Introducing BigPipe, Metatag Module, and Admin Toolbar, modules available for Drupal 8

When the Drupal platform is easy to work with, it kills two birds with one stone. The developer will accomplish his task faster, and as a result the customer will get his ideas implemented quickly. With Drupal modules this is quite doable.

A new platform version has brought a wind of change to the Drupal world, and each day new modules are being created, many of which migrate over to Drupal 8. In this article we are going to uncover some particularly interesting features of three new modules available for Drupal 8. Drudesk has lots of experience applying various Drupal modules, and we want to share our insights with you.

Available modules for Drupal 8

Things Admin Toolbar Can Do to Ease Developer's Work

Currently, Admin Toolbar is the most-installed Drupal module, since there are more than 3,500 Drupal 8 sites using it as of February 2016. It is simple to install, easy to use, potentially uncomplicated to work in combination with other modules, and the code is pretty straightforward. It also extends Drupal’s core toolbar module thanks to the excellent API that appeared in Drupal 8.

Why do we apply this module?

• It adds drop-down functionality to the main administration menu.
• Admin Toolbar gives new links for developers.
• It gives fast access to all the administration link without having to click through to sub-menus.

So, now the issue of navigating into the deep Drupal admin is solved, and you can save a ton of time as well as making our customers happy.

Why Did We Decide to Put into Use BigPipe Module?

Wim Leers and Fabian Franz incorporated a technique for Drupal 8 that automatically detects and separates the static, usually cached parts of a page, the main content and the images from the dynamic and uncacheable page elements (e.g. content recommendations, friend notifications, editorial controls). By implementing this, they brought significant changes to Drupal 8.

After installing the BigPipe module, our website projects perform better without any special technical investment. BigPipe sends unchanging and dynamic parts of a page to the browser and renders others as soon as they are ready.

Our developers operate with a BigPipe module to:

• Speed up page delivery times.
• Use no extra code or configuration.
• Personalize parts of the webpage delivered automatically by Drupal 8.
• Bring cacheability metadata to everything.

When we used Drupal 7, the lack of metadata for caching was quite obvious. Now, we can get considerable web page performance improvements using BigPipe.

What Benefits We Get From Using Metatag Module in Our Projects?

A meta tag is a tag that describes some aspect of the contents of a webpage. During website creation process, the Metatag module helps to manage and control all the meta tags for the web projects we build. Metatag supports content editorial workflows and has full multilingual support, thus allowing the same page to load different meta tags depending upon the visitor's preferred browser language.

Why did we choose the Metatag module?

• Metatag module makes it easier to configure meta tags for all website pages during short period of time.
• It provides proper meta tags management (you can add your own meta tags).
• It gives a standardized API for developers to control the meta tags for the sites they build.

Our team have successfully used Nodewords (Drupal 5 and 6 module) on several projects, but when the Metatag module for Drupal 7 and 8 appeared, it seemed to provide better out-of-the-box experience than had been possible with Nodewords.

Epilogue

To sum up, if you’re thinking about improving your work with web products, consider the following question “Does it offer an easier or quicker solution to make client’s lives better?” You can save the day by applying new Drupal 8 modules, which we use in our projects here at Drudesk. We want to provide all clients with the best set of tools for improving website functionality and make sure they are satisfied with our service.