modules

Introducing the Markdown Easy Drupal module

Published September 2, 2023

Markdown is a text processing library that takes readable text and converts it into HTML. Started over 20 years ago, it is now a widely-used library that makes it easy for people to write text documents that can be easily and predictably converted into HTML. Quick example - the Markdown syntax "this is **important**" converts to "this is important " after passing through a Markdown converter. There are many "flavors" of Markdown today - most include the basic syntax and many include their version of "extended Markdown". Examples include Github-flavored Markdown and CommonMark. Predictably, there have been Markdown-related Drupal contrib

Smart Trim module - past, present, and future

Published July 18, 2023
The Drupal Smart Trim module is used by more than 65,000 sites, including over ⅔ on modern Drupal (8+) sites. It has proven to be a valuable tool to improve Drupal's core functionality to trim long text fields in an intelligent manner. Late in 2022, we released a major update ( 2.0.0 ) to the module. Among other improvements, we delivered Drupal 10 compatibility and much improved automated tests. Since then, a 2.1.0 release (completed during the DrupalCon Pittsburgh community contribution day) has brought even more automated tests and functionality. During DrupalCon Pittsburgh, Mark Casias ( markie ) and I

A method for utilizing multiple authors for a single Drupal node

Published February 6, 2023
A client recently asked me to figure out how to allow additional authors to not only be listed on a single node, but also to let them have the same edit and delete permissions as the main author of the node. I thought it might be helpful to put together an article that details one potential solution to this not completely uncommon task. This is not something I have implemented in any modern version of Drupal (8, 9, or 10), so I took a fresh look at the problem by reaching out to my Drupal network via Slack and social

Securely store API credentials with the Drupal Key module

Published January 3, 2023
This article is a slightly-edited excerpt from DrupalEasy's 90-hour Professional Module Development course. When writing a custom Drupal module that requires authentication with a 3rd party service, many new developers struggle with finding an easy and secure method to store the API keys. Storing API keys in the database is usually not a good idea - nor is hard-coding them or saving them in the files directory 😱 A better solution would be to store the credentials outside of the docroot - which is a more secure location. When using this method, if possible, it is recommended to not commit

Drupal 7 Check for Available Updates Solution

Published February 23, 2014

On a Drupal 7 website's "Available updates" page (admin/reports/updates/update), if and when you request that Drupal manually check for updates (of modules and themes), it can sometimes fail to get available update data for most or all of the projects, regardless of how many times you retry the process. The problem is caused by errant records in the cache_update table in the Drupal database, which apparently are not removed by the update request.

When Drupal's Available Updates List and Update Pages Disagree

Published September 28, 2011

Drupal website developers and administrators benefit from its built-in feature to periodically check if any of the enabled modules and themes are out of date. Drupal performs this check daily or weekly, when its cron job is run, automatically. If there are any modules or themes in need of an update, then on the admin area's modules or themes "List" page, you will see the notification:

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