Creating content blocks programmatically in Drupal 8
01 Aug ยท by Tim Kamanin ยท 2 min readLet's picture this: you've created a custom content block type (let's say, Ad block) in your shiny new Drupal 8 installation and you want to automaticaly create a fresh new block of that type each time you create a taxonomy term (Ad group), so that every ad group has a corresponding ad block.
How do I do that? Simple! Follow ~~the white rabbit~~ me:
- We add the entity_insert hook and catch our taxonomy term insert event:
<?php
/**
* Implements hook_entity_insert().
*/
function pabc_ads_entity_insert(Drupal\Core\Entity\EntityInterface $entity) {
// Catching a term that belongs to the ad_group vocabulary.
if ($entity->getEntityTypeId() == 'taxonomy_term' && $entity->bundle() == 'ad_groups') {
}
}
- Next we create our block via EntityManager Drupal service:
<?php
// Grab a block entity manager from EntityManager service
$blockEntityManager = \Drupal::service('entity.manager')
->getStorage('block_content');
// Tell block entity manager to create a block of type "ad_block"
$block = $blockEntityManager->create(array(
'type' => 'ad_block'
));
// Every block should have a description, but strangely it's property
// is not 'description' but 'info'
// in my case, I want it to be equal to my ad_group's term name.
$block->info = $entity->name->value;
// This is optional part, my ad_block has a field field_ad_group
// which is a taxonomy reference to the ad_group taxonomy,
// that way I link ad_group and ad_block together.
$block->field_ad_group = $entity;
// In the end, save our new block.
$block->save();
- So in the end you code snippet should look like this:
<?php
/**
* Implements hook_entity_insert().
*/
function pabc_ads_entity_insert(Drupal\Core\Entity\EntityInterface $entity) {
// Catching a term that belongs to the ad_group vocabulary.
if ($entity->getEntityTypeId() == 'taxonomy_term' && $entity->bundle() == 'ad_groups') {
// Grab a block entity manager from EntityManager service
$blockEntityManager = \Drupal::service('entity.manager')
->getStorage('block_content');
// Tell block entity manager to create a block of type "ad_block"
$block = $blockEntityManager->create(array(
'type' => 'ad_block'
));
// Every block should have a description, but strangely it's property
// is not 'description' but 'info'
// in my case, I want it to be equal to my ad_group's term name.
$block->info = $entity->name->value;
// This is optional part, my ad_block has a field field_ad_group
// which is a taxonomy reference to the ad_group taxonomy,
// that way I link ad_group and ad_block together.
$block->field_ad_group = $entity;
// In the end, save our new block.
$block->save();
}
}
As you see, creating content blocks in Drupal 8 is pretty similar to creating any other type of entity (node or taxonomy), you just need to figure out a correct service to do that and check what fields should be filled in.