The Ultimate Guide to Drupal Development
Drupal is a free, open-source content management system (CMS) with a large, supportive community released under the GNU Public License. This means it has inherent benefits like cost, flexibility, freedom, security, and accountability that are unmatched by proprietary software.
Though the official Drupal website calls Drupal a content management system (CMS), it should not be compared to traditional content management systems like WordPress.
A CMS is a software tool where users can work directly with the user interface of their website without having any intrinsic programming knowledge. They also don’t need to pay particular attention to back-end development, as a CMS will handle that as well.
It is used by millions of people and organizations around the globe to build and strengthen their websites.
With more and more organizations looking to build engaging digital experiences for their stakeholders, the Drupal Content Management System offers a mobile-first platform with native support for integrations, better performance, and scalability.
The new version brings significant changes to its module development and theme creation techniques, improving performance and refining the development experience.
People probably use Drupal every day without knowing it, as many top businesses and government organizations use Drupal, like the Red Cross, Harvard, The Economist, BBC, NBC News, Whole Foods, Cisco, Twitter, and many, many more.
Drupal is free to download, and anyone can modify and extend the platform. This ensures freedom from vendor "lock-in" and it empowers users worldwide to monitor Drupal's underlying code for compliance and security issues and fix them quickly.
What Is Drupal Used For?
But people might be wondering, given its flexibility, what types of projects is Drupal typically used for. All these out-of-the-box features make Drupal a favorite for large, complex websites. And the fact that Drupal is open source makes it the platform of choice of many universities and colleges, government agencies, healthcare institutions, and non-profits.
The reason that so many large organizations select Drupal is that it has one main advantage over other content management platforms: flexibility. While most other CMSs focus on serving specific use cases, Drupal has evolved to accommodate almost any use case that involves digital content.
Drupal powers a wide range of digital experiences, including:
• Corporate and Institutional websites: Distributed publishing workflows, corporate branding.
• Intranets: Private content, custom workflows for internal processes, listings of internal content, single-sign-on.
• Online Directories: Advanced search interfaces, related content listings, integrations with third-party content.
• Interactive Websites: Features for logged-in users, multi-step forms, content personalization, custom JavaScript to create dynamic interfaces like maps and visualizations, decoupled front-ends.
• Marketing Portals: Landing pages that drive SEO and user experience, integrations with marketing automation tools, taxonomy, and metadata management.
What are some Must-know Drupal Development Tools?
Companies can create Drupal websites with just a few tools, such as a code editor, browser, and dev environment. While it is not essential to use additional tools, tools do make life easier and can save a tonne of time and enhance the quality of work. Let's take a look at the essential tools to use to develop Drupal:
Drush
Drush is one of the most popular, Drupal development tools available. Drush is the command line and scripting interface for Drupal. It can be used to speed up the installation, development, and maintenance of Drupal sites. It takes some getting used to, and there are a lot of commands to remember but, once you do, it is a real-time saver. Rather than clicking through the admin interface to accomplish something, simply type in one command. When building Drupal sites and developing custom modules and themes, this can help.
Devel
Devel is probably the single most important tool for module development, behind Drush. Devel has sub-modules, such as Devel Generate and Theme Developer, built-in for extra power and functionality.
Examples Module
The Examples module is a useful collection of example code for common code implementations. It comes with sub-modules such as ajax_example, email_example, node_example, and batch_example. If the development process is stuck on how to write code to fulfill a particular task, the Examples module might just provide the inspiration that it needs.
Coder
The Coder module ensures that the code adheres to the Drupal coding standards.
Coder includes two submodules: Coder Review and Coder Upgrade. Coder Review allows verifying that a module meets the Drupal coding standards and lets us know if it needs to change something if the Drupal API changes. Coder Upgrade helps to upgrade the modules or themes to a new version of Drupal. It will rewrite parts of the code for businesses.
Masquerade
Often when developing Drupal, it is vital to test something as a different user. Companies should get used to not testing as the admin user! It is also essential to ensure the permissions for various users and roles work. The Masquerade module allows an easy switch to a different user. It is also very valuable when a specific user reports a bug and needs to replicate exactly what they are doing.
What Features does Highly-developed Drupal offer?
