Drupal 7 - How to load a template file from a module?

Question

I am trying to build my own module in Drupal 7.

So I have created a simple module called 'moon'

function moon_menu() {
  $items = array();
      $items['moon'] = array(
      'title' => '',
      'description' => t('Detalle de un Programa'),
      'page callback' => 'moon_page',
      'access arguments' => array('access content'),
      'type' => MENU_CALLBACK
  );

  return $items;
}

function moon_page(){


$id = 3;

$content = 'aa';

}

in moon_page() function, I like to load a custom template 'moon.tpl.php' from my theme file.

is this possible?

Solution 1

For your own stuff (not overriding a template from another module)?

Sure, you only need to:

• Register your template with hook_theme()

• Call theme('moon', $args)

$args is an array that contains the arguments to the template as specified by your hook_theme() implementation.

Solution 2

/*
 * Implementation of hook_theme().
 */
function moon_theme($existing, $type, $theme, $path){
  return array(
    'moon' => array(
      'variables' => array('content' => NULL),
      'file' => 'moon', // place you file in 'theme' folder of you module folder
      'path' => drupal_get_path('module', 'moon') .'/theme'
    )
  );
}

function moon_page(){

  // some code to generate $content variable

  return theme('moon', $content); // use $content variable in moon.tpl.php template
}

Solution 3

For Drupal 7, it did not worked for me. I replaced line in hook_theme

'file' => 'moon', by 'template' => 'moon' 

and now it is working for me.

Solution 4

In drupal 7 I was getting the following error when using :

return theme('moon', $content);

Was resulting in "Fatal error: Unsupported operand types in drupal_install\includes\theme.inc on line 1071"

This was fixed using :

theme('moon', array('content' => $content));

View more solutions

Comments

[Moon]

// I just put print theme('moon',$content), but it displays a blank page. Am I doing something wrong here?

[Berdir]

If you print something inside your page callback, it means "I do want only this to be printed. Example: A file, json, xml, ...". Use "return theme('moon', $args)" instead. Did you update the theme registry (re-save theme selection form or use devel.module).

[Muneer]

thankx, this helped me. But need some modification. in return array of moon_theme() funciton the array key 'file' should be repalced with 'template' otherwise it produce error in Drupal 6

[commonpike]

'path' worked fine in drupal7, but when called with 'path', the file should literally be called 'theme/moon', without any extensions. if you use 'template', drupal7 searches for 'theme/moon.tpl.php'.