Core forum hook_menu_local_tasks_alter() override

Question

i'm trying to implement lightweight topic tracker for core forums (tracking new topics and comments on main forum view).

I'd like to override forum_forum_load() method, but core forums calls forum_forum_load() method inside of a forum_menu_local_tasks_alter() and besides my overridden mymodule_forum_load() and mymodule_local_tasks_alter() it'll still call core forums own forum_forum_load() method making 2x more queries (2 x Amount of forums, in this case 28x2).

I replaced forum load function call inside of forum_menu_local_tasks_alter() with my own function and seems like it's working just fine, but I don't want to mess with the core, so I'd know if there is other way to prevent that behaviour.

I tried some other forum extending modules and they all have exactly same problem.

Answer 1

You're right in not wanting to mess with core; it makes things tricky when you're trying to update to a new version of Drupal. You have to maintain patch files which may break with new core code and it just gets messy.

Fortunately Drupal does provide a method to handle exactly what you're after.

In Drupal 7 hook implementations are alterable, so you can use hook_module_implements_alter() to stop forum_menu_local_tasks_alter() from ever running:

function MYMODULE_module_implements_alter(&$implementations, $hook) {
  if ($hook == 'menu_local_tasks_alter') {
    unset($implementations['forum']);
  }
}

You'll need to copy the code from forum_menu_local_tasks_alter() and put it in your own mymodule_local_tasks_alter() function, and just replace the call to forum_forum_load() with the call to your mymodule_forum_load() function.