CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

I'm developing a Drupal/CiviCRM site that requires several additional tools, which I'm adding via a Drupal module.  To present a consistent interface to the user, I want to wrap all module content with CiviCRM page elements (header, footer, menu, etc.).

I've found a way that "works", but I wonder if this is the best approach.  Simplified code is below, but essentially what I'm doing here is three things:

• Ensure the module URL is under /civicrm.
• Present module content as a Smarty template.
• Have that template included within the template "/templates/CRM/common/drupal.tpl".

This seems pretty clean to me, but any comments from more experienced developers would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Allen


/* Implementation of hook_menu()
 */
function foo_menu() {
    $items['civicrm/foo] = array (
        'title'             => 'Foo',
        'type'              => MENU_CALLBACK,
        'page callback'     => '_foo_call_action',
        'access callback'   => TRUE,
    );
}

function _foo_call_action($args = NULL) {

    // Create a new custom object to handle module-specific logic
    $foo = new foo;

    // Implement whatever the module wants to do here
    $foo->whatever();

    // Get the name of the appropriate template from the module's own collection of templates
    $template = $foo->template;

    // Initialize CiviCRM
    civicrm_initialize( );

    // Get Civi Smarty object
    $tpl = CRM_Core_Smarty::singleton();

    // Add module's own collection of templates to Smarty template_dir array
    $tpl->template_dir[] = $foo->templateDir;

    // Specify that the module's template is the one to be included
    $tpl->assign('tplFile', $template);

    // Have Smarty fetch the output of drupal.tpl, which pulls in all of CiviCRM's common page elements, and includes the file defined in the above line.
    global $civicrm_root;
    $output = $this->tpl->fetch($civicrm_root .'/templates/CRM/common/drupal.tpl');

    return $output;
}

Do you mean how are permissions handled for this custom content?  That's something I'm still working on.

Or, are you referring to a problem I haven't thought of, which may come around and bite me later?  I'm pretty new to Civi.  Can you explain your question a little more?

Thanks,
Allen

Well, I think you're right.  The "best way" to do this is NOT to create a custom Drupal module that sits next to Civi and hacks it from the outside.  Seems like the more elegant solution is to create this as a CiviCRM component.

This also happens to be the solution with the steeper learning curve.  Guess I've got some decisions to make now, don't I?

Thanks for writing, Lobo. 

Yes, using civicrm classes is very helpful.  For the menu, it makes more sense to work the content into the civicrm menu, as the civi is providing 80% of the features on the site; users will have the civicrm menu for all those features, so I don't want to give them a separate navigation structure for these custom features.  Goal is to make them feel as if it's all the same system.

I can see civicrm is moving toward making components as easy to write and install as modules are for drupal.  Will be nice. 

If I do this as a drupal module, I'll be using a lot less bandwidth on IRC. 

Thanks,
Allen

I notice that CiviCase and other components add their own menu items to the navigation menu.  I might look at mimicking that behavior.  Any clues on where or how that takes place?

Quick note to follow up:

I decided to do what (I think) demeritcowboy suggested, which is to create a drupal module that uses hook_civicrm_xmlMenu() to add paths that point to classes extending CRM_Core_Page and CRM_Core_Form.

It's been successful for the most part, though it's very hard to understand what happens when the form is submitted.  Will keep trying and possibly post a new thread if necessary.

Thanks for the help.

- Allen