Drupal at its core is a content management system (CMS), meaning that it provides the tools to structure and manage specific content. It also allows companies to create flexible content publishing workflows and all kinds of dynamic features around that content.
For organizations that are looking to transform and expand their digital presence, Drupal also acts as the central element of a digital experience platform (DXP). This means that it can be integrated with payment gateways, CRMs, analytics tools, social media, and marketing automation platforms.
Here are some features of a developed Drupal website:
Site Builder
Site building is the Drupal role that everyone who wants to build a site should know, as it's the core Drupal competency for site creation. Site building involves getting Drupal up and running, and configuring the options to build a functional site.
Themer/Front-end Developer
A themer, also known as a front-end developer, is the connection between the designer and the developer on a project. They're responsible for the architecture and implementation of the user-facing parts of a website.
Theme system enables you to create a completely custom, responsive front-end according to brand guidelines and using the framework of choice.
This includes working with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and related technologies. Drupal themers also use some PHP in template files, and in Drupal 8, they use Twig.
Developer
Developers, also known as engineers or programmers, use their knowledge of PHP, MySQL, HTML, JavaScript, and CSS to extend, alter, and enhance Drupal by creating modules and integrating external services.
Community
Drupal is open-source which almost by definition means there is a big community of Drupal developers willing to help one other. This takes place in two aspects: advice-seeking and availability of resources.
In the fashion of any community-oriented framework, Drupal developers and business managers have many forums and conferences to look for affiliation and seek advice from fellow developers.
In addition to being a great tool for creating websites, one of the main strengths of Drupal is being one of the largest open-source communities, which creates the software, writes the documentation provides support, and runs events all over the world.
Robust
The Drupal framework is robust with the tools a business needs if they were to ever build something a bit more advanced. Modifying the system to these purposes is intentionally built into the Drupal framework.
This is why Drupal is considered to be the most flexible CMS, with modules that make for high scalability. It helps customize a website to own taste, and efficiently at that.
Layout Builder
A powerful no-code solution to easily manufactured engaging pages with templated layouts and drag-and-drop UI for placing content on the page.
Customizable Workflows
It offers approvals, as well as revisions, to track every content update and revert to a previous version.
Drupal developers work closely with the software itself and should have an in-depth understanding of programming, as opposed to any ordinary CMS.
Importance of Drupal for Business or Organisational Websites
Drupal’s user interface takes some getting used to at first if you are accustomed to creating content on a WordPress-based website, but with practice it is surprisingly easy to add and edit pages and other content and to edit the appearance and order of pages in the main navigation bar, although businesses might prefer to conserve the services of a professional web agency to make changes, they are unsure of or more complex additions and updates.
Drupal shines as a CMS. It provides a user interface that allows creating and publishing of content easily. The platform accommodates unlimited content types, including text and media content, with highly customizable forms. It dynamically acquires, filters, and presents this content with powerful, yet simple-to-use tools.
There are also intuitive content creation tools and powerful in-place editing tools. Drupal controls access to content and features with its sophisticated user role classification and permissions system.
All of the administrative and end-user-facing functionality in Drupal, from fundamental attributes, such as the ability to log in or create content to dynamic photo galleries and complex voting systems, comes from modules. What users download from Drupal.org is what is referred to as "Drupal core" and it comes packed with all of the most commonly used modules to build a site, but there is a huge variety of contributed modules, which thousands of developers make available for free on Drupal.org.
Drupal is also a powerful website development platform. Drupal attaches to modern object-oriented programming patterns, PHP best practices, HTML5, and YAML standards. It also incorporates other great web technologies, including CKEditor, Symfony2, Twig, jQuery, Backbone.js, and Guzzle. Extending functionality and increasing complete control over the design is accomplished through a robust assortment of add-ons in the form of modules and themes.
How does Drupal Development Benefit a Business?
Drupal is one of the most popular platforms with which to develop websites. It offers a range of advantages to businesses:
Easy to Use
Admittedly, using Drupal won’t be as easy as using a traditional CMS like WordPress. That said, it will be easier than building something completely from scratch.
If you hire a professional with technical experience Drupal can provide the best of both worlds, a CMS-like platform that simplifies web development needs and a framework to make a website truly unique.
Flexible and Functional
Drupal is designed for custom development. Their modules are free and functional. They can also be modified to users’ liking. If you want something scalable, Drupal also can work with voluminous and complex projects, unlike a traditional CMS.
