Low Variables

Creating your own Variable type

Creating your own Variable type is easy, especially if you've already created a FieldFrame fieldtype before. It uses a similar anatomy, with a slightly different naming convention.

Variable type name

It all starts with naming your type, like you would with a FieldFrame fieldtype. Once you have a name – let's take My_new_type as an example – you need to create a folder in the /system/modules/low_variables/types/ directory (EE1) or /system/expressionengine/third_party/low_variables/types/ directory (EE2), all lowercase: /my_variable_type/. Inside that folder, create a file called vt.my_new_type.php, also all lowercase.

What you have now is /system/modules/low_variables/types/my_new_type/vt.my_new_type.php (EE1) or /system/expressionengine/third_party/low_variables/types/my_new_type/vt.my_new_type.php (EE2) which we'll need to edit.

If you're planning on using your own assets like css, javascript or images, you'll also need to create a new folder inside the /themes/third_party/low_variables/types/ directory, with the same name, in which you can put your assets. For example: /themes/third_party/low_variables/types/my_new_type/css/my_custom_styles.css or /themes/third_party/low_variables/types/my_new_type/js/jquery.plugin.js.

A basic variable type

A variable type should at least have an $info array and a function called display_input. This is what a very tiny variable type looks like:

class My_new_type extends Low_variables_type {

	var $info = array(
		'name'    => 'My new type',
		'version' => '1.0.0'
	);

	function display_input($var_id, $var_data, $var_settings)
	{
		return '<input type="text" name="var['.$var_id.']" value="'.htmlspecialchars($var_data).'" />';
	}

}

$info currently holds two keys: name, containing the display name of the variable type, and version, containing the version of the variable type.

display_input returns the input field which is displayed on the home page of the Low Variables module.