The document discusses the challenges content editors face in managing website content and layout, emphasizing the need for flexibility, ease of use, and workflow integration in Drupal. It outlines various content structure options and layout management solutions, including core templates, Display Suite, and Panels, as well as the importance of editor involvement throughout project phases. Finally, it highlights the advancements in Drupal 8 that enhance configuration management and editing capabilities.

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When content editors ask for full flexibility
Hernâni Borges de Freitas #DrupalcampSpain2015

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About me
Technical
Team
Lead
Acquia
.PT
Drupal*
many
things
Twitter.com/hernanibf
@hernanibf

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About my work @ Acquia
An architect in Acquia prepares technical solutions
for clients during different phases.
• Discovery
• Solution/Specification
• Development phase
• Deployment

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Meet the demanding content editor

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• He wants to control most of the details how
content appears on the web site.
• He typically works on websites where content is
king: media, entertainment, corporate
websites.
• Tech savvy on his own way - does not accept
technical limits - if the system does not allow
something, he will find a way of doing it
anyway.
Meet the demanding content editor

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Typical demands
§ Change website look and feel.
§ Reuse content anywhere.
§ Review / preview / approve / schedule content
as it will appear.
§ Readapt site purpose on special events.
§ CMS should be easy to understand, fast to
execute and free of problems J

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Problem
§ Disconnection between content and layout.
§ Disconnection between site building and
content edition.
§ Drupal mantra of create content first, and it will
display on different sections automagically.
§ Lack of revisioning system in many pieces of
the puzzle (menus, taxonomy, blocks).

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Rule
The best tool?
Most of the times, the one you know how to
use.

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#1 Problem – Content
Structure
http://paragraphs.site-showcase.com/demos/
creme-caramel

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#1 Problem – Content Structure
A. Free form HTML.
B. Structured inclusive content including all items.
C. Structured referenced content with references
among items.
D. Unreferenced content being added through
layout.

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Option A - Free form HTML
§ Typically is never a good solution, but in theory
can give a lot of flexibility.
§ Hard to maintain consistency.
§ Hard to reuse content.
§ WYSIWYG hard to use and manage even with
placeholders.
§ Hard to avoid errors from Content Editors (CE’s)

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Option B – Inclusive content
All content details are stored in the content item
using fields. Good for pages with lots of details
reused elsewhere.
Typical implementations:
• Compound fields (custom or contributed).
• Field collection module / Paragraphs module.

14. Paragraphs

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Option C – Referenced content
Different parts of content items are split in different
entities which are referenced from the main entity.
Typical implementations:
§ Entity reference field with inline entity form.
§ Extra modules like references dialog module can
help on browsing existing content.
§ Back references to help glue content (CER).

16. Inline Entity Form

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#2 - Manage individual page layout
How do I create a new rich page layout in Drupal?
Options:
A. Core template system
B. Display suite
C. Panels / Panelizer

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Template system
• Prepare different Drupal templates that are
selected depending on some attributes (node
type, field, etc..).
• Use display modes and template suggestions to
pick the correct template.

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Display suite
View modes created by configuration. Drag and
drop fields with different formatters for different
regions.
§ Most of the layout/style can be done by site
builders.
§ Good to maintain consistency between view
modes.

20. Display suite

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Panels
• Customized layouts for different means, including
for entity layout.
• Support creation of pages with custom/fixed
layouts.
• Fits well with the idea of widgets than can be drag
and dropped and configured in different regions.

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How to create pages with panels?
Different ways of creating pages:
• Create independent panels.
• Page manager with variants.
• Panel nodes.
• Panelizer

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Panelizer
• Panel display associated with an entity.
• Panelize an entity and add panes and fields to
different regions.
• Slick interface with Panels IPE.
• You can try in Panopoly or Lightning
distribution.

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Ctools content types
• Configuration per instance where the pane is
present (e.g: A view that receives configuration
that depends from page to page.
• Fieldable Panel Panes (FAPE)
• Panels In place editor (IPE)
• Panopoly magic
• Panopoly widgets

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#3 – Workflow
How to workflow content and layout together?
Content workflow is easy
- Workbench moderation / Workflow / … modules
Layout workflow is harder (!)

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#4 – Workflow and Preview
• Easier to achieve when rich content exists as a unit.
• Harder to achieve with lots of referenced content.
• Easier to achieve when layout stores all the needed
configuration and is associated with revisions
(panelizer).
• Important to think about responsive (responsive
preview helps).

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#5 - Workflow of complex items
Directly in production
§ Limited if not well
addressed.
§ Dependency on revision
system.
§ Panelizer integrates with
with workbench
moderation (with patches)
J
Different environments,
and deploy to production
• Tricky balance between
content and configuration.
• Configuration can be
shipped in code.
• Content is quite complex
to achieve

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#5 - Workflow of complex items
Directly in production
Modules like:
• Quick edit and panels in
place editor contextual
links.
• Workbench or workflow
• Site Preview System.
Different environments
Modules like:
• Deploy module and
associated suite can
ship content together
with associated items.

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#6 – Final words – Non tech
• Content editors are amongst the most important
project’s stakeholders.
• They know the content and how the website will
work after architects and developers leave.
• They care about what they see and not how does it
work.
• Should be involved from Discovery phase to User
Acceptance Testing.

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#7 – Final words - tech
Success typically means
• To be able to correctly preview
• To be able to edit in place where content
appears
• To be able to create and review content and
layout.
• To be flexible and provide options for edge
cases

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#8 - Drupal 8
• In place editor (Quickedit module)
• Better support for configuration management
• Better support for entity revisions
• Better support for some layout management
• Some of the modules already ported to D8

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Questions?