How to show first X items and add and ellipsis […] if there is more items?

Question

I have a View that displays books and authors of each book.

BOOK 1

• Author 1, Author 2, Author 3, Author 4, Author 5
  

BOOK 2

• Author 6, Author 7

What I want to do is to show only first 3 authors of each book and add an ellipsis [...] if there is more authors. It's easy to display first 3 items (Multiple Field Settings) but how to add an ellipsis to it?

---

BOOK 1

• Author 1, Author 2, Author 3 ...
  

BOOK 2

• Author 6, Author 7

How can I do that?

Answer 1

I have not tested this, so consider this an educated guess:

Go to /sites/all/themes/yourtheme/ folder and in template.php add the following code:

function yourtheme_preprocess_views_view_fields($vars){

  if ($vars['view']->name == "view_name" && $vars['view']->current_display == "block_1") {
    if (isset($vars['fields']['field_example'][3]->raw)){
      $vars['fields']['field_example']->content = $vars['fields']['field_example'][0]->raw . ', ' . $vars['fields']['field_example'][1]->raw . ', ' . $vars['fields']['field_example'][2]->raw . '...';  
    }
    else { 
      $vars['fields']['field_example']->content = $vars['fields']['field_example']->content;  
    }
  }

• replace yourtheme with the actual name of your theme
• replace view_name with the name of your view.
• replace block_1 with the machine name of your view.
• replace example with the name of your field.

Answer 2

After thinking a lot, I found an "easy" way to do it :)

In my views,

• I added the author field as normal.

• I enabled the Exclude from display option.

• In MULTIPLE FIELD SETTINGS, I set it to display only 1 value, starting from 0.

Then I added the author field again, for 3 times with the settings above.

For each, I changed the Multiple Field Settings as below:

• 2. author: display 1 value, starting from 1.
• 3. author: display 1 value, starting from 2.
• 4. author: display 1 value, starting from 3.

For the 2. and 3. authors I enabled the Rewrite the output of this field option and this is the rewrite text for author 2: , [field_author_1] and this is for author 3: , [field_author_2].

I also enabled the Rewrite the output of this field for the 4. author and this is the rewrite text: ...

As a final step I added a Global: Custom text to views and this the text:

[field_author][field_author_1][field_author_2][field_author_3]

It's done!

• If there is only one author it displays Author 1

• If there is two authors it displays as: Author 1, Author 2

(remember the rewrite:, [field_author_1]).

• If there is three authors it displays as: Author 1, Author 2, Author 3

• And if there is more than three authors it displays as: Author 1, Author 2, Author 3 ...

(remember the rewrite for author 4:...)

Answer 3

Even though those authors are probably not a term reference, you may want to try an approach similar to what is suggested in post installation issue "Trimming a Views Term reference field", using a combination of "Multiple field settings" and "Rewrite results" Here is a quote from it:

Select the field in the list, it will be in the form "Content: Tags", where tags is the field name (do no use )

With Formatter set to "Plain text" (if you do not see formatter, skip this) and "Link this field" unchecked

We are going to use a combination of "Multiple field settings" and "Rewrite results"

Set "Multiple field settings" so it only display some terms, I am going to limit to 4 (we will call this max terms). I also have the separator set to ", "

Now under "Rewrite results" check "Trim this field to a maximum length", I also unchecked "Trim only on a word boundary" and "Add an ellipsis". Pick a value for maximum length, note this is per tag. Lets pick 3.

So total length = (max terms) * (maximum length + length of separator)

In this example this becomes (4) * ( 3 + 2 ) [separator is a comma and space] for a total of twelve.

If you add ellipsis's the calculation becomes total length = (max terms) * (maximum length + length of separator + length of ellipsis)

Note the Multiple field settings (as in your question) in the above suggestion ...