Talking Drupal #552 - MOSA

Today we are talking about The Midwest Open Source Alliance, What they do, and How they support Drupal with guests April Sides & Tearyne Almendariz. We’ll also cover Canvas Field Component as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/552

Topics

• Congratulations to April as the 2026 Aaron Winborn award!
• What is MOSA, and what gap in the Drupal ecosystem was it created to fill?
• How did MOSA get started, and who were the key people behind its formation?
• MOSA acts as a fiscal sponsor—what does that actually mean in practice for Drupal events and initiatives?
• What are some of the projects or camps MOSA currently supports?
• How does MOSA help sustain and grow regional Drupal communities over time?
• What does membership in MOSA look like, and who should consider getting involved?
• How does MOSA balance local community focus with broader, national or global Drupal efforts?
• What are the biggest challenges MOSA faces as a nonprofit supporting open source communities?
• How has MOSA evolved in recent years, and what’s different today compared to when it launched?
• Looking ahead, what’s the long-term vision for MOSA and its role in the Drupal ecosystem?

Resources

• MOSA Website
• MOSA Drupal Project
• Aaron Winborn
• Handbook
• Moline, Illinois

Guests

Tearyne Almendariz - nlbcworks.com NineLivesBlackCat
April Sides - weekbeforenext

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to place Drupal-rendered fields into your Drupal Canvas templates? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • Canvas Field Component
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Apr 2026 by me! With some help from a couple of AI models
  • Versions available: 1.0.0, which works with Drupal 11.2 or newer
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained
  • Security coverage
  • Test coverage
  • Documentation - a README, but is designed to be narrow in scope
  • Number of open issues: technically 5 open issues, but all marked as fixed
• Usage stats:
  • 41 sites
• Module features and usage
  • By design, when using Drupal Canvas to create templates for content types, the idea is to map field values to properties in the template’s components
  • That is a new system, however, so site builders may find there are gaps in terms of available mappings for field types they need to use, or may want to draw on mature formatting options such the responsive image definitions that come with Drupal CMS
  • With the Canvas Field Component module installed, you’ll find a new “Field display” option available in your Canvas component library. When you drag that into a Canvas template layout, you can choose which field from the content type you want to display, and the formatter to use
  • That, in turn, will expose all settings for the chosen formatter, as well as any third-party settings available, for example if using Date Augmenters with Smart Date fields
  • Those settings will be reflected in real-time inside the Canvas UI preview, and then on rendered content once the template changes are published
  • This module started as a simple idea, based on my own experience using other UI-based Drupal solutions for laying out content type templates, like Layout Builder or Acquia Site Studio. Over the years, I’ve come to appreciate the flexibility of being able to place Drupal-rendered fields into templates, so you can mix-and-match existing, robust formatting options with flexible ways of pulling field values into layouts that also include more bespoke elements. Or, just use this as a way to add more layout flexibility to Drupal’s default, linear display controls. That’s what I do on my own blog, where I use Layout Builder but don’t have a single custom layout on the site. It’s only used for enhancing the layout of structured content.
  • Full disclosure: I also used the idea for Canvas Field Component as the impetus to venture into vibe coding, inspired by the conversations happening in the AI Learners Club, which listeners will hear more about in an upcoming episode.