Thread

I would like to intercept the expression engine error messages before they are output to the browser. My idea is to store the error message in the session, redirect to the original page (the return to link), grab the message from the session and display it on the original page. This would allow inline error messages.

I’ve got this working easily for freeform using the extension hooks freeform_module_validate_end and freeform_module_form_end (see attached). I would now like to get this to work for member registration, login and profile forms. Unfortunately there are no hooks that I can find that intercept the form processing at the validation and form rendering stages. Also, frustratingly there are no hooks for show_message and show_user_error in the core output class.

Are there any hooks that I’ve missed that might be used for this purpose? If not, is it possible to overload the core classes like you can in CI? Any other ideas?

I’m not aware of any hooks or other server-side techniques to easily do that… I would suggest going with javascript enhancement in the form of an ajax form post to do this.

EE’s form processing outputs errors as html (hardcoded unordered lists - bad style) - sadly there doesn’t appear to be a json mode; I guess I could submit the form via ajax and return the output to a div, but really I would like to highlight the individual error fields.

just create a jquery object with the returned html and use the traversal/manipulation tools to get what you need out of it.  XPATH is also probably an option if you prefer it.

I’ve got this working easily for freeform using the extension hooks freeform_module_validate_end and freeform_module_form_end

Sounds handy. Are you intending to share said extension? 😊

Cracked it, and I didn’t need to resort to ajax or hack the core 😊

I’m using the User module from Solspace and I rewrote _output_error function in mod.user.php to work with my form validation/error handling extension. The new function looks like this:

function _output_error($type, $errors)
    {
        global $LANG, $IN;
        
        switch($type)
        {
            case 'submission' : $heading = $LANG->line('submission_error');
                break;
            case 'general'    : $heading = $LANG->line('general_error');
                break;
            default           : $heading = $LANG->line('submission_error');
                break;
        }
        
        // if no active session we start a new one
        if (session_id() == "") 
        {
            session_start(); 
        }
        
        // save errors and form data to the session
        $_SESSION['form_error_type'] = $heading;
        $_SESSION['form_validation_errors'] = $errors;
        $_SESSION['form_data'] = $_POST;
        
        // redraw form and exit
        $return_uri = $IN->GBL('caller', 'POST');
        header( "Location:".$return_uri);
        
        exit;        
    }

I’ve got a bit more to do on the extension and will release it when I’ve tested it properly.

I’ve used jQuery and ajax to get around this in the past:

$.post(
    '{path=member/update_profile}',
    {
        m_field_id_1: $('#profile_first_name').val(),
        m_field_id_2: $('#profile_last_name').val(),
        m_field_id_3: $('#profile_id').val()
    },
    function(data)
    {
        if (data.match(/<title>Error<\/title>/))
        {
            $.facebox(data.replace('id="content"',''));
        }
        else
        {
            // show a success message
            $.facebox('Profile Updated Successfully');
        }
    },
    'text'
);

You could also pretty easily modify the User Message specialty template to output some JSON.