What tools are available?

Drupal 8 has several useful functions to help content editors manage their workflow on a daily basis, when editing or creating new content. Have you ever thought about how you can enhance this?

I would just like to take a few minutes to highlight some useful contributed modules that are available to enhance the backend on your site and also some additions that can be added to the paragraphs module, making it easier when working with content.

Paragraphs

Paragraphs is a powerful Drupal module that offers a huge amount of possibilities with regards to content layout when working with Drupal. Another addition to this module is bootstrap paragraphs, once installed this works in conjunction with paragraphs adding several extra fields that can be used to enhance your content giving you more styling and layout options.

• Using paragraphs Drupal 8
• Improve user experience with Paragraphs for Drupal 8
• Paragraphs project page
• Paragraphs in Drupal 8 documentation

Enhancing The Admin Experience

The following modules are the perfect addition to any Drupal 8 website.

• Seeds Toolbar
• Responsive Preview
• Paragraphs Type Icons
• Paragraphs Editor Enhancements
• Root administration theme
• Admin toolbar extra tools

Let's take a closer look at these contributed modules...

Seeds Toolbar Module

The seeds toolbar has various customisable options, once installed this provides a slick responsive sidebar menu giving quick and easy access.

Customizable sidebar, ideal for adding quick links to access your various content types.

The configuration page also has some extra options should you wish to make any visual changes, such as adding custom SVG logos or links to an external portal or ticket system, for example.

https://www.drupal.org/project/seeds_toolbar

(This module also requires the following to be enabled, admin toolbar and admin toolbar extra tools.)

Responsive Preview

This module provides a great little tool when working with new content. Once this is configured this will allow you to preview your work across various mobile devices such as Apple and Android.

The modal popup preview provides a quick and easy way to test content prior to publishing, saving you time having to conduct mobile testing once your work is done.

The configuration page allows you to edit all default device options or maybe add some bespoke devices, very useful should you monitor your mobile performance with Google analytics.

https://www.drupal.org/project/responsive_preview

Enhancing Drupal Paragraphs

The Drupal 8 paragraphs module is a must have when working with website content. Once this is installed and configured you have the option to add specific paragraph types that can then be assigned to your content. By default paragraph icons are not supplied with this module but can be added to help improve and enhance your user experience.

Create and add new paragraph icons, these can be added to all paragraph fields for both default and custom types. Also available is bootstrap paragraphs this module will add more field and layout options adding more flexibility to your page design and layout. 

Once your icons have been added the modal display highlights all the available field types that can be added to your content.

Paragraphs Editor Enhancements

The module allows your editors to add the most important Paragraphs in conjunction with "Add In Between" (provided by Paragraphs Features) to the page with a single click. Paragraphs can be assigned to one or more categories so that they can be found more easily in the revised modal dialog.

https://www.drupal.org/project/paragraphs_ee

Root Administration Theme

This Drupal 8 administration theme is based on the Seven theme, giving your interface a fresh clean layout plus some great new features such as mobile content editing and collapsable sidebar.

https://www.drupal.org/project/root

Admin Toolbar Extra Tools

Admin Toolbar Extra Tools provides menu links to administration pages or actions such as flushing caches that are not generated by Drupal core. It also adds menu items that are not generated by Drupal core. This allows you to organise your administration navigation and take control of how you access and edit your content.

https://www.drupal.org/project/admin_toolbar

Take Action

Why not take a look at how your Drupal 8 backend works and give some of these modules a try, configuration is relatively easy and when completed this adds some great little tools and features to enhance your user experience and more importantly keep your editors happy.

If you're an Ixis Support client we can do this for you!