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 covered a lot of ground for working with menus and menu links. We started by getting an overview of the architecture of the menu system in Drupal 8. I threw many classes and hooks at you because I am a firm believer that the best way to learn is to dig into the code.

We also saw what types of menu links there are in Drupal 8. We not only have regular links that belong to actual menus, but all sorts of other utility link systems, such as local tasks, local actions, and contextual links.

Then, we got our hands dirty and started with a practical example of how to load menu links in a tree, manipulate them, and finally turn them into a render array. Right after that, we looked at how we can define all these types of menu links and how to understand them if we need to work with them programmatically.

In the next chapter, we will look at one of the most important...