Smarty template engine, rendering of views and flexinodes using associative arrays/objects

Ok heres what ive managed to achieve, it may be useful to you

• Define a view that filters nodes based on taxonomy terms


• Have that view render the related nodes via Smarty template engine


• have the flexinode's also available to smarty but use proper naming instead of field ID's

I created a flexinode called "Human or Person" and a view called "About our team" which is a view containg a list of nodes that are related by taxonomy.

The flexinode template is called flexinode-HumanOrPerson.tpl
The view template is called view-AboutOurTeam.tpl

In my bluemarine_smarty theme folder i create a "smartytemplate.php" and added the following

<?php
// all views go via here..
function smarty_views_view($view, $type, $nodes) {
    $i=0;
    foreach($nodes as $node) {
        $result = db_query("select flexinode_data.*, flexinode_field.* from flexinode_data
        left join flexinode_field on flexinode_data.field_id= flexinode_field.field_id where nid=%d",$node->nid);
        if(db_num_rows($result)) {
            while( $dbobj = db_fetch_object($result) )
                $viewobject[$i]["flexinode"][preg_replace("/[^\w\d]/","",ucwords($dbobj->label))]=$dbobj; // Ask for it by array offset
            $i++;
        }
    }

    // view filenames are view-AboutOurTeam.tpl etc in current theme path
    $viewfilename="view-".preg_replace("/[^\w\d]/","",ucwords($view->name)).".tpl";
    $filename="/usr/share/drupal/".path_to_theme()."/".$viewfilename;

    // got a template for this view? make it Smarty
    if (file_exists($filename) ) {
        $content="<!--- _views_view: $viewfilename --->\n";
        $smarty=new SmartyTemplate;
        $smarty->assign('viewobject',$viewobject);
        $content.=$smarty->fetch($filename);
    } else {
        $content="<!--- not found  _views_view: $viewfilename --->\n";
    }
//    print_r($viewobject);

    return $content;
}


// hook to watch for a flexinode being viewed and outsource its templating abilities like smart_views_view()

function bluemarine_smarty_node($node, $teaser = FALSE, $page = FALSE) {

    if(eregi("^flexinode",$node->type)) {
        $result=db_query("select flexinode_type.*,flexinode_data.*, flexinode_field.* from flexinode_data
                            left join flexinode_field on flexinode_data.field_id= flexinode_field.field_id
                            left join flexinode_type on flexinode_field.ctype_id=flexinode_type.ctype_id where nid=%d",$node->nid);

        // load the flexinode parts into an array ready for Smarty
        while($dbobj = db_fetch_object($result)) {
            if(!$flexinodeName)
                $flexinodeName=preg_replace("/[^\w\d]/","",ucwords($dbobj->name));
            $viewobject[preg_replace("/[^\w\d]/","",ucwords($dbobj->label))]=$dbobj;
        }

        // view filenames are view-AboutOurTeam.tpl etc in current theme path
        $viewfilename="flexinode-$flexinodeName.tpl";
        $filename="/usr/share/drupal/".path_to_theme()."/".$viewfilename;

        // got a template for this view? make it Smarty
        if (file_exists($filename) ) {
            $content="<!--- _views_view: $viewfilename --->\n";
            $smarty=new SmartyTemplate;
            $smarty->assign('flexinode',$viewobject);
            $content.=$smarty->fetch($filename);
        } else {
            $content="<!--- not found  _views_view: $viewfilename --->\n";
            $content.=$node->body; // default return drupals interpretation
        }

    }
//    print_r($viewobject);
    return $content;
}

?>

then my Smarty template for the full flexinode look like flexinode-HumanOrPerson.tpl

<h2>Full node view of a flexinode</h2>

<B>{$flexinode.Description->label}</B> {$flexinode.Description->textual_data}<BR>

{if $flexinode.ContactThisPersonAt->textual_data}
    <B>{$flexinode.ContactThisPersonAt->label}</B> {$flexinode.ContactThisPersonAt->textual_data} <BR>
{/if}

and the View template is called view-AboutOurTeam.tpl

<P>

<TABLE border=0>
    {strip}
    {foreach name=outer item=node from=$viewobject}
        <tr bgcolor="{cycle values="#dddddd,#eeeeee"}">
            <TD><B>{$node.flexinode.Description->label}</B><BR>
                <A HREF="?q=node/{$node.flexinode.Description->nid}">{$node.flexinode.Description->textual_data}</a><BR>

            {if $node.flexinode.ContactThisPersonAt->textual_data}
                <B>{$node.flexinode.ContactThisPersonAt->label}</B><BR>
                {$node.flexinode.ContactThisPersonAt->textual_data}
            {/if}
            <P>
            </TD>
        </tr>
      </tr>
   {/foreach}
    {/strip}
</TABLE>