Print information associated with a node elsewhere in page.tpl.php, using a separate template file for theming

Thanks to a little refresher on the _phptemplate_callback function (replaced in Drupal 6's theming system with the theme registry) from searching Nick Lewis' site.

<?php
function _phptemplate_variables($hook, $vars = array()) {
  if ($hook == 'page') {
    if ($vars['node'] && arg(2) != 'edit') {
      $vars['brandbar'] = _phptemplate_callback('brandbar', array('node' => $vars['node']));
    }
// ...
}
?>

That didn't give us the variables with the same values, in the same formats, we were used to getting them in the node.tpl.php, however. So we called on the patented ^{(no, not really)} Agaric way of loading nodes for a template file the same way they get presented to node.tpl.

This is the result (also we added filtering by node type to the if statement), not including the full agaric_node_load_view function which of course also must be in template.php or otherwise available:

<?php
function _phptemplate_variables($hook, $vars = array()) {
  if ($hook == 'page') {
    if ($vars['node'] && arg(2) != 'edit' && $vars['node']->type == 'partner') {
      $vars['brandbar'] = _phptemplate_callback('brandbar', array('node' => agaric_node_load_view($vars['node']->nid)));
    }
// ...
?>

This seems quite an inefficient way to do this though. Probably we could call on CCK to render values per-field? It would be nice, also, if Drupal were caching the view node information, and if it were accessible without our using this whole retreaded function.

Resolution