[drupal-devel] [feature] Make user blocks themeable

Mon Sep 5 16:55:25 UTC 2005

Issue status update for 
http://drupal.org/node/29145
Post a follow up: 
http://drupal.org/project/comments/add/29145

 Project:      Drupal
 Version:      cvs
 Component:    user.module
 Category:     feature requests
 Priority:     minor
 Assigned to:  Tobias Maier
 Reported by:  legoscia
 Updated by:   Jose A Reyero
 Status:       patch (code needs review)
 Attachment:   http://drupal.org/files/issues/themeable_block_content.patch (4.33 KB)

Well, in the meanwhile, I already have the patch.

The only idea behind is going for a general solution instead of
thinking of blocks one at a time.

You'll notice that whith this patch you can actually theme that 'who's
online' block. And, while simple, it introduces a more powerful
mechanism to theme other blocks, and anyway not breaking compatibility
with modules -maybe only with some contrib themes.

So I'll just leave the patch here, just take it or leave it, no bad
feelings, just hope it's some help. Anyway I came here only because of
the patch bingo ;-)

Jose A Reyero

Previous comments:
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Thu, 18 Aug 2005 20:10:06 +0000 : legoscia

Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/drupal-user-count.patch (3.4 KB)

The normal look of the user block was too big for my site, and the count
of online users was not deemed important enough. Thus here is a patch
that makes the display of the user count optional, leaving only the
list of online users.

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Thu, 18 Aug 2005 20:12:16 +0000 : moshe weitzman

id prefer that this be hidden using theme's CSS. if you need a div added
to the markup, then submit another patch

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Thu, 18 Aug 2005 23:30:25 +0000 : Uwe Hermann

+1 for the idea. I wouldn't force users to manually fiddle with CSS
files here. IMHO a config option is the better solution.

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Fri, 19 Aug 2005 08:43:22 +0000 : killes at www.drop.org

I think the right answer is not yet another rarely used option, but to
make the block's output themable.

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Wed, 31 Aug 2005 01:24:00 +0000 : Tobias Maier

I think killes idea is the best :)

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Wed, 31 Aug 2005 08:34:15 +0000 : Tobias Maier

Here is a patch which makes the following blocks themeable:
 - User login
 - Who's online

I hope you like it

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Wed, 31 Aug 2005 08:34:44 +0000 : Tobias Maier

Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/issue29145_user.module.patch (5.27 KB)

forgot the patch...

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Wed, 31 Aug 2005 08:35:51 +0000 : Tobias Maier

*grrr*

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Thu, 01 Sep 2005 19:46:15 +0000 : Tobias Maier

Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/issue29145_user.module_0.patch (6.77 KB)

here is a new version of the patch.

all blocks are themeable now.

please review it and tell me if it is ok.

cu tobias

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Sat, 03 Sep 2005 10:35:28 +0000 : Tobias Maier

Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/issue29145_user.module_1.patch (6.75 KB)

I changed one line...

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Sat, 03 Sep 2005 13:05:54 +0000 : Bèr Kessels

+1. Until the dat ewe run any block trough a theme function by default,
this is a great addition. So far I managed to tweak the login block
woth locales and CSS, btu this would really help a lot.
Especially now that we have multiple regions, blocks will want to
appear different. 

It also cleans up some 'ugly' coding (huge functions). by moving the
code into smaller functions.

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Mon, 05 Sep 2005 16:10:16 +0000 : Jose A Reyero

I dont think themeing individual blocks is a good solution. I'd rather
have an ad hock module for providing specific alternate blocks or use
CSS for now.

And I'd like to point out that blocks are nearly themeable. I mean we
have the theme_block function, which provides separated 'module',
'delta', 'title' and 'content' parameters. The only big problem is that
content is plain HTML, very difficult to deal with if you want specific
parts remoded.

So, my proposed solution would be to have that $block->content become
an array, with named keys. I.e.

$block->content['user list'], $block->content['user count'], etc...

Then, any theme_block function that wants to deal with specific blocks
can handle individual elements. And in any other case -which should be
the default-, we just do

$output .= is_array($block->content) ? implode('', $block->content) :
$block->content;

Then you can start proposing additional  patches to split specific
blocks' content in elements. But old blocks would still work!!

Hey, this is nearly a patch :-)

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Mon, 05 Sep 2005 16:21:55 +0000 : adrian

Eh. I know this is probably not practical to think about right now ..
but the form api is not all that form specific. It's just a way to
drive the theme system using arrays. All it needs to operate is to turn
the theme functions to use an associative array as their only parameter,
then you can use them in an array with the same format.

One of the features of the form api, through it's definition of unique
id's, is that you can have a theme function for every 'object'.

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Mon, 05 Sep 2005 16:36:02 +0000 : Tobias Maier

sorry,

but I dont like your solution.

* Why introducing a new behaviour how we theme things?
we theme everything the way how I did it in the Patch.
* 
"I dont think themeing individual blocks is a good solution."

I thinkit is very good. think about themes who have for example a
login-form on the top? or in the line of the main navigation?
also the legoscia, the user who started this issue, wanted to change
some parts in the default way how the Who's online block looks like.

greets