On 10/19/06, Gary Feldman <dpal_gaf_devel@marsdome.com> wrote:
Perhaps the subtleties of English are getting in the way, but all modules and themes output only specific form fields; every field in an HTML form is a specific field. At first, I couldn't make any sense out of this, and so went to the web site, where the explanation was the same but the examples shed some light.
I think that what you're saying is that some modules and themes output an explicit subset of form fields from a $form. Or maybe more precisely, judging from the followup note by Rob Barreca, some modules and themes call form_render on an explicit subset of fields in a given $form, and never call form_render($form) to render the rest of the form.
Is that correct? If so, does that complete characterize the problem, or are there other ways to trigger the incompatibility in 4.7.*, excluding totally unreasonable, contrived examples.
Almost. Those modules / themes may very well be rendering the entire form, but doing so by rendering known fields. As soon as the form is altered (either by hook_form_alter or a core update), they do not output the new field. Another possible incompatability relates to saved data:
In addition, certain modules unset a few form fields, then save the remainder of the form. These modules need to account for the new field. Tip: devise something robust.