Why is this Low Variable in a snippet not parsing?

Question

I have a snippet that I use on nearly every page of a site. I need to give the admins some control in the fallback source of an image in that snippet. Now I know there is a parse order issue here as it works fine when dropped directly into the template, I am just wondering if there is a workaround?

    {exp:switchee variable="{segment_1}/{segment_2}" parse="inward"}    
    {case value="events/{segment_2}"}
        {exp:low_variables:parse var="lv_fallback_banner"}
            {exp:ce_img:pair src="{event_masthead}" height="270" min_width="1600" max_width="1600" fallback_src="{url}" crop="yes" allow_scale_larger="yes" filter="brightness,-80|grayscale|colorize,80,39,9,10"}style="background:url('{made}') no-repeat 50% 0; height: 270px;"
            {/exp:ce_img:pair}
        {/exp:low_variables:parse}
    {/case}     
    {case value="member-directory/{segment_2}"}
        {exp:low_variables:parse var="lv_fallback_banner"}
            {member_photo_gallery limit="1"}
                {exp:ce_img:pair src="{url}" height="270" min_width="1600" max_width="1600" fallback_src="{lv_fallback_banner}" crop="yes" allow_scale_larger="yes" filter="brightness,-80|grayscale|colorize,80,39,9,10"}style="background:url('{made}') no-repeat 50% 0; height: 270px;"
                {/exp:ce_img:pair}
            {/member_photo_gallery}
        {/exp:low_variables:parse}      
    {/case}     
    {case default="yes"}
        {exp:low_variables:parse var="lv_fallback_banner"}
            {exp:ce_img:pair src="{masthead}" height="270" min_width="1600" max_width="1600" fallback_src="{url}" crop="yes" allow_scale_larger="yes" filter="brightness,-80|grayscale|colorize,80,39,9,10"}style="background:url('{made}') no-repeat 50% 0; height: 270px;"
            {/exp:ce_img:pair}
        {/exp:low_variables:parse}
    {/case}                 
{/exp:switchee}

Answer 1

The lv_fallback_banner is an Assets variable type, which stores the data like this: {filedir_x}my-image.jpg. To parse the filedir-variable, you need to use the {exp:low_variables:single} tag, so Assets gets called and can process it (instead of just dumping the variable content in the template).

In this case, it will always return the parsed variable content, not the tagdata inside the :parse tag, so the ce_img tag will be lost. To solve, use the :single tag inside the ce_img tag's parameter:

{exp:ce_img:pair ... fallback_src="{exp:low_variables:single var='lv_fallback_banner'}" ... parse="inward"}

Also make sure everything is on a single line, or EE's template parser may choke.

Answer 2

Your first conditional statement is an advanced conditional (since it includes an AND clause), which means that both of your {preload_replace} variables are being called every time. Since subsequent {preload_replace} calls for the same variable are ignored, I'd guess that you're ending up with {event_masthead} every time, is that right?

Answer 3

To follow-up on what Tyssen said: If you don't want to use a third-party plugin ( like switchee or ifelse ) you could do it with standard EE. However Tyssen's conditionals are still being considered advanced conditionals, so they won't solve your problem.

This should work though:

{if segment_1 == 'events'}
    {if segment_2 == ''}
        {preload_replace:group='event_'}
    {/if}
{/if}
{if segment_1 != 'events'}
    {if segment_2 != ''}
        {preload_replace:group=''}
    {if}
{/if}

More on conditionals: http://userguides.ellislab.com/expressionengine/templates/globals/conditionals.html

Answer 4

To avoid using an advanced conditional and not necessarily having to use IfElse or Switchee (both of which are great by the way), you could do this instead:

{if segment_1 == 'events' AND segment_2 == ''}
    {preload_replace:group='event_'}
{/if}
{if segment_1 != 'events' AND segment_2 != ''}
    {preload_replace:group=''}
{/if}

That's no longer an advanced conditional because there's no if:else.