Changing display logic for a field in sugarcrm - php

Question

I have the following situation: Contacts without a first or last name, in fact, they only have a email address.
I can work with these contacts fine, but when I use the listview anywhere (for instance to show all contacts from a company) there now is no way to click through to the contact (normally you would click on the name).
I'm looking for a way to solve this, for instance by showing a clickable text like 'name not known', but can't figure out how to do this. I've been looking at the manual and in the files in the modules directory and the sugarfields dir, but can't quite figure it out.
The closest I got was in /sugarcrm/modules/Contacts/metadata/listviewdefs.php
where this piece of code resides:
$listViewDefs['Contacts'] = array(
'NAME' => array(
'width' => '20%',
'label' => 'LBL_LIST_NAME',
'link' => true,
'contextMenu' => array('objectType' => 'sugarPerson',
'metaData' => array('contact_id' => '{$ID}',
'module' => 'Contacts',
'return_action' => 'ListView',
'contact_name' => '{$FULL_NAME}',
'parent_id' => '{$ACCOUNT_ID}',
'parent_name' => '{$ACCOUNT_NAME}',
'return_module' => 'Contacts',
'return_action' => 'ListView',
'parent_type' => 'Account',
'notes_parent_type' => 'Account')
),
'orderBy' => 'name',
'default' => true,
'related_fields' => array('first_name', 'last_name', 'salutation', 'account_name', 'account_id'),
),
Somewhere there has to be a function that joins the first and lastname together...
Edit: I found a solution:
The actual concatenation function is in /sugarcrm/include/SugarObjects/templates/person/person.php and is called _create_proper_name_field()
I can modify the output for my specific case by adding something like this to the end of the function:
if (empty(trim($full_name))){
$full_name = 'Name unknown';
}
However, I would rather have a upgrade safe solution, so that will be the next challenge.

Answer 1

Don't edit the core because the next upgrade will break your SugarCRM instance. Use logic hooks to be upgrade safe:
create a file 'logic_hooks.php' in /custom/modules/Contacts/
In that file, add the followin code:
<?php
$hook_array['before_save'][] = Array(1,'logic_fill_name','custom/modules/Contacts/logic_hooks/logics.php','ContactLogics','logic_fill_name');
After you have done this. create the file 'logics.php' in /custom/modules/Contacts/logic_hooks.
In the logics.php file, add something like:
<?php
require_once 'include/SugarQuery/SugarQuery.php';
/**
* Class ContactLogics
*/
class ContactLogics {
/**
* #param $bean
* #param $event
* #param $arguments
*/
public function logic_fill_name($bean, $event, $arguments) {
if (empty(trim($bean->first_name)) && empty(trim($bean->last_name))){
$bean->last_name = 'Name unknown';
}
}
}
Now some explanation. When you edited a recordview and pressed the save button, the logic hook 'before_save' will be triggered. This code will change the full name to 'Name unknown' when the full name is empty. When the 'before_save' is executed, the actual save will take place.