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After posting an example of the Drupal form_alter hook, I thought it could be useful to post a list of places where you can find extra information about the Drupal forms system.

What is the form_alter hook?

After following through my first tutorial on forms, you should be able to create a form, check that the input is as you require, and submit the data for processing. But what if you want to add functionality to certain areas of Drupal that you do not control, like contributed modules, or even Core?

The JW Player from Longtail Video is one of the best Flash based media players out there. It is very customizable; you can skin it, add extra functionality with plugins, and modify behavior using the wide array of flashvars available.

It also has a rich Javascript framework, meaning you can hook into the player as it is running, and change the state of the player.

Javascript Timers

Javascript has the ability to make things happen at different times using the setTimeout function. You can even schedule recurring events using the setInterval function. This functionality isn’t jQuery, but you can use these functions in your code to make your interfaces more user friendly.

Plugins?

We all love using plugins for jQuery, it cuts development time, and in most cases if you can think of an idea, someone has made a plugin for it.

Occasionally though, you need to make your own, or you simply want to make your own!

So you need a Form. Where do you start?

If you're anything like me (which I hope you are, because you're reading this!), then you'll want to look at the Drupal Forms API.

Last time we covered how to create a nice paged, sortable Drupal table with a selection of simple code snippets.

I don't know about you, but I hate repeating myself in my code. Tables are the kind of thing you need in nearly every module to keep track of the data you have added, so rewriting the same code can get very tedious very quickly.

Have you ever...?

Have you ever wanted to make a table in Drupal, using theme_table? Well, what about adding extra links, like for options (Edit / Delete etc)? And how about sorting it? Pager anyone? Well this tutorial will show you how to do all that. After this you will be a Drupal Table master!

Where were we?

Ok, last time we looked at the ideas behind Input Filters in Drupal, so we covered Input Formats, how to configure them and what they can do for you. Now we get the real good stuff; how to make one.

Input Filters are a great feature of Drupal. They can be very useful. They allow you to:

• Modify the output of a user's submission without changing their input (one of Drupal's golden rules)
• Hide complicated code to do clever things

What do I mean by these things? well, allow me to explain.