User Friendly Entity Reference

Select ListsUsing Views, Views Entity View Widget, and

References Dialog

Hello there!

My name is Chris Hoffman(hoff331 on Drupal.org)

Graphic Designer and Front-end Developer (yes, I know I am using PowerPoint)

Working with Drupal for 3 Years

Find me and my work atwww.GetJumpstartNow.com(available for freelance)

Situation(3 assumptions)

1. User has to create a node (Concert) that references another node (Performers)

2. Referenced node type (Performers) hasa lot of nodes (i.e. options)

3. We want to provide the user with an user-friendly way to find/select referenced nodes

Preview Site

Performer Content Typetitlebodymusical genre (taxonomy)

Concert Content Typetitlebodyperformers (entity reference)

Our Options(modules)

1. Views (Entity Reference View Display)

2. Entity Reference View Widget

3. Reference Dialog

4. Others not covered… Multiple Selects, Chosen, Dynamic Multiselect, etc.

Each one has positives and negatives!

Option 1: Views

Positives

Entity Reference comes with a view display

Great for filtering lists of referenced nodes(before the options before user sees them)

Great for adding node fields to select optionsex.) <option>Performer – genre</option>

Pass arguments from node to view(not covered)

Negatives

Cannot group content (i.e. by genre)

Cannot use exposed filters

How To

1. Create an “Entity Reference” view display

2. Filter, sort, etc. view as normal

3. Select view in Entity Reference Field settings

4. Pass in additional arguments

Demo Views

Option 2: Ent. Ref.View Widget

Positives

Also great for filtering and adding content to select options

Able to Group nodes

Great for e-Commerce

Negatives

Hard to style – the view renders the node, the rendered node is controlled via the display manager (to customize display use .tpl or similar)

How To

1. Configure “Ent. Ref. View Widget” view mode (i.e. full, teaser, etc.) via display manager

2. Create an “Ent. Ref. View Widget” view display

3. Filter, sort, etc. view as normal

4. Select view in Entity Reference Field settings(this will override settings below)

Demo Ent. Ref.Views Widget

Option 3:Reference Dialog

Positives

Allows for inline entity creation combined with automatic entity reference (not possible using IEF)

Allows for inline entity editing

Search Dialog page (created using views) can be formatted, filtered, and grouped

Negatives

Module is a bit buggy (still in alpha)

Requires lots of styling to make Search Dialog page effective

How To

1. Set entity reference field to Autocomplete widget

2. Select which “dialogs” to add to field(Edit, Add, and/or Search)

3. If “Search Dialog” enabled, you must createa “Reference dialog Search” view display

4. Associate the view to entity reference field

5. Filter, sort, etc. view as normal

DEMO Reference Dialog

Other Options

Multiple Selects

Chosen

Dynamic Multiselect

See article by Lullabot:http://www.lullabot.com/blog/articles/entityreference-multiselectors

Questions?