Toggling view modes of Views results with Display Suite

Question

I asked a similar question about a month or so ago, and the answer was to use the Views Modes module. That module required the PURL module. The problem is the PURL module leaves parameters on your URL all over the site, and have not figured out a way to turn it off. Others have posted a support issue and it goes ignored.

So, I'm back to the drawing board. I have nodes that are rendered, using view modes defined in Display Suite. Is there a way I can toggle between view modes in Views? What I'm really trying to do is provide a bunch of filter checkboxes, along with the ability to toggle between view modes, but I need to find a solution for the view modes first.

Is there a module that makes this easy, or do I need to write some code. If I do need to write some code, how should I approach it?

Answer 1

Solution that I use sometimes.

1. Create a content type with one or more multiple-value block reference fields.
   This is like a "cheap" version of panels..
2. Create your views displays as blocks. One for each version.
3. Create a custom module to define a block that acts as the "switcher" between the two. Put some dummy content for now.
4. Create two nodes with the block reference.
   • One that has the switcher and the Views display A.
   • One that has the switcher and the Views display B.
5. Set url aliases for both nodes.
6. Flesh out the "switcher" block. E.g. make it keep the url query parameters. Make it look different depending on whether you are on A or B.
7. If you want, you can have a separate block for the exposed filters, that you also add via the blockreference.
8. Use Display suite or some other way to arrange the different blocks on the page.

The benefit of block reference + ds over theme regions is that you don't spam your theme regions with one-page-only blocks.

Answer 2

Just an idea and I might be mis-understanding what you need here but could you create multiple views, one for each view you need, expose the filters on them and then combine all these views with the quicktabs module?

Answer 3

So, it seems the general idea will be to have multiple views displays, and something to switch between those views displays.

The problem seems to be

1. How to create the switcher.
2. How to display the switcher in the intended location next to the exposed filters.

One solution could be hook_form_views_exposed_form_alter() to sneak the switcher into the form.

EDIT: Another solution can be to put the switcher as custom html in the View header. Or you can write your own Views header plugin to have it reusable.

Answer 4

What about creating a custom select that appends arguments to the current url, and then implementing hook_entity_view_mode_alter and checking the paths?

function mymodule_entity_view_mode_alter(&$view_mode, $context) {
  if ($context['entity_type'] == 'node') {
    if (arg(0) == 'myview' && arg(1) == 'mode' && arg(2) == 'custom') {
      $view_mode = 'custom_view_mode';
    }
  }
}

There must be a cleaner way to do this. But this should work.