Because of Drupal’s complexity, it offers more advanced functionality. Taxonomies, content types, blocks, views, and more are all Drupal features. There is a learning curve, but your investment won’t be in vain.
Secure
With Drupal, you'll experience enterprise-grade security with detailed security reports. Open-source software tends to be more secure than proprietary software. Programmers collaborate to find errors and vulnerabilities and fix them as soon as possible.
User Experience
The modern Drupal is a digital experience platform that developers and marketers alike can leverage to create unforgettable customer experiences. Recent versions of Drupal have prioritized user experience (UX) to empower everyone from site editors to content creators to build powerful customer experiences.
Accessibility and Scalability
Drupal’s commitment to accessibility standards prioritizes an inclusive web experience for all users. Accessibility is a gateway requirement for any new module and feature added to the core.
Drupal ensures that all its features and functions conform with the World Wide Web Consortium guidelines WCAG, WAI-ARIA, and ADA guidelines out-of-the-box.
Scalability is undeniably one of the tremendous strengths of Drupal over other Content Management Systems out there. As long as businesses have an idea of what does Drupal do, they will have an easy time growing the number of web pages without the need to change anything.
Creative Freedom
Business competition will always exist regardless of the industry chosen. To win over a huge share of the market and drive business growth, make an effort to stand out from the crowd. And this not only implies how enterprises do business, but it also refers to the way they run marketing campaigns.
Mobile Responsiveness
The responsiveness of a website or web applications on mobile devices speaks volumes on whether or not it will attain the desired digital marketing objectives. Not only does it impact Google rankings, but it also helps drive immense traffic to a website. That does not come as a surprise since more and more people now use smartphones for almost everything in their personal lives.
Integrated Digital Applications
Drupal integrates easily with a wide ecosystem of digital marketing technology and other business requests, so users can utilize the best set of tools today, and flex with new tools tomorrow. And Drupal's API-first focus means connecting content to other sites and applications, making content more influential.
Tools for Business, with No Limitations
Drupal doesn’t dictate to the business; the business dictates what it needs from Drupal. Too many CMS platforms impose their will on business, forcing it to correspond to their way of doing things. Drupal acts the opposite way: use Drupal to create a solution that supports the specific business needs. Drupal creates a foundation for limitless solutions.
How much does Drupal Website Development Costs?
Before switching to Drupal, it is also essential to find out the average cost of the structure. After all, no one wants to take a toll on their business finances just because they want to use Drupal.
The good news is that you don’t have to break the bank to take advantage of Drupal. Either way, it depends on the type and size of a business.
Large enterprise sites will have to spend way more on sites as compared to medium-sized websites. Remember, the average cost structure of a Drupal build include strategy, design, and implementation.
What does Drupal Agency typically provide?
Expert Drupal developers are specialists that build and maintain websites and applications based on Drupal, an open-source system. They are aware of its administration panel inside out. However, their abilities reach even further than that because they can create dedicated Drupal modules and themes as well as turn business needs into new features. There are three major areas of expertise that a
Drupal developer could fit in:
• Website building
• Module/ Backend development
• Theming
What is Drupal Programming Language?
Every Drupal developer needs to know PHP language for a simple reason, Drupal software is written in it. The reason for that is, PHP is a programming language that is flexible and easy to learn, even if the user comes from a different knowledge background.
What is Drupal Development Service?
Businesses require efficient, effective, and tailor-fit solutions to meet the organization's unique needs. Drupal Development services are offered by companies with years of Drupal experience. The expertise and client-focused attitude enable these companies to serve as Drupal Development partners for businesses around the world.
What is Drupal Best Used for?
Drupal is a complex content management system (more specifically content management framework) offering great possibilities both for businesses and developers.
It boasts of numerous inherent benefits including, accountability, security, and flexibility. No wonder it is among the most popular CMS’ currently available at disposal.
Who is Drupal Developer?
Drupal developers are essentially PHP developers who can write custom modules, automated tests, schedule deployments, and more. These developers should be highly familiar with server-side scripting as a paradigm.
With adequate knowledge of PHP, Drupal developers can either do a fresh Drupal install or use one of the many Drupal Distributions available to them and mold it to a business’s brand.
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