how to automatically select entity reference field value from url when adding a node

Question

I have a content type "Students" which has an entity reference field "Course".

Course field shows a list of course nodes titles from a view.

When adding a new student node, I need the course field to be automatically selected as per the URL value.

I will pass the course ID in the URL like this.

/node/add/student/COURSEID

Any idea how to get this done ? thanks

Answer 1

You could use Entity Reference Prepopulate module

Allow prepopulating any Entity reference field via URL

README.txt

Usage

In order to pre-populate an entity reference field you have to supply the parameter in the URL.

The structure is node/add/article?[field_ref]=[id]

Where [field_ref] is the name of the entity reference field and [id] is the id of the entity being referenced.

Examples:

node/add/article?field_foo=1

node/add/page?field_bar=1,2,3

Answer 2

I think the easiest way would be to use hook_form_alter() and set a default value for the field. You can use arg() to get the course ID

Answer 3

Another jQuery quick and dirty way.

jQuery( document ).ready(function($) {

    var the_url  = window.location.href;  
    var nid_from_url = the_url.substr(the_url.lastIndexOf('/') + 1);
    //change the selected value of the select list of courses.
    $('.page-node-add-offline-course-pictures #edit-field-offline-course-reference2-und').val(nid_from_url);
    });