What is the best way to change the intro on a Contribution page based on URL?

Question

I have a contribution page that uses values passed via URL to track specific information about the source of the contribution.

www.domain.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=8&campaign=sponsorship&appeal=11&fund=child&amount=35.00

The appeal variable in the URL contains the nid (node id) for Drupal content. I would like to display image, first_name, and description of the child, pulled from this node.

Would a profile be used here or use the code extension created for tracking the source?

Answer 1

One way (if I understand correctly what you are after) would be to create a view that displays the node (or node's fields -- image, first_name, description) as you want it using a Block display for the view. Set up a contextual argument for the node's nid which provides a default value using PHP code and pull the appeal variable from the URL, something like this:

check_plain($_GET['appeal');

Then simply display this block at the top of the content region in your default theme for the civicrm/contribute/transact path.