Intro to custom Drupal 7 module development.

1. Drupal 7 Module Development
A Brief Introduction
Matt Mendonca

2. Background
• IT Specialist at the National Institute of
Standards and Technology
• 2+ years professional experience with Drupal
• Previously worked for VOX Global
(FleishmanHillard) and High Rock Studios

3. Content
• What are modules
• Why you should modularize your code
• What makes up a module
• What is the hook system
• How does that (magic) work
• Resources
• Make a module

4. Modules Are…
• Building blocks
• Encapsulated functionality
• Frameworks
• API’s

5. Why You Should Modularize
Your Code
• Code encapsulation
• Enable / disable code
• Cleanly extend core and / or contributed modules
• Prevents hacking other's code
• Preserves upgrade path
• https://www.drupal.org/best-practices/do-not-hack-core
• Share your code
• Allows your code to be extendable

6. Modules And Themes
• Make things work using modules
• Make things pretty using themes
• Developing modules allows you to keep logic
out of your themes
• Separation of concerns

7. Module Dissected
• Folder designated by the machine name of the
module (/sites/all/modules/dev/my_module)*
• Info file designated by the machine name of the
module (my_module.info)
• Module file designated by the machine name of
the module (my_module.module)
* Drupal’s module scanning is recursive; you can add folders with in the module
folder and it will find it. E.g. /sites/all/module/contrib | /sites/all/module/dev | etc.

8. Info File
• The .info file describes your module
• At the minimum describe name, description,
package, and core

9. Info File: Name
• Name is the user friendly name of your module
• E.g.
name = “My Module”

10. Info File: Description
• Description is the description of your module
• E.g.
description = “This my module.”

11. Info File: Package
• Package is the category of your module
• Groups modules together on the module admin
page
• E.g.
package = “User Interface”

12. Info File: Core
• Core is the major version of Drupal core that
your module is designed for
• E.g.
core = 7.x

13. Info File: Version
• Version describes which release your module is at
• By convention, version of Core followed by version of the
module
• Note: this is only to be filled out when your module is not on
Drupal.org
• E.g.
version = 7.x-1.0

14. Info File: Dependencies
• Dependencies is an array listing all the modules that your
module requires
• You do not need to list the dependencies of your
dependencies
• E.g.
dependencies[] = views
dependencies[] = panels

15. Info File: Configure
• Configure specifies the url of the module’s
configuration page (if any)
• Adds a configure link on the module admin
page
• E.g.
configure = admin/config/content/my-module

16. Module File
• The module file is the file that Drupal always
loads for enabled modules - always
• Should contain your bootstrap code / hooks
• When possible, store code in .inc files

17. (Captain) Hook
• The hooks system provides access points to
Drupal's response cycle
• Used by Modules and Themes (preprocessing)
• Like a roll call

18. How Does The Hook System
Work
• At certain points in Drupal's response cycle,
Drupal (and module's with hooks) will run hook-
able functions
• Lets explore: https://github.com/matt-
mendonca/hooks-explained

19. Modules That Don't Have Any
Hooks
• There are modules that don't use any hooks
• Use Case: loading a php library for use by other
modules

20. Resources
• https://www.drupal.org/developing/modules
• https://www.drupal.org/best-practices
• https://api.drupal.org/api/drupal
• https://drupal.stackexchange.com/
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/drupal
• https://www.google.com/

21. Questions?

22. Lets Make A Module
!
https://github.com/matt-mendonca/example-d7-module