The State of Rules for D9+
(and intro to ECA)

What is Rules?

  • Drupal module for triggering functionality
  • Think of it like hooks (except with a GUI)
    • Or event subscribers
  • Events
    • Something in system that triggers an action to potentially run
  • Conditions
    • Validate that action is fit to run
  • Action
    • Perform some task

Why?

  • Create pluggable systems
    • Actions not hardcoded in codebase to get triggered on a specific event
  • More resilient actions
    • Actions can be more generalized
  • Has a GUI
  • Is exportable so can be in your version control system

Why not?

  • Building a specialized app
  • Slower
  • More dependencies
  • Does not mean you won't require code

Examples

  • Content moderation
    • Mark content as draft when it enters system
    • Unpublish
    • Email content admins
  • User registration / signs in for first time
    • Invite them to slack

Look at Rules

For D7 and D9

Current state of Rules

  • Kinda unsupported
  • Business Rules, TR_Rules (trimmed rules) exist but also minimally unsupported
  • Limited functionality compared to D7

ECA Module

  • https://www.drupal.org/project/eca
  • Event - Condition - Action
  • Fairly large ecosystem
    • Integrations with webform, groups, commerce
  • Not as nice GUI
    • External projects for improved workflows
  • Well supported
    • https://ecaguide.org/

Lets try some stuff