Ethan Codes

By default, Drupal will let you define a template called node-bork.tpl.php, which is a template for all nodes of type “bork.” That’s pretty handy, but what if you want a template for a specific node id? What I want to be able to do is define a template called node-4.tpl.php, which would be the template for the node with node id 4. Here’s how.

In your template.php file, add this:

function phptemplate_preprocess_node(&$vars) {
  $vars['template_files'][] = 'node-'. $vars['nid'];
}

Rather than copy/paste code, I’ll share some theories.

When I started working with Drupal, the way you created/edited content was awful. I could not understand how “users” were supposed to understand how to do it. It was so confusing. Eventually I figured out a better way to do it.

Out of the box, users are given a menu that says “Create Content.” From here, they can create content items. That’s cool. If you want to edit a page, you navigate to that page and click the “edit” tab. This works for very simple sites, but nothing is ever really that simple. What we were doing was giving users administrative privileges. (Bear with me.) Then we told them, to edit a page go to Administer, Content Management, Content. On that screen, click one of the many drop downs and pick the type of content you want to edit. Then wade through the filtered list to find the “page” you want to edit. At the time it was the only way we knew to edit content.

This was terribly confusing. Even for me as a developer it seemed like a hassle. Users could not understand it, could not follow a list of instructions like that when what they wanted to do was really pretty simple. And then I started getting questions from our users who were poking around in the administrative menu and finding things they should not be finding.

So what I started doing was setting up content management views, and a menu to keep them all organized. I set up a view for the “story” content type. I label it “View/Edit News Items” and put it in the “Manage Content” menu. The view has things like title, maybe a teaser or author, updated date, a view link and an edit link. Under the link for the view in the menu, I add a “Create News Item” link that allows them to create a story from right there. I’ll repeat this group for whatever content types I need to. Some websites have a “location” content type, so I’ll build a view for that, and give them a create link. Some websites have blog entries, job opportunities, quotes. You get the idea.

This makes more sense to users. When they log in they see, clearly, how to get to the content that they want to edit. It’s organized. It’s quick. You don’t even really have to “train” people who to edit content. It’s right there.

And to give you another example… Our website has a document listing all of our clients. How does anybody edit it? Well, if you didn’t know that the list of clients was stored in a document, you wouldn’t even know what to do. But if you did, then you’d have to have administrative privileges, and you’d go to Administer, Content Management, Content, switch the content type to “Client Listing,” and edit the resulting document. With the new system, you log in, you don’t need admin privileges, you see a link in the “Manage Content” menu that clearly says “View/Edit Client Listing.” You click that and edit the document. You’re done. You’re happy.