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Adding settings on Drupal themes

For some time now, I've been feeling the need to have some themes be more easily customizable by admins, without their needing to tweak files. Alas, the themeing system is normally limited to the smallest common denominator defined by <theme>_features, accessed from admin/themes/settings and admin/themes/settings/<theme>

Since tweaking the various themeing mechanisms seemed complicated, I took a short route, and created the “themesettings” proof-of-concept module. The idea is simple: if themes can't have settings, modules can register whatever path they want and then invoke whatever theme code they want to. So….

As the first step, we'll add new settings to a theme, by declaring a <theme>_settings function. The theme we'll be using for the demo is called “admin”.

Adding settingability to themes

Creating the settings function for theme "admin"

In the admin.theme file, we'll add the admin_settings function. If the theme is a plain PHP theme, it will already exist. If it is a PHPtemplate theme, the file will have to be created.

<php> function admin_settings()

{
$title = t('Extended settings for theme %theme', array('%theme' => 'admin'));
drupal_set_title($title);
$form = array();

$form['admin_background'] = array
  (
  '#type'          => 'textfield',
  '#title'         => t('background-color'),
  '#default_value' => variable_get('admin_background', 'transparent'),
  '#description'   => t('CSS string for a background color. It will be applied to nodes.'),
  );

return system_settings_form('admin_admin_settings', $form);
}

</php>

Proof of concept example, no more: we just define a setting for the theme to use later on. In this case, it will be a CSS background color. NOTICE: a true world example should not take input and store it without some sanity checks.

Using the setting: node.tpl.php

With the “admin” theme being based on PHPtemplate, we'll modify the node.tpl.php to apply our parameterized color to all nodes:

<php> <div style=“background-color: <?php print variable_get('admin_background', 'transparent'); ?> ! important” class=“node<?php print ($sticky) ? ” sticky“ : ”“; ?>”>

<?php if ($page == 0): ?>
  <h2><a href="<?php print $node_url ?>" title="<?php print $title ?>"><?php print $title ?></a></h2>
<?php endif; ?>
<?php print $picture ?>
<div class="info"><?php print $submitted ?></div>
<div class="content">
<?php print $content ?>
</div>

<?php if ($links): ?>

  <?php if ($picture): ?>
    <br class='clear' />
  <?php endif; ?>
<div class="links"><?php print $links ?></div>

<?php endif; ?> <?php if ($terms): ?>

<div class="terms">( categories: <?php print $terms ?> )</div>

<?php endif; ?> </div> <?php>

The themesettings module

function _themesettings_themes()

{
static $ret ;

if (isset($ret))
  { return $ret; }

$ret = array();
$themes = list_themes();
foreach ($themes as $theme_key => $theme)
  {
  $function_name = $theme_key . "_settings";
  // Test taken from system.module, but probably incomplete/incorrect
  // We need to load the file for the function to be in memory, though
  // Having it in a separate file avoids loading the full theme
  if (file_exists($file = dirname($theme->filename) .'/' . $theme_key . '.theme'))
    {
    include_once "./$file";
    }
  if (function_exists($function_name))
    {
    $ret[$theme_key] = $theme;
    }
  }
return $ret;
}

function themesettings_help($section)

{
switch ($section)
  {
  case 'admin/modules#themesettings':
    $ret = 'themesettings';
    break;
  case 'admin/modules#description':
    $ret = t('This module allows themes to include additional settings beyond the default features like logo, slogan, or mission');
    break;
  }
return $ret;
}

function themesettings_menu($may_cache)

{
$items = array();

if (!$may_cache)
  {
  $access = user_access('administer site configuration');

  $items[] = array(
    'path'         => TSBASEPATH,
    'title'        => t('Extended theme settings'),
    'type'         => MENU_NORMAL_ITEM,
    'access'       => $access,
    'callback'     => 'themesettings_page',
    );
  foreach (_themesettings_themes() as $theme_name => $theme)
    {
    $items[] = array(
      'path'       => TSBASEPATH . "/$theme_name",
      'title'      => $theme_name,
      'callback'   => $theme_name . '_settings',
      'access'     => $access,
      'type'       => MENU_LOCAL_TASK,
      );
    }
  }
return $items;
}

function themesettings_page()

{
$ret = t('<p>Please select one of the themes having extended settings below.</p>');
$links = array();
foreach (_themesettings_themes() as $theme_name => $theme_name)
  {
	$links[] = l($theme_name, TSBASEPATH . "/$theme_name");
  }
$ret .= theme('item_list', $links);
return $ret;
}