The Flexibility of Drupal

A presentation at Drupal North in in Toronto, ON, Canada by Michael Miles

No other CMS offers more flexibility then Drupal. If you need to implement a piece of functionality or change a piece of data, there are a million different ways you can go about it. However, this flexibility can also be daunting and frustrating. How do you know if you are going about your changes the “right way”?

The truth of the matter is that there is no “right way” - just the “right for me” way. Any method you choose will come with it’s own sets of drawbacks and benefits.

One of the most common elements manipulated in Drupal are menu items. Changing destinations, titles, styling, display and order, there are many ways a menu item may be altered and many ways to going about doing so.

In this session we will demonstrate the flexibility of Drupal by going over 9 different ways (across Drupal 7 and Drupal 8) that a menu item could be manipulated. From a backend only solution to a front-end only solution, a “Drupal friendly” way to a “hacky” way, using a contrib module to writing a custom module. This session will demonstrate how to implement each one and outline their individual pros and cons.