How to render the textfield from custom advanced theme setting?

Question

I'm working on a custom theme with message field(textfield) in custom advanced theme setting.

In "theme-settings.php", I added a "textfield" for "message" field

<?php
function MYTHEME_form_system_theme_settings_alter(&$form, $form_state) {
    $form['message_value'] = array(
        '#type'     => 'textfield',
        '#size' => 12,
        '#maxlength' => 100,
        '#default_value' => theme_get_setting('message_value'),
        '#description' => t('Some text here'),
    );
}
?>

In "template.php", I added "theme_get_setting"

<?php
  function MYTHEME_preprocess_page(&$vars) {
    $message = theme_get_setting('message_value');
  }

And in my "page.tpl.php", I render the "message" if it is not empty

<?php if(!empty($message)) echo $message; ?>

The problem is, it does not render anything and has no error.

It works if I put the theme_get_setting in page.tpl.php

<?php $message = theme_get_setting('message_value'); ?>

How to make it work if I want to put that in "template.php"?

Answer 1

In your template.php preprocess function, you need to pass the message back as a key/value in the variables array. (I set the variable key as "custom_msg" as "message" may be too generic and be accidentally confused with any system message variables"

function MYTHEME_preprocess_page(&$vars) {
    $message = theme_get_setting('message_value');
    $vars['custom_msg'] = $message;
}

Then, in your page.tpl.php, the variable would be accessible as $custom_msg (or whatever custom key you set in the preprocess function) and can be included in your page template as:

<?php if(!empty($custom_msg)) echo $custom_msg; ?>

More information about this can be found on this Drupal.org page: Setting up variables for use in a template (preprocess and process functions)

Answer 2

Your code in template.php needs modification

instead of $message, you need to mention $vars['message']. If you need to send a variable from template.php file to a tpl file, then the variable has to be mentioned in $vars['variable_name'] or $variables['variable_name'], depending upon the argument set in the preprocess method.

So here goes the modification to your code:

function MYTHEME_preprocess_page(&$vars) {
$vars['message'] = theme_get_setting('message_value');
}

And then in you tpl file, you will be able to render the 'message' variable.

if(!empty($message)) echo $message;