User interface standards

Drupal interface standards have been established in Drupal 7 and apply to user interfaces within Drupal and its contributed modules. All new interfaces should follow the current standards and document any new additions or changes. 

Form elements

A form element is any item within a form used to collect data from a user.

Buttons

A button is used to indicate a possible user action.

Dropdown Buttons

The dropdown button allows for multiple operations to be displayed under one primary operation.

Radio buttons

Use to select one out of two or more mutually exclusive options.

Checkbox and Checkboxes

Use to allow selections of zero, one, or more options from a pre-defined set.

Select list

Use to select one out of 7 or more options or when layout space is limited.

Navigation

Elements for navigating the administrative interface.

Contextual Links

Use to provide quick links to change the configuration of an object.

Local Action

An action related to the content or data on the page.

Tabs

Tabs provide a means to navigate distinct sections of content.

Details

A group related form elements that are organized under a category.

Fieldsets

Group related form elements with a fieldset.

Vertical tabs

A vertical tab is a menu that contains a group of form elements.

Listings

Index of inteface patterns for lists:

Table

Use tables to provide an overview of large amounts of structured data.

Interface text

This page contains guidelines for Drupal module and theme developers to use when writing user interfaces text (e.g., buttons, labels, in

Machine name

Some forms for specifying a name will also need a database friendly version of that name.

Tours

In Drupal 8 and later, the Tour module can be used to display a sequence of JavaScript popups.

Tour text standards

This page contains some initial guidelines for writing text for tours of the Drupal admin UI using the Tour module.

Guide maintainers

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