This document is a presentation on Drupal 8's entity API. It begins with introductions and an outline of topics to be covered. The document then defines what entities are in Drupal and provides examples. It explains the changes in how entities work between Drupal 7 and 8, including full CRUD support and revisions/translations. It discusses content entities versus config entities. Finally, it covers how to create a new entity type, including choosing base classes/handlers, writing annotations, and defining storage and routes. The goal is to help understand the new entity system in Drupal 8.

1. Good evening!

2. Thanks for dinner!

3. My name is Bart

4. Among other things, I
am a Drupal developer.

5. I have worked on
Drupal 7 & 8.

6. I have developed for
Drupal 5, 6, 7, & 8.

7. I have organized regional,
national, and international
Drupal events since 2008.

8. Tonight is your first date
with Drupal 8’s entity API.

9. Tonight’s schedule
• What are entities?
• Major changes since Drupal 7
• Entities in Drupal 8
• Content & config entities
• Creating your own entity type
• Q&A

10. What are entities?

11. Entities are self-contained
units of complex data

12. Examples of entity types
• Users
• Content (nodes)
• Taxonomy terms
• Payments
• Orders
• Uploaded files
• Payment methods
• User roles
• Custom blocks
• Views
• Menus
• Image styles

13. What happened since
Drupal 7?

14. Drupal 7 only loaded
entities
The Contributed Entity module did everything else.

15. Drupal 8 supports full
CRUD

16. It supports revsions
and translations too

17. Entities are interfaced
They have class too.

18. Interfaces define what
your class should do.
Not how it’s supposed to do it.

19. Entity handlers
Define how an entity type interacts with Entity API or
modules.

20. Entity handlers
• Storage
• Access control (no more user_access() for entities)
• Forms
• Views
• Listing
• Viewing
• Translation

21. Entity query
Works with any entity storage. If you don’t know the entity
type(’s storage), don’t use DB queries.

22. Content entities
• Fieldable
• Revisionable by default
• Stored in the database by default
• Do not define how a site or application works
• Class properties are now base fields (typed data)

23. Config entities
• Not fieldable
• Not revisionable by default
• Stored on file (and serialized in the database for
performance)
• Define how a site or application works

24. Creating your own
entity type

25. Why?
But, node types?

26. An entity type with its own
interface can be
endlessly refactored.

27. Choosing a base class
• DrupalCoreEntityContentEntityBase
• DrupalCoreConfigEntityConfigEntityBase

28. Choosing base handlers
• DrupalCoreEntitySqlSqlContentEntityStorage
• DrupalCoreConfigEntityConfigEntityStorage
• DrupalCoreEntityEntityAccessControlHandler
• DrupalCoreEntity(Content)EntityForm
• DrupalCoreEntityEntityListBuilder

29. Writing the annotation
/**
* Defines a payment entity.
*
* @ContentEntityType(
* field_ui_base_route = “payment.payment_type”,
* handlers = {
* "access" = "DrupalpaymentEntityPaymentPaymentAccessControlHandler",
* "form" = {
* "edit" = "DrupalpaymentEntityPaymentPaymentEditForm",
* },
* },
* id = "payment",
* label = @Translation("Payment"),
* )
*/

30. Entity storage
• Database schema handler
• Config schema file

31. Routes can use
handlers
payment.payment.edit:
path: '/payment/{payment}/edit'
defaults:
_entity_form: 'payment.edit'
requirements:
_entity_access: 'payment.update'

32. Plugins attached to
entities

33. Evaluation

34. What have you learned?
• The differences between the entity APIs in Drupal 7
and 8.
• The differences between content and config
entities.
• How to create a new entity type in Drupal 8 and
why this is a good thing.

35. Q&A