['#value']);
   +    $element['#value'] = filter_xss($element['#value']);
   
   +++ b/better_exposed_filters_exposed_form_plugin.inc
   @@ -349,10 +357,9 @@ Title Desc|Z -> A</pre> Leave the replacement value blank to remove an option al
   -      $filter_key = $filter->options['is_grouped'] ? 'group_info' : 'expose';
   -      $identifier = '"' . $filter->options[$filter_key]['identifier'] . '"';
   -      if (!empty($filter->options[$filter_key]['label'])) {
   -        $identifier .= t(' (Filter label: "@fl")', array('@fl' => $filter->options[$filter_key]['label']));
   +      $identifier = '"' . $filter->options['expose']['identifier'] . '"';
   +      if (!empty($filter->options['expose']['label'])) {
   +        $identifier .= t(' (Filter label: "@fl")', array('@fl' => $filter->options['expose']['label']));
   
   @@ -720,7 +729,7 @@ Title Desc|Z -> A</pre> Leave the replacement value blank to remove an option al
   -            if (isset($search)) {
   +            if (!empty($search)) {
   
   @@ -890,7 +899,7 @@ Title Desc|Z -> A</pre> Leave the replacement value blank to remove an option al
   -              $form['items_per_page']['#bef_path'] = $this->view->get_path();
   +              $form['items_per_page']['#bef_path'] = isset($this->display->display_options['path']) ? $this->display->display_options['path'] : '';
   
   @@ -920,8 +929,12 @@ Title Desc|Z -> A</pre> Leave the replacement value blank to remove an option al
   -      $filter_key = 'filter-' . ($filters[$label]->options['is_grouped'] ? $filters[$label]->options['group_info']['identifier'] : $label);
   -      $filter_id = $form['#info'][$filter_key]['value'];
   +      if (isset($form['#info']["filter-$label"]['value'])) {
   +        $field_id = $form['#info']["filter-$label"]['value'];
   +      }
   +      else {
   +        $field_id = $form['#info']["filter-{$filters[$label]->options['group_info']['identifier']}"]['value'];
   +      }
   
   @@ -947,12 +960,12 @@ Title Desc|Z -> A</pre> Leave the replacement value blank to remove an option al
   -          if (isset($search)) {
   +          if (!empty($search)) {
   

   These (and lots of others -- I stopped after a few) are unrelated.

I didn't have time to do much more than a drive-by review. If you could clean up the unrelated stuff, it would make it easier to review the rest of your changes.

Thanks.

Created a new, smaller patch.

Looks much better, thanks, @JeroenT! But there still are some problems I came across after some basic testing:

On a new view, settings BEF as the "Exposed form style" and clicking apply results in an error ("Enter a query parameter to use for combined sorts. field is required.").

That may be solved by:

1. +++ b/better_exposed_filters_exposed_form_plugin.inc
   @@ -108,6 +108,15 @@ class better_exposed_filters_exposed_form_plugin extends views_plugin_exposed_fo
   +        '#title' => t('Enter a query parameter to use for combined sorts.'),
   

   Form field title should not end with a period.

2. +++ b/better_exposed_filters_exposed_form_plugin.inc
   @@ -108,6 +108,15 @@ class better_exposed_filters_exposed_form_plugin extends views_plugin_exposed_fo
   +        '#default_value' => !empty($existing['sort']['advanced']['combine_param']) ? $existing['sort']['advanced']['combine_param'] : $settings['sort']['advanced']['combine_param'],
   

   $settings is not defined at this point in the code. But this would be a good place to put the currently used default value.

Also, this patch fails the automated tests for BEF (specifically the Link and Rewrite tests) though I haven't had the time to look into those.

Fixed 1 and 2 in #7.

Let's see which tests are still failing.

This should fix the failing tests.

Awesome! Thank you @JeroenT and @ethanhinson! Committed with a slight modification to the #description text so that we don't get a bunch of issues when people put all sorts of crazy characters in the combined sort field... :)

Did this patch make it in to the D8 module? I'm not seeing this option anywhere.

Any way to get this to work in D9?