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expressionengine

Nested entries with nested templates

I’m sure this question does not deserve it’s own topic but I’ve failed to find a satisfying answer on the forums and Stack Overflow.

I have three templates. I’ll try to be clear and simple about what I’m trying to do.

Page

{exp:channel:entries channel="page" dynamic="yes"}
    {!-- 'pages_module' is a matrix field --}
    {page_modules}
        {!-- The field 'module' is returning the entry_id from SP Table Select --}
        {embed="module/index" id="{module:value}"}
    {/page_modules}
{/exp:channel:entries}

Module - Index

{exp:channel:entries channel="module" dynamic="no" entry_id="{embed:id}" site="main_site"}
    {if module_type == "building"}
        {embed="module/building" id="{building_id}"}
    {/if}
    {!-- Other module type checking here... --}
    {!-- Note this following line --}
{entry_id} - {embed:id}
{/exp:channel:entries}

Module - Building

{exp:channel:entries channel="building" dynamic="no" entry_id="{embed:id}" site="main_site"}
    <h1>{title}</h1>
    <p>{building_description}</p>
{/exp:channel:entries}

So basically, in this setup you can attach “modules” to pages entries. In this particular case, I’m trying to look if any {module_id} was set on the page. If so, pass {module_id} to the main module template, which will get the module entry, compare the {module_type} and send {building_id} to a third template. Then the building information is fetched and displayed.

In the module template, where I wrote a note, {entry_id} and {embed:id} does not match. {entry_id} equals the ID of the first page entry that was fetched dynamically. I assume this is happening because since it’s embedded templates and not snippets, it results in three nested {exp:channel:entries} tags. But then again, I can’t pass IDs to a snippet, can I?

Also worth noting that I’m using MSM, and since I have 8 sites running on it, I wanted “modules” to be, well, modular and all reside under the “main site” for convenient maintenance.

I hope someone can clarify this and/or correct me if I’m wrong.

Solution

  • As cited in the documentation:

    Embedding Templates from Another Site

    To embed a template from another Site, simply prefix the template group and template specified with the short name of the site you wish to pull the template from as follows:

    {embed="site_short_name:template_group/template"}

    But!

    Specifying Multiple Sites (prepare for a head trip)

    Note: Specifying multiple Sites does not work with the {embed=”“} tag.

    Then I thought I could play around this limitation with PHP but it seems even the basic...

    $output = $this->EE->TMPL->parse_variables('{exp:channel:entries channel="module" dynamic="no" site="main_site"}{entry_id}{/exp:channel:entries}', array());

    ...wouldn't return the expected values. It seems there is no way to embed a template that itself fetches data from a different site. This is disappointing since getting data from other since while not repeating channels/templates is, to me, the exact reason why you want to use the multi-site manager...