Custom node template with related node teasers

Question

I have a custom node (article) template file working fine, and I want to show related nodes (events) in their teaser format. I have been doing this in my node--article.tpl.php file like this:

foreach ($field_related_event as $event_node){
    print render(node_view(node_load($event_node['nid']), 'teaser')); 
}

I wanted to add a second teaser format for events (teaser_fancy) and downloaded "Entity view modes" thinking I would be able to do something like this:

foreach ($field_related_event as $event_node){
    print render(node_view(node_load($event_node['nid']), 'teaser_fancy')); 
}

But now I read that node_view can only use teaser and full, and it's probably not a good idea to render relationships in my template this way. What's the recommended way to go about this? Should I create an Events Fancy view and use views_embed_view instead?

Answer 1

A valid "view_mode" should work with node_view and that approach looks reasonable.

However, if it's proving problematic, you can also use Views with views_embed_view

e.g

print views_embed_view('viewname', 'display_id', $node->nid); // node id contextual filter