Views, as the sites run them

Five of the more complicated views the sites run, rebuilt out of dummy data: the task list of `contrib`, a content overview, the course search of `classes`, the chores dashboard of `inventory` and the project grid of `portfolio`. Between them they cover a view over a search index, a link from one display to another, rows rendered inline, a bulk form and an operations dropbutton in a sortable table, a self-submitting exposed form, and a responsive grid with no pager. Each is a real view built in memory and never saved, listing two dummy rows: the query is built but never sent, so the widgets are here to be themed rather than used.

Task list

The task list of the "contrib" site, at /tasks. A view over a search index rather than over a table, whose exposed form is built by Better Exposed Filters and holds a single full-text box. The header carries a link to a second display, the rows are unformatted with a class of their own, and the first four fields are rendered inline and separated with a pipe, so a row is one paragraph rather than a stack. The site also exposes a facet beside the search box; facets are not installed here, so that one filter is missing and everything else is as the site runs it.

Done
Mantra Theme | Refinement
Clean up the card component
The card component takes a heading level it never uses, and the variant class is applied twice. Neither is visible, and both are in the way of the next change to it.
2 days ago | Components, Front end
Mantra Starter | Bug
Autocomplete loses its border
The border of an autocomplete field disappears once the dropdown is open, because the open state resets the border rather than the outline.
6 days ago | Forms

Content overview

The content overview, which most of the sites run some version of. It is the densest back-office table there is: a bulk form putting a checkbox in every row and an action select above them, a sortable header, two columns that drop out on a narrow screen, an author read through a relationship, a published status exposed as a grouped filter, and an operations dropbutton at the end of each row.

Title Content type Author Status Updated Operations
Clean up the card component Issue Ada Lovelace Published
Autocomplete loses its border Issue Grace Hopper Unpublished

Course search

The course search of the "classes" site. The same kind of view as the task list and a different exposed form: the sorts are exposed as well as the filters, so the form holds a "Sort by" and an "Order" select beside the search box, with a reset button after them and a result summary above. The rows carry a highlighted excerpt, which is the field a search view has and an ordinary view does not.

Displaying 9 - 10 of 24 courses.
Building a design system in Drupal
Six weeks on single directory components, the props and slots of one, and how a library of them is documented so that the rest of a team can use it.
a library of components documented so that the rest of a team … every component of the design system
Front end, Design systems
Migrating legacy content
What a migration is made of, written against a real source database: source plugins, process pipelines, stubs, and rolling one back once it has run.
rolling a migration back once it has run … the components of a process pipeline
Back end, Migration

Chores dashboard

The chores dashboard of the "inventory" site. A table again, but a front-end one rather than an administrative one: no bulk form, no operations, and an exposed form that submits itself. Better Exposed Filters hides the Apply button when it does that, which leaves a submit button in the markup that is only there for whoever has no JavaScript.

Everything that is due, oldest first.
ID Chore Frequency Location Last done
900201 Replace the filter in the extractor Every six months Kitchen 14 Feb 2026
900202 Bleed the radiators Yearly Whole house 3 Oct 2025

Project grid

The project grid of the "portfolio" site: the one view here that is neither a table nor a list. The responsive grid style wraps the rows in a grid of three columns that collapses on a narrow screen, and there is no pager under it, so the markup is the grid and nothing else.

Everything finished, most recent first.
Wayfinding for a teaching hospital
St Aldate's Trust
March 2025 – November 2025
A signage and screen system for a site that had grown across nine buildings, rebuilt around how people actually arrive at it rather than around how it was built.
Catalogue for a seed library
Cold Frame Collective
January 2026 – ongoing
Eleven thousand varieties, photographed and described by volunteers, behind a search that has to work for someone who knows a name and someone who only knows a colour.