Drupal Recipes: All You Need to Know

Building a Drupal website from scratch can be challenging and time-consuming. That’s exactly why we need Drupal recipes. These are a set of predefined configurations or components that can be used as the starting point for addressing specific needs such as creating an e-commerce platform, blog, and other projects. It doesn’t matter what type of Drupal development services you are interested in, Drupal recipes are available for all. They make Drupal project development much easier and faster.

The Building Blocks of Drupal Recipes

• Profiles: Profiles are pre-configured site setups developed for specific purposes. These generally help in establishing a strong foundation for Drupal sites and projects. 
• Features: Features as the name suggests add various features to your Drupal website or project such as contact forms, and e-commerce capabilities. 
• Distributions: Distributions create a perfect combination of Drupal and specific features and profiles to create a holistic package for specific project types and needs.

Drupal Recipe Configuration Keys 

Drupal recipe configuration keys are guides that help you dig into different types of Drupal recipes and understand their type, usage, and everything related. Now, let’s discuss different types of Drupal recipe configuration keys.

• Name: As the name suggests, it tells you about the name of a particular recipe.
• Description: It provides you with a short explanation of what the recipe can help you achieve.
• Type: Drupal recipes are classified into different types such as site, content type, and feature. This configuration key tells you about the type of particular Drupal recipe.
• Install: As the name suggests, ‘Install’ provides you with a detailed set of instructions for arranging the components. 
• Config: It acts as your rulebook for customizing your website, its covering appearance, hidden features, and functionalities. 
• Actions: This configuration key consists of secret commands with instructions for Drupal to perform some specific tasks to add value to your Drupal projects. 

The Advantages of Leveraging a Drupal Recipe

Every Drupal development company or freelancer who offers Drupal development services prefers to use Drupal recipes whenever possible. This is primarily because these offer numerous advantages, and here we’ll dig into them.

Streamlines project development

When you have an entire library of predefined modules, themes, and features available for usage, building a Drupal website or applications becomes super easy. To be a bit more specific, by leveraging the power of Drupal recipes you can not only save time but also give your project a solid foundation.

Prevents potential issues in the future

When it comes to web development, there are certain guidelines and recommendations you cannot compromise with. Drupal recipes serve as a checklist for these essential guidelines and recommendations. This implies that by using them you can start building your website with all the necessary components configured properly. Consequently, you can save yourself from facing any potential issues in the future. 

Offers reusability

Drupal recipes are reusable. Once you create a recipe for your website or project, you can easily use it as a foundation for your future projects. This not only helps you save time but also ensures consistency across all your websites. Isn’t that amazing?

After reading the advantages of Drupal recipes, are you feeling eager to learn how to use them? If the answer is yes, let’s proceed to the next section without any delays. 

Using Drupal Recipes: All You Need to Know

Creating a Drupal recipe

As with food recipes, creating Drupal recipes also starts with choosing the right ingredients. You have to pick the right modules, themes, and configurations for your Drupal project. Just start with mixing and matching, and you’ll ultimately find the best components that align with your website’s requirements. 

Apply the recipe to Drupal installation

Once your Drupal recipe is ready, you can proceed toward its application to your Drupal installation. Drupal effortlessly handles site configuration in alignment with the instructions of the recipe. This is a highly efficient process that doesn’t take much time and ascertains that your Drupal project has a strong foundation.

Now, it’s time for us to develop a sample Drupal recipe to help you kickstart the creation of your Drupal recipes.

A Sample Drupal Recipe

Before you start creating your Drupal recipes, it is essential for you to install Drupal recipes. Here’s how to do that.

Go to your web server’s root directory on your command line. With the help of the composer, initiate a new Drupal project using the following command:

With the execution of this command, you’ll generate a new Drupal website in a directory labeled ‘my Drupal site’.

Now, you have to navigate to your new Drupal website’s directory through the following command:

Install Drupal by leveraging Drush (Drupal Shell) using the following command:

After executing the above-mentioned command, you’ll have a basic Drupal website that will act as the foundation of your recipe.

Next, you should apply a patch before beginning to leverage Drupal recipes, and here are the steps to do that. 

Step 1:

Step 2: 

Step 3:

When you request a recipe from the composer, it will automatically add it to your project’s recipes/contrib directory. This is similar to how the composer handles themes and modules.

Now, here is a sample recipe for you.

The following sample recipe is dependent on my-custom recipe which is unique.

‘Underinstall’ provides multitudinous modules that can be activated during the recipe import phase. It determines the configurations from the recipe’s config module that should be loaded after the modules are enabled. 

The my-custom-recipe.yml file will be included with the Drupal-base recipe you import. It is imperative to note that the composer.json file will also get consideration. Further, all the required modules will get downloaded during the import process.

Now, run the recipe script with a command.

Drupal Site Customization and Expansion

If you think that by using Drupal recipes you would lose the power of customization, then it is time to rethink it. Even after using Drupal recipes, you can effortlessly customize your Drupal website. You can enhance features, create your own custom modules in alignment with your requirements, and adjust settings as per your needs.

Let’s Wrap Up

Drupal recipes can make Drupal web development faster and more efficient. They streamline project development, prevent potential issues in the future, and provide reusability. To be a bit more specific, Drupal recipes make creating cutting-edge and captivating Drupal websites a piece of cake. If you are feeling inspired to avail Drupal development services and leverage the power of Drupal recipes, LN Webworks- a reputed Drupal development company is ever ready to serve you. We possess a proficient team of Drupal developers who are skilled at using Drupal recipes for developing top-notch sites that have the potential to boost profits a hundredfold. So, why wait any longer? Contact us today.