What Would Drupal Do?

This is part three of a series. If you haven't already, you might be interested in reading previous articles.

• Part 3: Catching Duplicates With hook_form_alter()
• Part 2: How To Create a Bookmarklet
• Part 1: How To Build A Personal Nodetracker

In this tutorial, we are going to implement the hook_form_alter() function to test for duplicate entries based on a form field.

I'll be using the nodetracker content type that we built in previous tutorials for demonstration purposes, but the general method is applicable to any form or content type within Drupal.

I previously demonstrated how to build a personal nodetracker using CCK, Views, and the Views Bonus Pack.

But it's no fun to have to open up your website, log in, go into the create content section, and manually type in all the information every time you want to keep track of a Drupal.org node.

Well, with a bit of Javascript hackery and the prepopulate module, we are freed from such dreary tasks.

This can be used for any sort of node type. I'm using the node tracker here as a generic example.

I've received a number of emails since the launch of What Would Drupal Do regarding my personal nodetracker (see the righthand side of the screen, towards the bottom) [...]

Here is how it's done.