How to display a Drupal view in a CiviCRM tab

Question

I'm trying to display a drupal view in a CiviCRM contact tab. I've tested out my tab function with the code snippet on hook_civicrm_tabs and it will show the contribution tab correctly, and I've tested out my drupal view url on its own with a contact id appended and that displays correctly, but when I try to use my code to display the view in the tab, after I click the tab I get a civicrm error pop up message that says "Network Error Unable to reach the server. Please refresh this page in your browser and try again."

Here is my code

function mymodule_civicrm_tabs(&$tabs, $contactID) {

$url = '/civicrm-videos/'. $contactID;
$tabs[] = array( 'id'    => 'projectTab',
                 'url'   => $url,
                 'title' => 'Projects',
                 'weight' => 300,
                 'count' => '2' );
}

What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

Extrapolating on Coleman's answer, you can get the json output required by creating a new Drupal page with hook_menu. Here is the full code:

function mymodule_menu() {
  $items['civicrm-videos/%user/json'] = array(
    'access callback' => true,
    'page callback' => 'mymodule_output_my_view_json',
    'delivery callback' => 'drupal_json_output',
    'page arguments' => array(1)
  );
  return $items;
}

function mymodule_output_my_view_json($user) {
  civicrm_initialize();
  $content = views_embed_view('my_view', 'page', $user->uid);
  CRM_Core_Page_AJAX::returnJsonResponse($content);
}

function mymodule_civicrm_tabs(&$tabs, $contactID) {

    $url = '/civicrm-videos/'. $contactID . '/json';
    $tabs[] = array( 'id'    => 'projectTab',
                     'url'   => $url,
                     'title' => 'Projects',
                     'weight' => 300,
                     'count' => 2 );
}

Answer 2

If you're receiving that error, that probably means an AJAX call is failing. Check out these troubleshooting tips - but more importantly, in your Developer Tools tab (F12 in Firefox/Chrome), check the Net tab and see what comes back when you click your custom tab. My guess is you'll see an HTTP error (a 404, 500, or similar) which will yield helpful troubleshooting info.

Answer 3

Generally when CiviCRM uses ajax to fetch content it is not expecting to get raw html back from the server. What it expects is a structured json array. I don't know of a way to easily get Views to return output in this way without writing your own drupal page callback that does something like:

function mymodule_output_view($cid) {
  civicrm_initialize();
  $content = views_embed_view('my_view', 'default', $cid);
  CRM_Core_Page_AJAX::returnJsonResponse($content);
}

Answer 4

For those looking for a no-coding solution to this question, see the Drupal module Views in CiviCRM Contact Page. This module can add Views to a contact's tab.

Answer 5

Here is my slightly different code based on knsheely's answer. My view has an url admin/%/civitab/downloads, this view has an contextual filter "CiviCRM Contacts: Contact ID". There is also a count of the number of results so the tab shows the correct amount. I did not have to initialise civicrm with civicrm_initialize(); so I left this out but if needed you can add it again.

function MYMODULE_menu() {
  // Add a Downloads tab
  $items['admin/%/civitab/downloads/json'] = array(
    'access callback' => true,
    'page callback' => 'MYMODULE_downloads_json',
    'delivery callback' => 'drupal_json_output',
    'page arguments' => array(1),
  );
  return $items;
}

function MYMODULE_downloads_json($contactID) {
  $content = views_embed_view('civicrm_downloads_tab', 'page_2', $contactID);
  CRM_Core_Page_AJAX::returnJsonResponse($content);
}

/**
 * Add an extra tab to civicrm contact
 * @todo: implement hook_civicrm_tabset because tabs is deprecated
 */
function MYMODULE_civicrm_tabs( &$tabs, $contactID ) {
  $url = CRM_Utils_System::url('admin/'. $contactID . '/civitab/downloads/json');
  $result = views_get_view_result('civicrm_downloads_tab', 'page_2', $contactID);
  $count = count($result);
  $tabs[] = array(
    'id' => 'downloads',
    'url' => $url,
    'title' => ts('Downloads'),
    'weight' => 300,
    'count' => $count,
  );
};