Can you embed a Grid field?

Question

I ran into a situation in which I need to pass a Grid field via embed. Is there a good way of doing this? I won’t know how many entries (rows) have been entered. I have set a max to five (5) and there are three (3) columns.

Simplified Template Added

In my primary template, I have a simple call to embed the footer like this:

{embed="Footer/index"}

That is just a router template.

Footer Router Template

{exp:channel:entries 
    channel="footer" 
    limit="1" 
    disable='categories|member_data|pagination' 
}

    {!-- FIND THE TEMPLATE CHOSEN --}
    {exp:query 
        sql="SELECT template_name FROM exp_templates WHERE template_id = '{footer_layout}' "
    }
        {embed="Footer/{template_name}" 
            banner="{banner_text}" 
            news_head="{newsletter_subscription_header}" 
            news_intro="{newsletter_lead_in_copy}" 
            twitter_head="{twitter_feed_header}" 
            contact_head="{contact_header}" 
            posts_head="{recent_posts_header}"
            work_head="{recent_work_header}"
        }
    {/exp:query}

{/exp:channel:entries}

(This is where I would like to embed the Grid fields if possible to kep from deep nested templates)

In the entry template, I am using Better Pages to allow them to choose a layout. There is one layout that when chosen, allows them to add up to 4 columns of mini navigational elements. This is where the Grid fields come into play.

There are four fields that display for this page template selection. Each has the following 2 Grid fields:

The first is an options grid field {column_1_options}. 1 row 3 columns. Text 'Header', Dropdown 'Automatic' or 'Manual', and Dropdown 'Blog' or 'Portfolio' or 'Twitter'.

The second is a links grid field {column_1_links} for them to populate the navigational elements if they choose 'Manual' in the Dropdown above. It contains 0-5 Rows with 2 Text Input columns named 'Link' and 'Text'.

Currently I use stash lists to gather these like this:

{exp:channel:entries
    channel="footer"
    limit="1"
    disable="categories|member_data|pagination"
}
    {column_1_options}
        {exp:stash:col_1_head}{column_1_options:column_1_header}{/exp:stash:col_1_head}
        {exp:stash:col_1_method}{column_1_options:automatic_or_manual}{/exp:stash:col_1_method}
        {exp:stash:col_1_section}{column_1_options:section_for_automatic_links}{/exp:stash:col_1_section}
    {/column_1_options}
    {exp:stash:set_list name="column_1_links" parse_tags="yes"}
        {column_1_links}
            {stash:href}{column_1_links:link}{/stash:href}
            {stash:text}{column_1_links:text}{/stash:text}
        {/column_1_links}
    {/exp:stash:set_list}
{/exp:channel:entries}

This is in a stash template that I call in the header of my primary templates like this:

{!-- STASH SITE SETTINGS --}
    {stash:embed:partials:site_variables process="start" replace="yes" parse="yes"}
{!-- /STASH SITE SETTINGS --}

In my footer template for the one they choose (The one with these options), I display their choices by pulling out the stash variables like this:

            <div class="row">
                <div class="col-md-3">
                    <h5>{if "{exp:stash:get name='col_1_head'}" != ""}{exp:stash:get name='col_1_head'}{/if}</h5>
                    {if "{exp:stash:col_1_method}" == "Manual"}
                        <ul class="list icons list-unstyled">
                            {exp:stash:get_list name="column_1_links"}
                                <li><i class="icon icon-caret-right"></i> <a href="{href}">{text}</a></li>
                            {/exp:stash:get_list}
                        </ul>
                    {if:else}
                        {if "{exp:stash:get name='col_1_section'}" == "Blog"}
                            <ul class="list icons list-unstyled">
                                {exp:channel:entries
                                    channel="blog_post"
                                    limit="5"
                                }
                                    <li><i class="icon icon-caret-right"></i> <a title="{title}" href="{title_permalink='blog/entry'}">{exp:eehive_hacksaw words="5" append = "..." allow = "<b><a><p>"}{title}{/exp:eehive_hacksaw}</a></li>
                                {/exp:channel:entries}
                            </ul>
                        {/if}
                        {if "{exp:stash:get name='col_1_section'}" == "Portfolio"}
                            {exp:channel:entries
                                channel="portfolio_item"
                                limit="5"
                            }
                                <li><i class="icon icon-caret-right"></i> <a title="{title}" href="{title_permalink='portfolio/item'}">{exp:eehive_hacksaw words="5" append = "..." allow = "<b><a><p>"}{title}{/exp:eehive_hacksaw}</a></li>
                            {/exp:channel:entries}
                        {/if}
                        {if "{exp:stash:get name='col_1_section'}" == "Twitter"}
                            <div id="tweet" class="twitter" data-account-id="{exp:stash:get name='twitter-id'}">
                            <p>Please wait...</p>
                        {/if}
                    {/if}
                </div>
                ...
            </div>

I would just like to be able to better utilize core features when available. I am always wanting to expand my knowledge of how to better build and simplify sites. :)

Answer 1

So the channel entries tag that outputs this lives somewhere other than where your navigation is built, I'm assuming. Without seeing your template I couldn't say for sure, but this sounds like a great case for using a template layout. If you update your question with a simplified version of your templates, I could provide a more specific example, but the documentation covers what you would need: the layout wrapper, and layout variables.