Media in Drupal 8:
EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW

https://slides.com/phenaproxima/d8media
phenaproxima
- Senior Software Engineer @ Acquia
- Media Initiative coordinator
- Media system co-maintainer
- Lightning distro maintainer
- The loud guy in the contribution room

OVERVIEW
- Purpose and architecture
- Media vs. file/image fields
- Live demo! 😱
- Useful modules
- What's next?
- Q+A
THE MEDIA SYSTEM
Two purposes. Two modules.
- Media: Represent media as Drupal entities
- Media Library: Make media reusable in the UI
Media is the plumbing; Media Library is the UI.
MEDIA ITEMS ARE ENTITIES
-
They have all the superpowers!
- fieldable
- revisionable
- translatable
- themeable
- ...etc.
- Media items have types

- ...are generally similar to content types
- ...have a source (kind of media)
- ...have a "source field" to store the most important data
MEDIA TYPES...
All media have a value in their source field.
- Media can be a LOT more than images
- Images, and other media, are reusable
- Brings power, flexibility, and consistency
WHY THIS IS GOOD
...but yes, it is a little more complicated.

IMAGE FIELD
node
image field
node
image field
media
MEDIA FIELD
MEDIA LIBRARY
- Finally!
- Author-facing UI for selecting and adding media
- Simple, usable, accessible
- Nearly zero configuration
- Customizable to a degree
- Integrates with CKEditor (!)
- Can be integrated with other things too
BUT...it only works with media. 😇
LET US RECAP
- Media:
- are entities
- have a type
- have a special field to store Important Stuff
- can be more than just images
- Image fields: content owns image
- Media fields: media owns image; content references media
- Media Library only works with media
LIVE DEMO!
TWO USEFUL MODULES
(and one useless one)
👍 USEFUL MODULE:
ENTITY BROWSER
- Generic and open-ended
- Needs a lot of set-up
- Harder to make usable and accessible
- Peacefully coexists with core tools
- More complicated; good for unusual use cases
- Generic and open-ended
- Needs a lot of set-up
- Peacefully coexists with core tools
- More complicated; better for unusual use cases
👍 USEFUL MODULE:
ENTITY EMBED
- Obsolete; moved into core
- Big ecosystem...most of which now uses core tools
- Version 2 is an update path to core Media
Please don't use this module.
👎 USELESS MODULE:
MEDIA ENTITY
WHAT'S NEXT?
- Fix all the bugs
- Migration path from files and images
- Replace File & Image modules?
- Adding Media and Media Library core OOTB
Questions??

THANK YOU!!!
@phenaproxima
drupal.org/u/phenaproxima
slides.com/phenaproxima/d8media
Media in Drupal 8: Everything you need to know
By Adam G-H