Core API

3.9.6. Links to edit records

Quite often in your backend modules you might like to create a link to edit a record. This is easily done with an API function call to t3lib_BEfunc::editOnClick(). This script will create an onclick-JavaScript event linking you to the "alt_doc.php" script in the "PATH_typo3" directory.

All you need to do is prepare GET parameters for the "alt_doc.php" script. Please look inside of "alt_doc.php" for more details of possible GET vars you can use and what they mean. In this example I have shown the most typical options.

The result of the code listing will be three links like these:

 

The code listing looks like this:

 

     1: $editUid = 1135;

     2: $editTable = 'pages';

     3: 

     4:     // Edit whole record:

     5: $params = '&edit['.$editTable.']['.$editUid.']=edit';

     6: $output.= '<a href="#" onclick="'.htmlspecialchars(t3lib_BEfunc::editOnClick($params,$GLOBALS['BACK_PATH'])).'">'.

     7:         '<img'.t3lib_iconWorks::skinImg($GLOBALS['BACK_PATH'],'gfx/edit2.gif','width="11" height="12"').' title="Edit me" border="0" alt="" />'.

     8:         'Edit record '.$editUid.' from the "'.$editTable.'" table'.

     9:         '</a><br/><br/>';

    10: 

    11:     // Edit only "title" and "hidden" fields from record:

    12: $params = '&edit['.$editTable.']['.$editUid.']=edit&columnsOnly=title,hidden';

    13: $output.= '<a href="#" onclick="'.htmlspecialchars(t3lib_BEfunc::editOnClick($params,$GLOBALS['BACK_PATH'])).'">'.

    14:         'Edit "title" and "hidden" fields from record '.$editUid.' from the "'.$editTable.'" table'.

    15:         '</a><br/><br/>';

    16: 

    17:     // Create new "Content Element" record in PID 1135

    18: $params = '&edit[tt_content]['.$editUid.']=new&defVals[tt_content][header]=New%20Element';

    19: $output.= '<a href="#" onclick="'.htmlspecialchars(t3lib_BEfunc::editOnClick($params,$GLOBALS['BACK_PATH'])).'">'.

    20:         'Create new Content Element inside page '.$editUid.

    21:         '</a><br/>';

 

Editing a record

In line 5 you see the basic GET parameter you need to set up to edit a record. You need to know the database table name, record uid in advance. The syntax is "&edit[ tablename ][ uid ]=edit". You can specify as many tables and uids you like and you will get them all in one single form! The "uid" variable can even be a comma list of uids (short way of editing more records from the same table at once).

The lines 5-9 produces a link which shows this form:

 

Editing only a few fields from a record

Lines 11-15 creates the same link but with additional information that only the field names "title" and "hidden" should be edited! That is done by adding the GET parameters "&columnsOnly=title,hidden". This means the form will look like this:

Creating a form for new elements

Lines 17-21 creates a link which will make a new content element inside the page with "pid" 1135. The syntax for creating new records is "&edit[ table_name_of_new_record ][ pid_reference ]=new". The pid reference is special: If it is a negative value it points to another record from the same table after which the new record should be created. If it is positive or zero it just points to the page id where the record should be created (as the top element).

Another feature is that a custom default value for the header field is automatically passed along. This is done by the additional GET parameter "&defVals[tt_content][header]=New%20Element" and you can see how the Header field is pre-filled with this value below.

The result of the "create new" will be this form.