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)

Logging and Mailing

In the previous chapter, we learned about some of the more common things most Drupal 8 module developers will have to know, starting with the basics, that is, creating a Drupal module.

In this chapter, we will take things further and cover some other important tasks a developer will have to perform:

  • We will take a look at how logging works in Drupal 8. In doing so, we will cover some examples by expanding on our Hello World module.
  • We will look at the Mail API in Drupal 8, namely, how we can send emails with the default setup (PHP mail). However, more than that, I will show you how to create your own email system to integrate with your (perhaps external) mail service; remember plugins? This will be yet another good example of using a plugin to extend existing capabilities.
  • At the end of the chapter, we will also look at the Drupal 8 token system. We'll...