Support for Drupal 7 is ending on 5 January 2025—it’s time to migrate to Drupal 10! Learn about the many benefits of Drupal 10 and find migration tools in our resource center.The Blocks and Layouts Initiative has come a long way since its initial inception, and there are a lot of people working in this space. We had a phone call together which is documented at https://docs.google.com/a/acquia.com/document/d/1sCAnSD6o7Q5sXo3H_cCRTyP.... Here's an updated roadmap that covers what each team is working on.
There are essentially five "prongs" of this initaitive, all working in parallel:
- Underlying APIs: Take a request, turn it into a page with a layout and blocks.
- Blocks Everywhere: Create the concept of "smart" blocks that are contextual, and ensure everything output on the page is a block.
- Blocks/Layouts UI: UI for creating landing pages, assigning layouts to them, and placing blocks into layouts.
- Spark Responsive Layout Builder: Dynamic layout creation using dynamic breakpoints, grids, and regions.
- Improved Field UI: Leverage layouts and regions in field UI to make a more streamlined experience.
Here's what's entailed for each, and places where you can jump in to help!
Blockers for everything else
We need these two issues dealt with before we can move forward on the various sub-initiatives.
- Displays: #1817044: Implement Display, a type of config for use by layouts, et. all These are effectively the "contract" by which all of the sub-Layouts initiaitves will communicate what a layout entails. We need to establish this before we go off jaunting off in other directions.
- Sample layouts: #1814520: Create 2 basic sample layouts: 1-col and 2-col Need something concrete to play with in the other patches.
Sub-initiatives
None of these are specifically blocked on anything else unless they're so noted.
Fundamental Underlying APIs (EclipseGc + sdboyer)
These are what's required to take a request and serve it up as an HTML page, which in D8 means a display (layout instance) containing multiple block instances.
- Displays: #1817044: Implement Display, a type of config for use by layouts, et. all Defines what a layout entails.
- Roles: #1816968: Introduce region 'types' to layout spec Groups regions so that they can be used across layouts.
- Controllers: #1812720: Implement the new panels-ish controller [it's a good purple]: Renders out results of a display.
Blocks Everywhere (EclipseGc, naxoc, ???)
- Blocks as Plugins: #1535868: Convert all blocks into plugins This is necessary plumbing for multi-instance, configurable blocks. Blocked by #1728816: Ensure multiple entity forms can be embedded into one form.
- Conditions: #1743686: Condition Plugin System Abstracts out block visibility to a general condition API that can be used for more than just page or role visibility. Blocked by #1535868: Convert all blocks into plugins
- Convert ALL THE THINGS (site name, logo, etc.) to blocks (post-feature freeze)
- Block caching (post-feature freeze)
- Block context injection (post-feature freeze): Hoping to leverage Entity Property API here.
Landing page / block assignment UI (Gábor, Bojhan)
Meta issue: #1787634: [META] Decouple layouts from themes
Prototype: http://groups.drupal.org/node/242403
Northstar designs: http://groups.drupal.org/node/259593
Includes:
- Landing page creation: #1787942: Allow assigning layouts to pages Allows assigning layouts to pages, which is the only way to actually see a layout do anything.
- Assigning blocks to regions: #1787956: Make blocks relate to layout instances instead of themes Now that we have layouts and regions, let's add blocks to them. Most likely blocked by #1535868: Convert all blocks into plugins.
Spark responsive layout builder (Gábor)
Meta issue: #1813898: [META] Add editable responsive layouts to Drupal core
Prototype: http://drupal.org/project/layout
Northstar designs: https://projects.invisionapp.com/share/7M73WEBZ
- Dynamic regions: #1813910: Add region module to Drupal core (for editable responsive layouts)
- Grid builder: #1816650: Add swappable (dynamic) grid systems to core
- Repsonsive layout builder: #1741492: Add a responsive layout designer to Drupal core
- Mobile preview bar: #1741498: Add a responsive preview bar to Drupal core
Improved Field UI (Swentel, Stalski, zuuperman)
Meta issue: #1770720: [META] Gradual changes to Field UI
Includes:
- #1786198: Make consistent regions in code for fields UI overview screens : Add region concept to field ui.
- #367498: Introduce 'display' as a way to group and reuse instance and formatter settings.
- Potentially use of modal for configuring formatter settings - see #1667742: Add abstracted dialog to core (resolves accessibility bug)
- Use temp store - over at #1642062: Add TempStore for persistent, limited-term storage of non-cache data - so we can kill #857312: Add a "changes not applied until saved" warning when changing widget/formatter settings
- #552604: Adding new fields leads to a confusing "Field settings" form
| Comment | File | Size | Author |
|---|---|---|---|
| responsive-layout.png | 89.55 KB | webchick | |
| page-prototype.png | 58.8 KB | webchick | |
| blocks-everywhere.jpeg | 42.74 KB | webchick | |
| request-handling-steps.png | 197.83 KB | webchick |
Comments
Comment #1
yched CreditAttribution: yched commentedFWIW, I added a couple comments at the bottom of the gdoc (https://docs.google.com/a/acquia.com/document/d/1sCAnSD6o7Q5sXo3H_cCRTyP...)
Comment #1.0
yched CreditAttribution: yched commentedUpdated issue summary.
Comment #2
webchickDemoting from critical; while we really hope a lot of this can get done in D8, we're definitely not going to hold up the release if it's not.
Comment #3
webchickWe had another one of those epic calls today, got pretty deep into the weeds implementation-wise, so I didn't get as good of notes this time, but here they are: https://docs.google.com/a/acquia.com/document/d/1-86YPP3ngAmkDYtyjVTHURF...
Next steps:
Comment #4
larowlantimezone permitting, I'd like to be in on the next 'yak-fest' if possible :)
Comment #5
yched CreditAttribution: yched commentedMade a couple adjustments / edits to the gdoc linked by webchick in #3.
Comment #6
frega CreditAttribution: frega commentedI tried to summarize how we could generalize in a *moderate* fashion how EntityDisplay and Display (from layout.module) go about things:
https://docs.google.com/a/flink-solutions.de/document/d/1XeG692LI8rnyorp...
PS. I didn't put this into webchick's doc because it kind of expands on the discussion and introduces stuff/ideas.
Comment #7
andypostIsn't it a D9 staff?
Comment #8
effulgentsia CreditAttribution: effulgentsia commentedWe need to figure out what here is necessary as WSCCI/Scotch/Spark cleanup, and what is contrib/D9 material. I posted some quick initial thoughts on that in #1841584-81: Add and configure master displays.
Comment #9
webchickWhatever's going to happen here definitely won't happen in D8 core anymore. Moving to 9.x.
Comment #9.0
webchickJust fixed a mistake
Comment #10
ironkiat CreditAttribution: ironkiat commentedComment #11
catchRe-titling and some aspects in the issue summary might be applicable to minor versions. Needs the sub-issues identified and scoped if anyone wants to work on this.
Comment #12
dsnopekAdded related issue: #2296423: Implement layout plugin type in core
Comment #28
smustgrave CreditAttribution: smustgrave at Mobomo commentedClosing this out as outdated. Think the more active issue is over at https://www.drupal.org/project/drupal/issues/3361359
Also Block library has since been moved to under content and there's tons of changes being done as we speak for the field UI.
Comment #29
effulgentsia CreditAttribution: effulgentsia at Acquia commentedI think the other issue besides the one in #28 that this meta was originally wanting to accomplish is #2924058: Discuss using Layout Builder to control full site layout and replace Block UI. Adding both as related issues to this one.