JordiTR's sandbox: Viewmode per Node

This module provides the possibility to select inside every node edit form the view mode to display its content. View modes is a feature of Drupal since version 6, and it has a lot of power but normal admin user have no access to all the possibilities. Basically this power consists on the possibility to have several ways to organize the node display. Usually modules provide with new view modes but user have no managing area for it. Moreover, users are allowed to decide which view modes are active and which fields distribution they want on each view mode, but the weak point of the system is that they are not allowed to decide when to use one view mode or another. Only views allows to render full nodes, and choose in which view mode, but that feature does not unleash its power.

But which escenarios may be useful to cover with this module? Imagine that the editors on some site would like to decide to fit several displays for a node type, on some cases main picture would be the first item, on other nodes first would be the video, on other ones some list for related content would go on top. With "Viewmode per Node" they could creat several view modes, organize the fields on each and select on each individual node which view mode use to have on top the more interesting element.

The point that this module does not cover is creating new view modes. This feature is very well covered by "Entity view mode", which in fact is a depency (without that module this one won't be allowed to be installed). It has to be provided a way to create new view modes anb "Entity view mode" covers that area very well, with a very interesting features set, good UI (at least it fits very well Drupal standards), comes from a respected and experienced community member and has a very high number of reported installs.

But one of the things I like very much about "Entity view mode" is its very low size, which added to the very small size of "Viewmode per Node" means a very interesting alternative to "Display Suite", another solution to solve what this module proposes but with a very large memory footprint.

ALTERNATIVES

There is only one alternative to this module "Display Suite" using the module "Extras", but this means loading your system memory with big modules that may be a problem on some shared hostings. It gives lots of features that maybe you're not interested on (or maybe you are): https://www.drupal.org/project/ds

"View Mode Page" (https://www.drupal.org/project/view_mode_page) builds a tab on each node where renders the node on each view mode that is active for that node.

"View Mode Modal" (https://www.drupal.org/project/view_mode_modal) renders node on the selected view mode inside CTools modal windows.

"Entity reference plus data" (https://www.drupal.org/project/er_plus) allows to select the view mode of a node reference fiels when you are selecting the reference on the node edit form.

With "Contextual View Modes" (https://www.drupal.org/project/contextual_view_modes) it's even possible go one step further: you can select inside each node the view mode you want to see it rendered depending on the context is active. I'm a huge fan of context, I use it almost on every site, and this feature is a great tool for many situations. The problem is that it depends on "Display Suite", it would be great that it was capable to work also with "Entity view mode". It's possible to define inside each node several conditions based on several context.

If memory on your site is a problem and you are used to code, maybe you can delete the "Entity view mode" dependency on the .info file before installing and add at the end of the .module file the next function:

<?php
/**
* Implements hook_entity_info_alter().
*/
function viewmode_per_node_entity_info_alter(&$entity_info) {
  $entity_info['node']['view modes']['special_display'] = array(
    'label' => t('Special display'),
    'custom settings' => TRUE,
  );
}
?>

This is the "coding way" of adding new view mode, that easy! You can go to that function whenever you want to add new mode to the array, and remember to clear your cache before.

REQUIREMENTS

1. Drupal 7.17 or higher. This module is based on "hook_entity_view_mode_alter()" which appeared on the this release. Upgrade your Drupal to the last version available, since is a good strategy to be bug free and with the most secure version of code.

2. "Entity view mode" (http://drupal.org/project/entity_view_mode) which is the best tool for creating new view modes, for your nodes and for whatever other entity.