Talking Drupal #454 - Drupal API Client

Jun 10, 2024

Brian Perry, Drupal API Client expert, discusses the benefits of Drupal API Client, its role in normalizing JSON API, agnosticism in JS frameworks, and the use of TypeScript. They touch on creating instances, module applicability, potential core integration, and the roadmap. The episode also covers the Iconify Icons module and its features for adding icons to Drupal sites.

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Episode notes

Intro

00:00 • 2min

Introducing Iconify Icons Drupal Module

02:01 • 12min

Exploring the Functionality of Drupal API Client for JavaScript Integration

14:14 • 3min

Funding Project for Library Data Sourcing and Drupal API Client Discussion

16:46 • 29min

Discussion on image presets, JSON API modules, sponsorship, and involvement in the Drupal community

45:37 • 5min

Impact of Starshot, Experience Builder on API Clients and Decoupled Drupal Landscape

50:12 • 7min

Connecting with Talking Drupal and Hosts

56:45 • 2min

Today we are talking about Drupal’s API Client, What it does, and why you might need it with guest Brian Perry. We’ll also cover Iconify Icons as our module of the week.

For show notes visit: www.talkingDrupal.com/454

Topics

Brian what is new with you!
Elevator pitch for Drupal API Client
What was Pitchburg like
Is this a normalizer for JSON API
Why is this JS framework agnostic
What is typescript and how does Drupal API Client use it
Looking at the quick start guide the second step is to create an instance, where do you do that
Who is this module for
Will Drupal API Client be added to core
What is on the roadmap
How does this relate to Chapter Three and Next.js
What is the spin up time
How will Starshot impact this

Resources

Guests

Brian Perry - brianperry.dev brianperry

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Randy Fay - rfay

MOTW Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

Brief description:
- Have you ever wanted to empower your content creators to place icons from a massive, open source library into your Drupal site? There’s a module for that.
Module name/project name:
- Iconify Icons
Brief history
- How old: created on May 22 of this year, so less than two weeks ago, by David Galeano (gxleano) of Factorial
- Versions available: 1.0.0 which supports Drupal 9.3 or newer, right up to Drupal 11
Maintainership
- Actively maintained
- Security coverage
- Test coverage
- Documentation
- Number of open issues: 2 open issues, neither of which are bugs
Usage stats:
- 1 site
Module features and usage
- Out of the box the module provides both a CKEditor button for placing icons, and a new field type. It even provides a new form element that can be used in custom forms, a render element you can use to programmatically put an icon into something like a custom block, and a Twig extension that can be used to place icons in templates.
- According to the project page, the Iconify icon library includes more than 200,000 icons, though in my limited experimentation it seems like there are some duplicates between icon sets. Speaking of which, Iconify provides over 150 different icon sets, and in this module’s configuration you can specify which ones you want to be available on your site.
- Placing an icon is as simple as using an autocomplete to search the names of the icons available, and a preview is shown for each of the matches found.
- The field widget and the CKEditor button both give content creators options for what size and color to use for the icons. For myself I’d prefer to lock some of those options down (for example, make that part of the field’s display configuration instead), but I’m sure that could be added as part of a different widget.
- I can think of a few Drupal sites I’ve built where this would have been really handy, so I’m interested to play around with this module some more, and see how it evolves.