Learning Drupal 8

Explore options to install Drupal, including amp stack and online services like Pantheon and other hosted demos, and learn to run Drupal locally or on a hosted environment.

Prepare your local system to run Drupal 8 by installing an AMP stack and using Acquia Dev Desktop to create a local site and database.

Explore the Drupal root directory structure, including core, vendor, modules, profiles, themes, and sites, and learn how settings.php, config, and the sites/default folders manage data, caches, and environment-specific configurations.

Install a fresh Drupal 8 site with the installer, choosing English and the standard profile, while connecting to your prepared database and noting behind-the-scenes requirement verification.

Configure the site after installation by setting the site name and site email, manage the maintenance user, and set regional defaults plus update notifications to safeguard security.

Understand the user 1 account, a powerful admin, why you might block it after creating your own admin account for security, and test it as logged-in and anonymous across browsers.

Set up the local environment with Acquia Dev Desktop, review the Drupal site file system, learn the installer components, and the important user 1 account, with community resources for help.

Explore how Drupal 8 delivers out-of-the-box content with articles and basic pages, including images with alt text, time-sensitive content, and simple menu integration.

Explore Drupal's out-of-the-box publishing options, including published versus unpublished states, front-page promotion with sticky positioning, and URL aliases for clean, shareable pages such as about.

Explore how pages and articles define content types, manage publish status (published or unpublished), and control front-page display, comments, tags, images, and sticky items in the river of news.

Configure your Drupal 8 site information by adjusting the site name, slogan, and system email, set the front page, and customize 403 and 404 error pages to guide users.

Navigate the Drupal 8 configuration UI through the top navigation toolbar, exploring content, structure, appearance, extend, configuration, and more. Experience mobile-friendly menus and quick edit to streamline management.

Learn to customize Drupal 8 shortcuts to quickly access the tools you use most, and create user-specific shortcut sets for content editors and comment managers.

Configure Drupal's file system by setting public and private file system paths in settings.php to manage temporal files and understand temporary directories and orphan files.

Set up regional and language settings in Drupal 8 to define location, time zone, and content translations; enable language modules, add languages, and tailor date and time formats.

Enable trusted host settings in Drupal by using the status report and editing settings.php to configure the trusted host pattern and secure the local site.

Explore the foundation of your Drupal site by reviewing configuration options, site management sections, shortcuts, fix an error message, and configure file uploads and regional settings to streamline the build.

Explore how Drupal organizes data into entities and nodes, and use the glossary on drupal.org to ground terms like bundles, images, tags, and comments.

Create basic page content in Drupal using three methods, with menu links and path aliases. Compare how these pages render differently from articles, including published and unpublished states.

Explore creating article content in Drupal 8, using three articles with varied settings: tags, images, comments, promotions, and dates, to demonstrate front page promotion, sticky positioning, and unpublished status.

Learn how Drupal's content revisions work, including creating new revisions, logging changes, and comparing versions with the diff module to safely manage drafts and published pages.

Explore Drupal 8 bulk content management to filter, select, and publish multiple items at once, using bulk operations and customizable filters for language, type, and status.

Explore Drupal 8 entities and nodes, learn how nodes function as content, inspect the content management page, and see how publishing and public vs authenticated views shape site presentation.

Identify how Drupal blocks function as Lego-like components, learn to create and place custom blocks or ones from modules, menus, and views, and manage regions via block layout.

Learn to manage blocks on the Drupal block management page, reorder with drag handles or weights, assign blocks to regions such as the sidebar or content, and save blocks.

Create and manage custom blocks in Drupal 8, using semantic markup for quotes and embed codes, assign them to the left sidebar, and adjust block weight.

Explore Drupal 8 block settings, including custom and system blocks, to configure display options, caching, language, content types, user roles, and page-specific visibility on user profiles.

Block management lets you place content chunks anywhere, set visibility and regions, and create instances of blocks, which can be custom or automatically generated by views, menus, or core blocks.

