Module Development

An example of how to use the HTMX library module

I'd like to discuss the possibility of improving the documentation for contrib projects.  Not every project will need this and for many the README is all that is needed, but some use the Wiki.  Wikis are alright but they are not searchable, either internally or from Google.

I've been experimenting with VitePress (used for Lando documentation) as a Github Action to publish into pages.  At present, GitHub Pages are disabled in backdrop-contrib but perhaps this could change?

Over the last year, we've done more than a handful of upgrades from Drupal 7 to Backdrop! We will be discussing the broad process and lessons learned, and answering questions related to:

• Estimating effort in broad strokes
• Some gotchas around module porting
• Rebuilding vs porting themes
• Tracking launch steps

Backdrop 1.27.0 released January 15, 2024, and included a new major version of the popular rich text editor CKEditor. The jump from CKEditor 4 to 5 is a big one, with an entirely new plugin architecture.

This session we'll be reviewing the upgrade process for sites using CKEditor 4, starting with sites that are simply upgrading to the latest version. Then we'll go over common issues and differences from CKEditor 4, such as loading CSS into the editor.

Finally, we'll take a look at upgrading modules and plugins to the new API.

More details will be added, but I'd like to talk about how we can optimise our contrib repos to help point to Backdrop from as many directions as possible.

How to find your Description, Website and Topics fields:

Generative AI like Chat GPT and GitHub Copilot are important innovations.  Let's talk about how we are using them and discuss ideas for Backdrop modules.  

CKEditor 4 is reaching its end of support November 2023. The Backdrop community has been working towards transitioning to CKEditor 5. Come see the current state of the new module, how to test it, and what work remains to be done. We expect this module will be included in Backdrop 1.27.0.

I plan to show examples of some useful hooks and preprocess functions that allow developers to interact with, extend or modify Backdrop programmatically, through small custom modules or within the theme's template.php, with minimal knowledge of PHP. Some of these include:

Introduction

Bee is the command line tool for Backdrop that is developed specifically for Backdrop and is being actively developed. It runs on Linux based systems (including MacOS) but not Windows.  It has a number of functions in common with Drush and Brush but there are a few key gaps.

Over the last few months I decided to start building some of the decoupled blocks that I've been hearing about at Drupal events.  After getting the Drupal version working I wondered about how I would put the same block into a Backdrop site.  So I changed the module to be a Backdrop module instead of a Drupal module.

After that project I had a Backdrop site that had information I wanted to share inside a Drupal site.  I reversed the process, making a decoupled Backdrop block first and then changing the module to be a Drupal module.