Book Image

Drupal 8 Module Development - Second Edition

By : Daniel Sipos
Book Image

Drupal 8 Module Development - Second Edition

By: Daniel Sipos

Overview of this book

Drupal 8 comes with a release cycle that allows for new functionality to be added at a much faster pace. However, this also means code deprecations and changing architecture that you need to stay on top of. This book updates the first edition and includes the new functionality introduced in versions up to, and including 8.7. The book will first introduce you to the Drupal 8 architecture and its subsystems before diving into creating your first module with basic functionality. You will work with the Drupal logging and mailing systems, learn how to output data using the theme layer and work with menus and links programmatically. Then, you will learn how to work with different kinds of data storages, create custom entities, field types and leverage the Database API for lower level database queries. You will further see how to introduce JavaScript into your module, work with the various file systems and ensure the code you write works on multilingual sites. Finally, you will learn how to programmatically work with Views, write automated tests for your functionality and also write secure code in general. By the end, you will have learned how to develop your own custom module that can provide complex business solutions. And who knows, maybe you’ll even contribute it back to the Drupal community. Foreword by Dries Buytaert, founder of Drupal.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)

Summary

In this chapter, we looked at how we can create custom fields that site builders (and developers) can add to entity types. This implied defining three plugin types: FieldType, FieldWidget, and FieldFormatter, each with its own responsibility. The first defined the actual field, its storage and individual data properties, using the TypedData API. The second defined the form through which users can input field data when creating or editing entities that use the field. The third defined how the values inside this field can be displayed when viewing the entity.

We also saw that each of these plugins can have arbitrary sets of configurable settings that can be used to make the field dynamic—both in how the widget works and in how the values are displayed. Moreover, these settings are part of the exported field configuration, so we saw how we can define their respective...