APEX Publication

APEX Publication is an editorial subtheme for magazines, newspapers, journals, newsrooms, and long-form publishing sites built on the APEX design system.

It pairs reading-focused serif typography with sans-serif interface text and provides five Single Directory Components for mastheads, lead stories, bylines, pull quotes, and curated section dividers.

Designed for editorial hierarchy

The theme uses a high-contrast monochrome foundation, an editorial-red accent, a 66-character reading measure, denser index spacing, and more generous long-form line height. Its front-page wrapper adds a Publication-specific class while retaining APEX Theme's 28-region composition.

The CSS declares Source Serif, Charter, Georgia, Inter, and system font stacks but does not bundle font files. Confirm licensing and delivery strategy before loading external fonts; otherwise the browser uses available fallbacks.

Five Publication components

• Masthead: publication nameplate, date, issue label, tagline, subscription and sign-in destinations, section navigation, and utility navigation, with optional sticky positioning.
• Feature card: a lead-story card with large, medium, and small presentations; headline, sub-headline, image, section, article link, author, date, reading time, and optional AI-summary indicator.
• Byline: author, role, portrait, section, publication and update dates, and reading-time metadata.
• Pull quote: an attributed quotation with inline or wide-screen side placement.
• Section strip: a labeled editorial divider with optional kicker and section-index destination.

Indicators such as reading time or “AI summary” display values supplied by the site. The theme does not calculate reading time, generate summaries, verify authorship, create subscriptions, or enforce a paywall.

Current installation scope

Eight optional block configurations place branding, primary navigation, messages, page title, breadcrumbs, content, footer navigation, and copyright. The page and front-page templates delegate to APEX Theme and add only Publication identity classes.

The README's article, author, and section-index landing layouts and demo content are roadmap material; those node and Views templates are not in the audited package. The five SDCs are also not automatically placed. Integrate them through blocks, render arrays, Layout Builder, Paragraphs, or site-owned templates and map them to the site's actual content model.

Editorial implementation guidance

1. Define article, author, section, issue, image, date, and update-date fields.
2. Choose who calculates and stores reading time and whether AI-generated summaries are permitted.
3. Map field values to the SDC props with truthful labels and meaningful alternatives.
4. Build front-page and section queries with Views or another editorial listing layer.
5. Test headline lengths, image crops, timestamps, bylines, correction workflows, and right-to-left output.
6. Configure metadata, canonical URLs, news or article structured data, sitemaps, and redirects separately.

Requirements and installation

• Drupal 11.3 or later within Drupal 11
• PHP 8.3 or later
• APEX Theme and its declared module stack

composer require 'drupal/apex_publication:^1.0'
drush theme:enable apex_publication
drush config:set system.theme default apex_publication -y
drush cr

Accessibility, editorial trust, and SEO

The theme's styles include reduced-motion, contrast, forced-colors, and print accommodations. Final conformance depends on content and integration: test headings, landmark order, keyboard access, image alternatives, captions, link purpose, focus visibility, contrast, zoom, and reflow.

Search visibility and reader trust require more than editorial styling. Publish original sourced reporting, expose correct authorship and dates, distinguish updates and corrections, use descriptive headlines and links, provide complete metadata, implement valid structured data, and measure real performance.

AI indicators must reflect the real editorial workflow. Disclose generated or assisted content according to policy, verify all factual claims, and never display an AI-summary badge merely because the component supports one.

Support and maintainer

Report reproducible issues through Drupal.org with the content model, component and props, active APEX versions, Drupal/PHP versions, browser, breakpoint, and steps to reproduce.

APEX Publication is created and maintained by Alaa Haddad, Drupal developer and architect at Flash Web Center, LLC.

Developed and maintained by Alaa Haddad of Flash Web Center, LLC.

AI disclosure: AI tools assisted with drafting and reviewing this project description. The maintainer verified the final content against the project source.