Talking Drupal #417 - The Recipes Initiative

Today we are talking about The Recipes Initiative, the future of install profiles, if distros are still a thing, and answering a bunch of listener questions with our guest Jim Birch. We’ll also cover Quick Links Kit as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
www.talkingDrupal.com/417

Topics

• What are recipes
• How do you use recipes
• Is it a module, configuration or something else
• How do recipes compare to install profiles
• Are you stuck with them
• What happens if the config is changed
• Are there namespace collisions
• How do recipes compare with Distributions
• Can you include content
• Listener James: Can recipes uninstall modules
• Can we use recipes now
• When will recipes be in core
• Can recipes be used by tests
• Listener Andy: Can recipes and startkits interact
• Can themes require recipes
• Listener Matthieu: How do recipes compare with Symfony recipes
• Listener James: How easy will it be to make custom recipes
• Listener Matthieu: Should contrib maintainers be watching recipes
• How can we get involved

Resources

• Jim’s Design 4 Drupal Talk Recipes
• Recipes Drupal Project Page
• Strategic Initiative Page
• Cioppino
• php core/scripts/drupal recipe PATH/TO/RECIPE
• config actions issue
• infrastructure project meeting thread
• Kevin Quillen blog post - Create Recipes

Guests

Jim Birch - @jimbirch

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Jen Lampton - jenlampton.com - jenlampton

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - @mandclu

Quick Links Kit

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever needed to add a set of quick links, essentially visual navigation prompts, to the home page or section pages of your Drupal site?
  • Quick Links Kit (different from Quicklink module created by last week’s guest, Mike Herschel)
• Brief history
  • How old: I created in Apr 2021
• Versions available:
  • 1.0.6 that supports Drupal 8, 9, and 10, and 2.0.1 that supports only D10
• Maintainership
  • Sporadically maintained, but a pretty simple module
• Number of open issues:
  • 1, and it’s not a bug
• Usage stats:
  • 1 site
• Maintainer(s):
  • Me!
• Module features and usage
  • The module is really just a set of configuration, with an optional submodule that sets everything up, including the placement of the block on the home page, for sites using Olivero as their theme, so it’s perfect for a fresh install of Drupal
  • It allows for SVG icons to be set for each link, and sets their fill to inherit from the link style
  • The links can be created and managed without leaving the page on which they’re used, by using the settings tray, though it would be a quick configuration change to use a modal or a separate page instead, if preferred.
  • The 2.0 version also makes use of Drupal 10’s new responsive grid views display, so if you’ve wanting to try that out, this is an easy way to get started
  • I thought this module was appropriate for today’s episode because it’s an example of a module that will be a recipe once the infrastructure for them is ready. That said, the Olivero submodule does currently contain a little CSS to improve the display of the links, but that could easily be copied into your site’s custom theme.