Home on Module Builder

Installation

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Installation#

Module Builder is a Drupal module, and is installed like any other module:

Install Module Builder using Composer:
```
composer require drupal/module_builder
```
Enable the module in the UI on the Extend page, or with Drush.
Go to Administration › Configuration › Development › Module Builder › Analyse code.
Click the ‘Update code analysis’ button.

You should run the code analysis again if you have enabled new modules, updated modules, or added code to your custom modules, so that Module Builder knows out new components in your codebase.

Create a module

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Create a module#

New module#

Go to Administration › Configuration › Development › Module Builder.
Click the ‘Add module’ button.
Enter the human-readable name for your module. The machine name is derived automatically, and you can choose to edit it, the same way as with any other config entity.
That’s all you need to create the module entity. You can press the ‘Save’ button, or you can enter further details.
After you’ve saved the module, the form shows a number of tabs, each one for different types of modules components. You can navigate between these tabs in any order: each one is a form with its own save button. The different sections of this guide describe each tab.

Info form

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Info form#

The Info tab is the form initially used to create the module. It holds data that goes in the module’s info.yml file.

It also allows you to specify where the module will be written. By default, modules are written to modules/custom, but you can specify that the module is a submodule inside another module, or a test module in another module’s test code.

For more information on the info properties, see the info file documentation.

Hooks form

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Hooks form#

The Hooks tab lets you add hook implementations. These can be procedural functions, or use the new object-oriented-style hooks which are methods in a class.

Object-oriented hooks#

Object-oriented hooks are methods in a PHP class. These were introduced in Drupal 11.1, and can be backwards-compatible with older versions of Drupal.

Click the ‘Add a Hook classes item’ button. This adds a new section to the form for the hooks class. This shows:

Plugins form

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Plugins form#

The Plugins tab lets you add plugins and plugin types.

Plugins#

The plugins section of the form lets you add plugins.

In the Plugin type form element, start typing part of the plugin type name to filter the autocomplete dropdown. You can click on the documentation link for a plugin type to read more about it on the Drupal API site.

The plugin type names are obtained from the service names of the plugin manager for each plugin type.

Entity types form

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Entity types form#

The entity types page lets you create new content entity types and config entity types.

Content entity types#

Content entities are stored in the site’s database, and are typically created by site editors. They can have admin-created fields and revisions. Nodes, taxonomy terms, media, path aliases, and users are all content entity types.

In the Content entity types form section, click ‘Add Content entity type’. This adds a form section for the entity type.

Routes & forms form

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Routes & forms form#

The Routes & forms tab lets you add components to do with forms and pages on your site.

Routes#

The routes form section lets you add route items. (For dynamic routes, see below).

Click the ‘Add a Routes item’ button. This adds a new section to the form.
Enter the route path. This must begin with a ‘/’. To pass parameters from the path into your controller, enclose path components in braces, for example: /base-path/{parameter}. If the parameter name is an entity type ID, such as node, the controller parameter will be typed accordingly so that the entity ID parameter is upcasted to an entity.

Commands form

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Commands form#

The Commands tab lets you add Drush commands, and on versions of Drupal core since 11, Drupal CLI commands.

CLI commands#

Drupal CLI commands need only Drupal core to run, and are run with the dr shell command. These were introduced in Drupal 11.4.

Click ‘Add a Cli commands item’. This adds a form section for the command.
Enter the command name. This is the string that is typed to execute the command.

Tests form

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Tests form#

The Tests tab lets you add PHPUnit tests.

Click ‘Add a PHPUnit test case class item’. This adds a form section for the test class.
Select the test type. This determines the base class the test will use.

Unit test

These are pure PHPUnit tests which don’t install Drupal. They run very fast but do not have access to the database or Drupal’s APIS.

Kernel test

These install a basic Drupal site and can enable modules, but they do not run the installation for any modules. Tasks such as setting up entity types, creating database tables, and installing default config will need to be done in the test. They have access to all of Drupal’s APIs, and run fairly fast. It is possible to make HTTP requests to the test site and make simple assertions about the response.

Kernel test with entity support

This is a kernel test as above, using EntityKernelTestBase as the test class parent.

Browser test

This installs a full Drupal site, and allows HTTP requests to be made to the test site using Mink. These are considerably slower than Kernel tests.

JavaScript test

These are like Browser tests, but additionally use Nightwatch to test JavaScript functionality.

Existing site test

These make assertions against the existing site instead of installing a test site. This requires the DTT package.
Enter the short class name of the test.

Miscellaneous form

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Miscellaneous form#

The Miscellaneous tab lets you various components, including:

Services
Event subscribers
Events
Permissions
Theme hooks
Libraries
Drush commands

Services#

Services are classes which provide some sort of API, and which are obtained from the service container.

Click ‘Add a services item’. This adds a form section for the service.
Optionally, select a service type. This adds a service tag to your service, and makes your service implement a particular API, and the service will typically be collected by another service and its methods called by the collector.

Generate page

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Generate page#

The Generate tab generates the code based on the data entered for the module, and lets you write the code files.

You can generate code at any time, and you can edit the module’s options and return to the Generate tab to generate code again.

Some types of component will merge with existing code; for others, you will need to use version control if there is an existing file for the component.