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Drupal CMS Cheatsheet

A comprehensive Drupal CMS cheatsheet covering essential concepts, modules, theming, and development practices.

Core Concepts & Architecture

Drupal Core Components

Nodes

The fundamental content entity in Drupal, representing articles, pages, and other content types.

Taxonomy

A system for classifying and organizing content using vocabularies and terms (categories, tags).

Blocks

Reusable content elements that can be placed in different regions of a website (navigation menus, sidebars).

Users

Registered users with defined roles and permissions to access and manage content.

Modules

Extend Drupal’s functionality by adding new features, content types, or integrations.

Themes

Control the look and feel of a Drupal website using templates, CSS, and JavaScript.

Key Drupal Directories

/core

Contains Drupal core files.

/modules

Stores contributed and custom modules.

/themes

Holds contributed and custom themes.

/sites/default/files

Default location for uploaded files.

/vendor

Stores composer dependencies.

Content Entity API

Drupal’s Entity API provides a standardized way to manage content, allowing for creating, reading, updating, and deleting (CRUD) operations on various entities like nodes, users, and taxonomy terms.

Key concepts:

  • Entity Type: Defines the type of content (e.g., node, user).
  • Bundle: A subtype of an entity type (e.g., article, page for nodes).
  • Fields: Data attached to entities (e.g., title, body, image).

Module Development

Basic Module Structure

A Drupal module typically consists of the following files:

  • module_name.info.yml: Contains metadata about the module (name, description, dependencies).
  • module_name.module: Main PHP file where you define hooks and custom functions.
  • module_name.routing.yml: Defines routes for accessing module-defined pages.
  • module_name.permissions.yml: Defines custom permissions for the module.

Common Hooks

hook_node_insert(Drupal\Core\Entity\EntityInterface $entity)

Called after a node is created.

hook_node_update(Drupal\Core\Entity\EntityInterface $entity)

Called after a node is updated.

hook_node_delete(Drupal\Core\Entity\EntityInterface $entity)

Called after a node is deleted.

hook_form_alter(array &$form, Drupal\Core\Form\FormStateInterface $form_state, $form_id)

Allows altering existing forms.

hook_menu_link_defaults_alter(&$links)

Alter menu links

Creating a Simple Module

  1. Create a directory for your module (/modules/custom/my_module).
  2. Create my_module.info.yml with module metadata.
  3. Create my_module.module to implement hooks and logic.
  4. Enable the module in the Drupal admin interface (/admin/modules).

Theming in Drupal

Theme Structure

A Drupal theme typically includes:

  • theme_name.info.yml: Metadata about the theme (name, description, regions).
  • theme_name.libraries.yml: Defines CSS and JavaScript libraries.
  • theme_name.theme: PHP file for theme-specific functions and preprocess hooks.
  • templates/: Directory containing Twig templates for rendering content.

Twig Templating

{{ content }}

Renders the main content of a page.

{{ page.sidebar }}

Renders content in the sidebar region.

{{ node.title }}

Displays the title of a node.

{{ attributes.addClass('my-class') }}

Adds a CSS class to an element.

{{ kint(variable) }}

Debugging tool to output variable information (requires Devel module).

Regions

Regions are defined in the theme’s .info.yml file and represent areas on a page where blocks can be placed (e.g., header, sidebar, footer).

Example:

regions:
  header: 'Header'
  sidebar: 'Sidebar'
  content: 'Content'
  footer: 'Footer'

Drush & Drupal Console

Drush Commands

drush cr

Clear all Drupal caches.

drush en module_name

Enable a module.

drush dis module_name

Disable a module.

drush updb

Run database updates (after module updates or core updates).

drush cim

Import configuration from the sync directory.

drush cex

Export current configuration to the sync directory.

drush sqlq "SELECT * FROM node;"

Execute a SQL query.

Drupal Console Commands

drupal generate:module

Generate a new module with boilerplate code.

drupal generate:theme

Generate a new theme with basic files.

drupal chain --file=command.yml

Execute chain commands.

drupal --help

Display help and usage information.
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