How to Content Model in Drupal 8

Slides: http://slides.com/tonystar/drupal-content-model

This session is the third one in the series, following the Drupal 8 Hidden Power at DrupalCon Dublin 2016 and Drupal Architectures for Flexible Content at DrupalCon Barcelona 2015. But unlike the previous two, this time we will focus on practical application and demos, exclusively for Drupal 8.

Atomic Design gives us a good vision on how to design the systems of components. But when it comes to the real project, things become more complicated and it can be really hard to implement.

Why?

Because it covers the design patterns, not the content building blocks. These two things are closely interrelated but have completely different meaning: first is a view, second is a model. And don't worry: we are not going to re-implement the atom (wheel)!

Let's try to create a big picture of content building process, review what we have in Drupal 8 and see how we can benefit from its core features keeping in mind Atomic Design principles.

Finally we will stop talking and go through a nifty Drupal 8 setup giving you desired flexibility.

The following topics will be highlighted:

• How to structure a page? In which independent components to split and how granularly?
• What is a difference between content items, building blocks and patterns/components?
• How to re-use content throughout website? How to render the same content differently depending on the context?
• How to organize the nesting of components?
• Where is a border between content and layout?
• Can layout be treated as a content?
• Why Paragraphs module doesn't work well in all cases?

The following modules will be covered:

• Content storage:
  • Node
  • Custom Block
  • Entity Construction Kit
  • Paragraphs
  • Fields
  • Entity Translation
• Building blocks:
  • Block Layout
  • Field Layout
  • Bricks
  • View Modes
  • Entity Reference
  • Entity Reference Revisions
  • Dynamic Entity Reference
  • Layout Discovery
  • Webform
  • Views
• Content editing:
  • Inline Entity Form
  • Entity Browser
  • Entity Reference Live Preview
  • Entity Reference Integrity
  • Contextual Links
  • Quick Edit
• Patterns and components:
  • UI Patterns
  • Fractal
  • Pattern Lab

In this session I want to share a real experience when designing a content architecture of large multi-lingual and multi-layout websites for enterprise, academics and digital.

These very simple but extremely flexible techniques can be used for ANY Entity type and in almost ANY project. Re-understand your content today and create your own site buidling experience on top of Entity Reference, Layout API, Bricks and their wide contrib ecosystem!