CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

I am trying to add a field on a Contribution page, and then catch the value of this field when submitted to create stuff unrelated to the contribution itself.
I thought using the buildForm hook was the solution, but the field I am creating in the form is not displayed on screen.

function mymodule_civicrm_buildForm($formName, &$form) {
  if (($formName == 'CRM_Contribute_Form_Contribution_Main') && ($form->getVar('_id') == 2)) {
    $form->add('text', 'testfield', ts('Test field'));
  }
}


 Am I missing something or taking the wrong route (ie. vs alterContent hook)?

For #2, there are a few techniques for modifying the Smarty template.

One technique is to locate the core .tpl file and edit it (e.g. open "templates/CRM/Contribute/Form/Contribution/Main.tpl" add "{$form.testField.html}" somewhere). Other techniques involve creating a directory of customized Smarty templates or "extra" Smarty templates. These tend to make the most sense if you're writing a patch for the software or if you're a designer trying to rework the layout.

For module development, it may make more sense to use the "Region" API to output code. For example:

/// FILE: mymodule/mymodule.module
function mymodule_civicrm_buildForm($formName, &$form) {
  if (($formName == 'CRM_Contribute_Form_Contribution_Main') && ($form->getVar('_id') == 2)) {
    $form->add('text', 'testfield', ts('Test field'));
    CRM_Core_Region::instance('page-body')->add(array(
      'template' => 'testfield.tpl'
     ));
  }
}

/// FILE: mymodule/templates/testfield.tpl
<tr id="testfield-tr">
  <td>Test field:</td>
  <td>{$form.testField.html}</td>
</tr>

This outputs the field somewhere in the body, but it's not too precise. To get fine-grained, you can add some jQuery:

/// FILE: mymodule/templates/testfield.tpl
<tr id="testfield-tr">
  <td>Test field:</td>
  <td>{$form.testField.html}</td>
</tr>
<script type="text/javascript">
cj('#testfield-tr').appendTo('#someOtherElement')
</script>

For more details on using regions and on moving elements with jQuery, see:
 * http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC42/Region+Reference
 * http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4428312/jquery-move-an-element

Note: If you're writing a Drupal module or Joomla plugin, then the module needs some extra boilerplate. If this is a native CiviCRM module (generated by civix), then you don't have to deal with it. The boilerplate is:

/// FILE: mymodule/mymodule.module
function mymodule_civicrm_config() {
  $template =& CRM_Core_Smarty::singleton();

  $extDir = dirname( __FILE__ ) . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . 'templates';

  if ( is_array( $template->template_dir ) ) {
      array_unshift( $template->template_dir, $extDir );
  } else {
      $template->template_dir = array( $extDir, $template->template_dir );
  }
}


Wiki updated, page hook_civicrm_buildForm.