HTMX has been added to Drupal 11.2 as a light javascript dependency to modernize and unify many legacy Drupal APIs: AJAX, AJAX for Views, Form States, Big Pipe…

This addition is also opening new easy ways of building modern, performant, highly interactive, user interfaces for both the admin and front UI, without the need of javascript frameworks.

One of those UI is the new Display Builder contrib module, which is leveraging HTMX, alongside many recent additions to Drupal Core, to provide a display building experience both unified (page layouts, entity displays, content and more) and powerful (design system native, live previews, iterative updates, realtime collaboration, adaptive profiles…).

From this example, we will explore together how we can modernize the UI of other Drupal modules, providing a reactive, world-class, user experience while keeping the implementation lean and maintainable.