“The Project Browser makes it easy for site builders
to find and install modules.” - Dries

Project Browser Initiative LogoThe Problem

Drupal is relatively hard to use, especially for newer users. One of the very first things nearly all new users attempt to do, is find and install contributed modules.

Today, finding and installing modules requires too many steps. Some steps require you to leave your Drupal site and navigate to Drupal.org. Other steps require technical skill such as using Composer on the command line.

Our goal is to make it easier to find and install modules for people that are (1) new to Drupal and that are (2) site builders*.

Who are we building this for?

Our primary persona is people that are new to Drupal that have little to no developer experience.

Our primary persona may not be comfortable using the command line or Git, and may not be comfortable interpreting things like "open bug count" or "test coverage" in order to evaluate modules. We'd like experienced site builders to also use the Project Browser, but they are a secondary audience.

For this initiative, we will assume that our target user has already installed Drupal, possibly through a 1-click installation in Digital Ocean, SimplyTestMe, Pantheon, Acquia, etc. They will be using the project browser inside their Drupal site in order to browse, filter, and locate modules that they want to use.

There will likely be times when we need to compromise or make decisions on what to focus on. Here is how we will make user experience trade-offs when we have to:

  1. When we have to prioritize the experience of new vs experienced Drupal users, we will prioritize for new users.
  2. When we have to prioritize between non-developer users and developer users, we will prioritize non-developer users.

The Approach

Per Dries, there is a current need for something like this in Drupal. We are losing people who abandon usage of Drupal because once core is installed, they are at a loss for what to do next. If we can help in some way right now, that would be a huge value-add to Drupal. To that end, we are working quickly to ship a usable MVP into the contrib space. After that, the intent is to iterate on the MVP to tailor it to our specific audiences and allow more flexibility in usage, and to get it into core.

Leadership

The initiative leads appointed by Dries for this initiative are Chris Wells (@chrisfromredfin) and Leslie Glynn (@leslieg).

We are currently looking to fill additional roles within the project, such as lead developers, site builders, documentors, etc.

We have also had lots of participation already, from folks like:

... this is not an exhaustive list! But, these are definitely some additional people who have been around and could brief you on what's going on with the project. :)

Getting Involved

We are available in the #project-browser channel on Drupal Slack. Our meetings are every Wednesday at 14:00 UTC (10:00 AM EST) in the #project-browser Slack channel, and all are welcome.

We also meet in the #project-browser channel on Tuesdays at 20:00 UTC (4:00 PM EST) as the "Site Builder Subcommittee." These folks focus a lot on the user experience of the newcomer to Drupal and help with initiatives and issues related to improving Drupal.org, etc. 

Our contrib project is at https://drupal.org/project/project_browser in the 1.0.x-dev branch, and we are using that issue queue to record meeting notes and file issues.

Resources