Loading views_accordion through an ajax request

Question

I am currently loading my view through an ajax request in my custom module:

$.getJSON('/reports/summarized-progress/get_output_activities/'+nid, null,activities);

The drupal page for the above request returns the following:

$output_arg=arg(3);
$html="";
$activities=views_embed_view('activities','block_activities',$output_arg); //this returns a view accordion view
if(!empty($activities)) {
$html.='';
$html.=$activities;
$html.='';
}
drupal_json_output(array('data'=>$html));

The accordion/collapsible functionality is not working on the loaded content. Any ideas whether I need to include through module_load_include any files in my custom module? What needs to be done for this to work?

Answer 1

Whenever you load content through ajax request, you have to ensure that the needed js settings/files are loaded along with your content.

In most cases, the $javascript static variable that is filled during a content load through drupal_add_js() is not sent to the browser, but you can do this manually :

• Here a working Drupal 6 example :

  // Get the view content.
  $view = views_embed_view($name, $display_id);

  // Get javascript data.
  $js = drupal_add_js(NULL, NULL, 'header');

  // Prepare data to be processed clientside.
  $settings = drupal_to_js(call_user_func_array('array_merge_recursive', $js['setting']));

  // Tell the client to extend Drupal.settings with collected $settings.
  $script = '<script type="text/javascript"> 
               jQuery.extend(true, Drupal.settings, ' . $settings . ');
             </script>';

  drupal_set_header('Content-Type:text/html; charset=utf-8');
  print $script . $view;
  exit;

• Same in Drupal 7 :

  $view = views_embed_view($name, $display_id);

  $js = drupal_add_js(NULL, array('type' => 'setting'));
  $settings = drupal_json_encode(call_user_func_array('array_merge_recursive', $js['settings']['data']));

  $script = '<script type="text/javascript"> 
               jQuery.extend(true, Drupal.settings, ' . $settings . ');
             </script>';

  drupal_add_http_header('Content-Type', 'text/html; charset=utf-8');
  print $script . $view;
  exit;

Note : If your accordion view rely on a specific .js file, ensure this file is sourced inside every page where ajax requests take place. Usually, you'll have to explicitly source this file if such a page is loaded (full page load) without the view.

You can achieve this in a hook_page_preprocess() implementation :

function moduleName_preprocess_page(&$variables) {
  // Include .js to the page so views can rely on in future ajax request
  drupal_add_library('system', 'ui.accordion');
  drupal_add_js(drupal_get_path('module', 'views_accordion') . '/views-accordion.js');

  // Add the css for fixing/preventing accordion issues.
  drupal_add_css(drupal_get_path('module', 'views_accordion') . '/views-accordion.css');

  // ...
}

... or by including the file when the content is requested (as we do for Drupal.settings), just add a script tag in the $script variable in the ajax callback :

$script .= '<script type="text/javascript" src="sourcefile.js"></script>'

Hope this helps!