Explore how menus drive site navigation, shaping main, primary, admin, and user account menus to organize content and access in Drupal 8.

Explore Drupal's menu management to view, edit, and order menus, add internal or external links, set language display, and save changes to the main navigation.

Create a new custom menu in Drupal 8 from structure > menu management, name it, set a machine name, add external links, choose a language, and reorder before placing it.

Place menu blocks to display navigation in the correct regions, add the external resources menu to the second sidebar, and reveal secondary level links in the primary menu.

Learn how menus serve as site navigation and structure, manage links, reorder items, and create new menus, then place them with menu blocks for clear, minimal top‑level navigation.

Explore Drupal core and contributed modules, learn how modules extend your site, manage and enable them, review dependencies, configurations, and security updates, and test to avoid breaking functionality.

Learn how enabling the forum module in Drupal 8 instantly extends site functionality, creating a forum topic content type, breadcrumbs, comments, and granular permissions while exposing new configuration options.

Learn how to find and evaluate Drupal modules, compare core versus contributed options on Drupal.org, and select actively maintained, compatible modules by testing in development before production.

Install a contributed module on your Drupal site by downloading, unzipping, and placing it in the modules directory, or using Drush or the user interface installer. Enable and test it.

Extend Drupal by adding core and contributed modules, check the update tab under extend for security updates, review Drupal.org project pages and issues, and explore the examples module.

Discover how content types in Drupal 8 shape site content by customizing fields, forms, and display; compare articles and basic pages, promote to front page, and extend with modules.

Modify the article content type in Drupal 8 by adding a photo credit field and removing menu placement from the node form to protect site integrity.

Explore how to customize a Drupal content type’s form display by reordering fields and selecting widgets, then tailor the public view with teaser and display modes.

Create a new event content type in Drupal 8, add fields for image, body, join link, date and time, and phone number to enable structured, syndication-ready event data.

Learn how to add a telephone number field to the event content type, enabling click-to-call on mobile and semantic markup for accessibility and display as a linked phone number.

Learn how to add a date and time field to an event content type, enabling automatic list updates, user calendar integration, and flexible display options.

Learn to customize the event date display in Drupal 8 by creating a new 12-hour date format under regional settings, enabling multilingual formats, and applying it to the date field.

Adjust display settings to prioritize the event date, image, and essential links, and optimize teasers and rss output for front page visibility.

Learn to create and customize display modes for Drupal 8 content, turning default and teaser views into tailored presentations such as a simple event showing title, date, and web link.

Explore how Drupal 8 handles content types, customize module-provided types like article, page, forum topic, and event, add fields such as telephone and date time, and configure display settings.

Discover how Drupal views turn content into configurable lists, from the home page river of news to content and user lists with exposed filters.

Create a custom Drupal 8 view to display upcoming events on a dedicated page using teaser mode, filtered to content type event, with a pager and a menu link.

Explore how the Views UI module enables configuring Drupal 8 views through a user interface, including page displays, blocks, filters, sorts, and no results behavior.

Configure view filters in drupal 8 to show only published events with images, using criteria like publishing status, event content type, and image not empty, and save changes.

Learn to use the views user interface to set sort criteria for upcoming events. Sort by event date and sticky status so the next event appears first.

Create a block display in Drupal views to list the next three upcoming events, showing title and date, with per-block overrides, no pager, and a more link.

Learn to customize a Drupal 8 views block by rendering the title as an h3 header, formatting the event date with a 12-hour clock, and using overrides for semantic markup.

Learn to use display modes and fields in Drupal 8 to control content rendering, clone blocks for experimentation, and apply a sample event display mode.

Place the upcoming events block on the home page by configuring its block display, set it to the second sidebar under external resources, and restrict it to the front page.

Learn how to add an RSS feed display to the upcoming events view in Drupal 8, configure the path and title, adjust sorting, and attach the feed for third-party syndication.

Learn to use Drupal views to create content lists with page, block, and RSS displays. Explore customizing how items appear and organizing upcoming events for easy access.