How can I use my custom template file as a theme in views

This is explained in the advanced help topic "Using Views templates" that comes with Views.

Important note: You place your custom template files in your theme directory, not views/theme. This is always true of theming with Drupal.

I'm sorry, I don't help people who refuse to read the documentation.

If you don't understand how to use Drupal's theming and template features, you need to read the theming documentation.

Ok so I've read a ton of documentation and cannot for the life of me find a way to use a template with a 100% custom name, regardless of the view name. Basically I have 2 views, each with multiple displays. I've created all the necessary templates for the first view and they are working correctly since they follow the standard template name structure. I want to use the exact same templates for my second view, without having to duplicate all the templates and rename them to match the 2nd view name. I've tried doing the following:

function mytheme_preprocess_views_view(&$vars) {
  switch ($vars['view']->name) {
    case 'view_name_two':
        // Use template from first view
        if ($vars['view']->current_display == 'panel_pane_1') {
          $vars['template_files'][] = 'views-view-fields--view-name-one--panel-pane-1';
        }
        dsm($vars['template_files']);
      break;
  }
}

My dsm() gives my the template I said to use. But when I clear caches or rescan templates, the view doesn't use it or recognize it in Theme Information.

I've used theme_render_template before successfully in other preprocess functions, but never in a preprocess_views_view_etc. function. Since the views preprocess functions don't use "return", I don't know if there's another way to call a custom template.

Is there any way to call a specific .tpl.php for a view?

This is a pretty urgent issue. Is there really no way to reuse views templates or call templates with whatever name you want? If anyone has input it would be much appreciated.

Mh, the code looks fine, i guess, you are missed to clear the theme registry cache.

I've cleared all caches, specifically the theme registry cache several times.. it just won't use a tpl.php that i declare. This doesn't make sense. I was able to force templates in Drupal 5 just fine. Why would this ability drop?

In D5 I would just toss this in the end of my function theme_views_view_list_name_of_view($view, $nodes, $type) ...

return _phptemplate_callback ('name_of_view', $vars);

and it would use name_of_view.tpl.php or whatever I wanted. Something simple must not be working correctly. I would assume I'd be allowed to do something similar with theme_render_template() but it doesn't seem to be the case.

Anyone? merlinofchaos?

GOT IT!

http://drupal.org/node/223440

"Suggestions work only when it is placed in the same directory as the base template. Templates can be placed in any sub-directory of the theme. They must be paired into the same location."

We didn't have a views-view.tpl.php in our theme directory. Once I did that, BAM! worked. Knew it was something trivial.