Which hook occurs last before rendering the exposed filter widgets?

Question

I'm trying to edit the variables that go from Views into the form array editted by hook_form_alter() and the tpl file views-exposed-form.tpl.php. Specifically, I'm trying to use the contents of $view->exposed_input for form theming, without resorting to using $view = views_get_current_view();

I've tried working my way up the order of execution defined here:

• hook_views_pre_view
• hook_views_pre_build
• hook_views_post_build
• hook_views_pre_execute
• hook_views_post_execute
• hook_views_pre_render
• hook_views_post_render

...but I'm stuck. At hook_views_pre_render(), $view->exposed_widgets gives me already-rendered HTML, so it's clearly too late, but the earlier ones don't give me anything at all.

Based on How to choose between all the views hooks?, I've tried using a preprocess hook based on the tpl file name, like hook_preprocess_views_exposed_form(), but the view isn't in scope here, I'm looking for the last views hook before this where I can find data from the view to these variables.

What I want to do, is take the contents of $view->exposed_input, and pass it through to the exposed form tpl file so that I can add a facet-like summary of current filters to my view. Which is the Views hook where I can do this?

I'm using Better Exposed Filters module, so if there are any hooks or tricks specific to that,they'd be welcome.

Answer 1

You can do what you need by adding a custom property to your form array via form alter:

function yourmodule_form_views_exposed_form_alter(&$form, &$form_state, $form_id) {

  // get the related view
  $view = $form_state['view'];

  // get the exposed_input and store it into a custom property
  $form['#exposed_input'] = $view->exposed_input; 

}

The form array is directly available as a variable in your views-exposed-form.tpl.php, try adding the following to the end of that tpl file:

<pre><?php print_r($form['#exposed_input']); ?></pre>

Hope this helps!