Enhancing Drupal 9 Views: A Guide to Custom Suggestions using Views View Alter and Unformatted Alter

Drupal 9 provides powerful tools like Views to manage and display content. However, customizing the appearance and behavior of Views beyond the default settings often requires more advanced techniques. In this blog post, we'll explore how to leverage Views View Alter and Unformatted Alter hooks to add custom suggestions and enhance the theming capabilities of your Drupal 9 site.

1. Views View Alter Hook: The Views View Alter hook allows developers to modify the properties of a view after it has been built. This is useful for adding custom suggestions to tailor the view's output.

Example Code:

/**
 * Implements hook_views_view_alter().
 */
function mymodule_views_view_alter(&$view, &$display_id, &$args) {
  // Add custom suggestion based on certain conditions.
  if ($view->name == 'my_custom_view') {
    $view->element['#theme_suggestions'][] = 'my_custom_view_custom_suggestion';
  }
}

2. Unformatted Alter Hook: The Unformatted Alter hook is specifically designed to alter the rendering of the rows in an unformatted style view.

Example Code:

/**
 * Implements hook_views_unformatted_row_alter().
 */
function mymodule_views_unformatted_row_alter(&$view, &$row, $index) {
  // Add custom CSS class to the rows for styling purposes.
  if ($view->name == 'my_custom_view') {
    $row['#attributes']['class'][] = 'custom-styled-row';
  }
}

3. Views View Theme Suggestions: Views View Alter can be combined with theme suggestions to further customize the output. Use this in conjunction with the theme layer to achieve intricate theming.

Example Code:

/**
 * Implements hook_theme_suggestions_HOOK_alter() for views_view().
 */
function mymodule_theme_suggestions_views_view_alter(array &$suggestions, array $variables) {
  // Add custom suggestion based on view name.
  $view = $variables['view'];
  $suggestions[] = 'views_view__' . $view->name . '__custom_suggestion';
}

Conclusion: By mastering Views View Alter, Unformatted Alter, and theme suggestions, Drupal 9 developers can unlock a new level of customization for their Views. This blog post provides practical examples and insights into extending Drupal's capabilities for a more tailored and visually appealing web experience.