[development] Creating embedded unordered lists of checkboxes

[Steve Edwards]

Well, the problem with that is I've tried just that (creating my own custom checkboxes function), and as I said in the initial post, when it gets to my custom theme_checkboxes form, the #children have not been rendered since that step was skipped in drupal_render() simply because #theme was set for the checkboxes element.  If I could get to my custom theme_checkboxes element with $element['#children'] set, I'd be fine, but that's what's throwing the wrench into things.

Thanks.

Steve



On Jan 13, 2010, at 7:39 PM, David Metzler wrote:

> I think you're on the right track.  Check out:
> 
> http://drupal.org/node/197578
> 
> which shows you how to render  a checkboxes control into a table.    You shouldn't technically need the form-item theme function to do what you're doing, but rather just a custom checkboxes theming form.   I've done that successfully in D5, but it looks like it would work in D6.  Note the direct calls to theme_checkbox in that function so that it renders each of the checkboxes properly
> 
> Hope that helps,
> 
> Dave
> 
> 
> 
> On Jan 13, 2010, at 4:54 PM, Steve Edwards wrote:
> 
>> I have a need to create a two-level unordered list of checkboxes from a two level taxonomy vocabulary.  So for instance, if my vocabulary is
>> 
>> - Level 1 term 1
>> -- Level 2 term 1
>> -- Level 2 term 2
>> -- Level 2 term 3
>> - Level 1 term 2
>> -- Level 2 term 4
>> -- Level 2 term 5
>> - Level 1 term 3
>> 
>> I want to create the following:
>> 
>> <ul>
>> <li><input type = checkbox">Level 1 term 1</li>
>> <ul>
>>   <li><input type = checkbox">.Level 2 term 1</li>
>>   <li><input type = checkbox">Level 2 term 2</li>
>>   <li><input type = checkbox">Level 2 term 3</li>
>> </ul>
>> <li><input type = checkbox">Level 1 term 2</li>
>> <ul>
>>   <li><input type = checkbox">Level 2 term 4</li>
>>   <li><input type = checkbox">Level 2 term 5</li>
>> <ul>
>> <li><input type = checkbox">Level 1 term 3<li>
>> </ul>
>> 
>> What is the best way to do this?  Just use a checkboxes element type and create my own theme function for the form?  Modify something like theme_item_list?  Or is there a better (and easier) way that I'm missing?
>> 
>> What I tried doing was to create a theme function for my checkboxes element by setting the #theme property for the element to my custom theme function (and registering the function in hook_theme).  I then just made a copy of theme_checkboxes() (and theme_form_element since it's called from theme_form_checkboxes) and renamed to match hook_theme and the #theme property.  However, when doing that, none of my checkboxes are rendered at all.  On stepping through the code, I found the problem in drupal_render starting at line 2868:
>> 
>>  if (!isset($elements['#children'])) {
>>    $children = element_children($elements);
>>    // Render all the children that use a theme function.
>>    if (isset($elements['#theme']) && empty($elements['#theme_used'])) {
>>      $elements['#theme_used'] = TRUE;
>> 
>>      $previous = array();
>>      foreach (array('#value', '#type', '#prefix', '#suffix') as $key) {
>>        $previous[$key] = isset($elements[$key]) ? $elements[$key] : NULL;
>>      }
>>      // If we rendered a single element, then we will skip the renderer.
>>      if (empty($children)) {
>>        $elements['#printed'] = TRUE;
>>      }
>>      else {
>>        $elements['#value'] = '';
>>      }
>>      $elements['#type'] = 'markup';
>> 
>>      unset($elements['#prefix'], $elements['#suffix']);
>>      $content = theme($elements['#theme'], $elements);
>> 
>>      foreach (array('#value', '#type', '#prefix', '#suffix') as $key) {
>>        $elements[$key] = isset($previous[$key]) ? $previous[$key] : NULL;
>>      }
>>    }
>>    // Render each of the children using drupal_render and concatenate them.
>>    if (!isset($content) || $content === '') {
>>      foreach ($children as $key) {
>>        $content .= drupal_render($elements[$key]);
>>      }
>>    }
>>  }
>> 
>> So basically, because I have #theme set for the checkboxes field, it skips the rendering of the individual checkbox elements.  To me, it makes sense that I override the theme function for the checkboxes type since that's the element type, but that doesn't seem to be the case.  So what do I need to do to be able to simply theme my checkboxes element?
>> 
>> Thanks.
>> 
>> Steve
>> 
>