drupal 6 form module not calling hook_theme

Question

I'm trying to build a table with form elements by theming the form.

I have created a form with 9 elements #type textfield: a1,a2,a3,b1,b2,b3,c1,c2,c3.

I would like to put them into a table using theme_table($header,$row).

To do this I create a _theme(){} function and another function that creates the $header and $rows for the form and uses drupal_render to create the form. The form renders only when I have return $form in the form hook. But really i don't want to render the form there, but later in the theme_module where I drupal_render($form). But this isn't actually working.

function name_menu() {
  $items['name/form'] = array(
    'title' => t('Name'),
    'page callback' => 'drupal_get_form',
    'page arguments' => array('name_form'),
    'access callback' => 'user_access',
    'type' => MENU_CALLBACK,    
  );
  return $items;
}

function name_theme() {
    return array('name_form' => array('arguments' => array('form' => NULL),),);
}

function theme_name_form($form){
    $output = '',
    $header = array(
        array('data' => t('Header1')),
        array('data' => t('Header2')),
        array('data' => t('Header3')),
    );
    $rows = array(
        array($form['a1'],$form['b1'],$form['c1']),
        array($form['a2'],$form['b2'],$form['c2']),
        array($form['a3'],$form['b3'],$form['c3']),
    );

     $form['items'] = array(
        '#type' => 'markup', '#value' => theme_table($header,$rows),
        );   
    $output .= drupal_render($form); //form rendered
}

function name_form(&$form_state) {    
 $form['a1'] = array('#type' => 'textfield');
 $form['a2'] = array('#type' => 'textfield');
 $form['a3'] = array('#type' => 'textfield');
 $form['b1'] = array('#type' => 'textfield');
 $form['b2'] = array('#type' => 'textfield');
 $form['b3'] = array('#type' => 'textfield');
 $form['c1'] = array('#type' => 'textfield');
 $form['c2'] = array('#type' => 'textfield');
 $form['c3'] = array('#type' => 'textfield');         


$form['#theme'] = 'theme_name_form';
}

i put all the code to make this available to people who are having similar issues. — ingrid

ingrid ingrid · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-27T07:33:21

Try following these tutorials:
http://www.jaypan.com/tutorial/themeing-drupal-6-forms-tables-checkboxes
or http://coffeeshopped.com/2010/09/drupal-drag-and-drop-tables-in-custom-modules
or https://drupal.stackexchange.com/questions/5374/how-to-render-a-form-in-table-layout

read: http://api.drupal.org/api/drupal/modules%21system%21system.api.php/function/hook_theme/6
and http://drupal.org/node/751826

look at this file:http://drupal.org/node/528932

trouble shooting: - clear drupal cache ( Administer » Site configuration » Performance ) - re-render module ( Administer » Site building » Modules )

Basic flow:

function module_perm(){} //creates permissions
function module_menu(){} //creates menu
function module_form(){} //makes form elements
function module_theme(){} //register the theme function 
function theme_module(){} //build and return an output string using drupal_render()
function module_submit(){} //called by submit in form

drupal 6 form module not calling hook_theme

1 Answers