Autopopulate a different field if node reference autocomplete doesn't have a matching candidate?

Question

I've got a form for non logged in users to submit an event, which then goes in to a moderation queue via rules. At the moment, when an authenticated user adds an event, they've got the option to either pick a venue from a list of already populated nodes (field_venue), or specify a venue in plain text if the venue isn't a node (field_venuetext).

I'd like to make this a bit easier for non-authenticated users and just provide one field which is a node reference autocomplete field. If the user just types a venue and doesn't select from the autocomplete, it will populate the plain text field (field_venuetext). Looking at the nodereference.module source, I can see the function I'd like to change (nodereference_autocomplete_validate), and I guess, I'd do something like this:

function nodereference_autocomplete_validate($element, &$form_state) {
  $field_name = $element['#field_name'];
  $type_name = $element['#type_name'];
  $field = content_fields($field_name, $type_name);
  $field_key  = $element['#columns'][0];
  $delta = $element['#delta'];
  $value = $element['#value'][$field_key];
  $nid = NULL;
  if (!empty($value)) {
    preg_match('/^(?:\s*|(.*) )?\[\s*nid\s*:\s*(\d+)\s*\]$/', $value, $matches);
    if (!empty($matches)) {
      // Explicit [nid:n].
      list(, $title, $nid) = $matches;
      if (!empty($title) && ($n = node_load($nid)) && trim($title) != trim($n->title)) {
        form_error($element[$field_key], t('%name: title mismatch. Please check your selection.', array('%name' => t($field['widget']['label']))));
      }
    }
    else {
      // No explicit nid.
      $reference = _nodereference_potential_references($field, $value, 'equals', NULL, 1);
      if (empty($reference)) {
        // *** CHANGE *** At the moment, this generates an error, but I would like to populate the field 'field_venuetext'
        form_error($element[$field_key], t('%name: found no valid post with that title.', array('%name' => t($field['widget']['label']))));
      }
      else {
        // TODO:
        // the best thing would be to present the user with an additional form,
        // allowing the user to choose between valid candidates with the same title
        // ATM, we pick the first matching candidate...
        $nid = key($reference);
      }
    }
  }
  form_set_value($element, $nid, $form_state);
}

However I'm not sure how I'd override it, or indeed how I'd populate the field field_venuetext. I'm new to Drupal, so not 100% sure where to go next. Any ideas?

Answer 1

After some poking around and asking on the Drupal forum, I've found that there's a module that does pretty much what I want