Drupal 8 Development Tools

Drupal 8 Tools

Drupal is undoubtedly one of the most popular platforms for web developers, and Drupal 8 is the greatest releases of Drupal ever. This open source content management system makes web development and site-building very straightforward. Building a Drupal website can literally be done with just a few tools. Developers have a load of different tools at their disposal, and while you don’t need to use additional tools, some of these tools can make a huge difference when it comes to developing websites. Let’s take a look at some essential tools to use when developing websites with Drupal 8.

Tools for Everyone

Devel Similar to D7, a must-have for both developers and site-builders for generating dummy content and helpful debugging tools. Kint Bundled with Devel, brings the familiar pretty output for debugging from D7 into both PHP and Twig. Admin Toolbar For those familiar with admin_menu from D7, this will be a must-have addition to Drupal 8 for both development and clients. Pathauto Automatic content aliases...enough said. Media As of Drupal 8.4, the Media module will be in core! Not only is this an essential module, but there are a ton of helper modules, many created by Acquia, to help manage, import, upload and utilize your media.

Tools Drupal Developers

Drush A command line scripting interface for Drupal, offering tons of useful commands from syncing files and databases, installing/updating/uninstalling modules all the way to running its own server. Drupal Console Similar to Drush in that it provides CLI commands to interact with Drupa, however, it is focused more on using Symphony CLI components and modern PHP OOP design practices to provide commands for generating code or performing common developer routines. Composer Compose-based installations of Drupal are becoming more and more popular. It is worthwhile to become familiar with this tool regardless if you use it in day to day work. PHPStorm IntelliJ has done a phenomenal job keeping up with the needs of not only PHP developers, but Drupal developers as well. Tons of helpers, integrations and custom tools to help you write efficient, concise and bug-free code. XDebug An invaluable PHP debugger + profiler which has saved my skin countless times.

Tools for Drupal Site-Builders

Views A given, but worth mentioning even though it is in core. Features Configuration management in D8 is pretty awesome, but when you need portable config with a nifty UI, features is a great tool for building. Panels + Panels IPE + Page Manager + Panelizer These 4 pack combination can create amazing layouts, content template displays and user-friendly content editing without the need for any backend code. Backup and Migrate Great tool for non-developers to help uh… backup and migrate. Metatag + Google Analytics Pretty self-explanatory. If you would like more information on how Drupal 8 could be the best solution for your website, contact one of the ImageX team. Main photo credit: Photo by Clark Young on Unsplash