Drupal 8 launched in 2015, 5 years after Drupal 7, and it has changed the way Drupal is used. Drupal 7 was good, however, in D8 allowed developers to enhance the functionalities of their webpage with the help of customizations. For this, the community of Drupal introduced a different collection of ‘Modules’, offering Drupal module development services that developers used to increase the interactiveness of their website.
A Drupal 8 custom module is simply a module that has been made out of customizations. It can be inherited from previously developed modules, enhancing their functionalities or can be developed from scratch to add something new that isn’t available previously to achieve project requirements. Custom Modules sometimes are needed because of migration as many D7 functionalities aren’t compatible with D8. A Drupal 8 module has created the inception of core functionalities as it itself is made out of core Functionalities but is used to enhance the quality of core functionality.
Our extensive team of developers after working on D8 module development has adopted certain best practices that are beneficial for Drupal web page development. Let’s take a look at some of the best practices more closely:
Change in Drupal 8 File Structure
One thing is clear that Drupal 8 is very much different in comparison to Drupal 7 in terms of the file structure. In the latest update, the D8’s custom modules are now stored in /modules directory, where previously they used to store the core modules. The core modules in D8 are stored in the /core directory.
Now, in order to let Drupal know that you are storing custom modules, you have to create a .info.yml file. For example, if your file is newblogmodule.info.yml, your syntax will look something like this:
name – newblogmodule.info.yml
type – module
description – demo module
package – custom
version – 1.0
core – 8.X
Configuration Usage
One of the best practices is to use the theme’s configuration to the fullest, as writing code to add custom functionality from scratch can be a tedious task. Using the configuration before coding ensures a faster and easier way to develop high-quality modules. With the capability to reuse the code in multiple platforms, enabling code after configuration provides you with advanced functionality modules and modified features.
Explore Drupal’s Functionalities
Once the module development is complete, you have to explore Drupal’s pre-built functionalities, how it’s going to use the modules, and how the data and setting will look like. The module setting in Drupal’s menu is defined with a hook menu. This hook allows the drupal system to register the path of custom modules and helps in defining the URL request handling process.
Coding Standards
All the developers working on the Drupal system know how much custom made module systems can enhance their website’s functionality, but it is also important to note that using too many custom modules is not also a good practice. It will affect your website in a negative way as you’ll be masking the core functionalities offered by Drupal and adding a layer of codes on top of that, It’s better to create a custom website altogether than spending time on module development.
Drupal offers developers a seamless development environment so that your website can run hassle-free. Therefore, if you are leveraging drupal’s environment for custom module development, your code must be your finest and clean. It’ll eventually help you in achieving your goal faster.
Wrapping Up
Drupal 8, within a short time of its inception, has created an enormous impact on every kind of business. And with big brands like NASA, PayPal, Tesla adopting it, Drupal seems to be just getting started. Drupal Development Companies have started leveraging the power of custom module development to gain more and more business. DrupalIndia is one such company that offers numerous Drupal services like Drupal development services, module development, Migration to Drupal and have delivered more than 2500 projects globally. Hire Drupal Developers on an hourly, weekly, or monthly basis from Drupal India to satisfy your requirements.
