[development] Proposed hook_message_alter

[Greg Holsclaw]

With some implementation help from chx, I proposed a new hook at issue
http://drupal.org/node/127262. I am just bringing this up here to get
quick focus and a double check of idea. The actual code change is rather
small, so I was hoping it could be reviewed and accepted/rejected early
on, before the flood of more major updates and ideas comes as we
approach the code freeze.

 

The basic justification for this new hook is found in the issue, pasted
here for quick reference.

 

"As I have been working on the functional implementation for a new
community Drupal site, I have been seeing the need to customize many of
the core Drupal messages (the drupal_set_message function), as required
by the needs of the site. A typical example would be when a contact
message has been sent, the default message is 'The message has been
sent.' An small change might be to 'Thank you, your message has been
sent.' A more dynamic change would be 'Thank you Greg, your message has
been sent'.

The first change could be accomplished using the locale module
methodologies found in http://drupal.org/node/58030. But there are two
short-comings to this method. First, even though all core modules use
t() for the text to make it translation ready, many contributed modules
do not. Second, the translation method only allows for string
replacements, not dynamic insertions. Granted some of the messages place
the user's name or other dynamic information into the message, but the
basic idea is that you can only change what is given you, you can't add
to it. The contact message is a perfect example, there is no way to add
the user's name to the message.

That is why I am going to propose a new drupal hook,
hook_message_alter(&$message = NULL), allowing the $message to be
changed by reference. It would hook into the drupal_set_message
function. All messages would invoke this hook, giving designers and
developers the ability to customize those messages completely to suit
their site."

 

-Greg

 

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