Simple Complexity: Building a Custom Drupal Diff Module
Video Description
Speaker: Michael Weeks
Regulatory changes in government documents are often small edits buried in large files. Identifying them manually is time-consuming and error-prone. This session walks through the end-to-end process of building a custom Drupal module that highlights differences between content revisions, making those changes visible and navigable for both editors and anonymous users.
We'll cover the full module development cycle: defining requirements from a Figma spec, researching the Drupal hook and render pipeline, decisions for performance enhancement, and iterating when real data broke assumptions. Spoiler: 172 text changes on a single page is not something a reasonable designer expects.
This session offers a practical, honest look at how Drupal modules actually get built, and the UX influence on those decisions, including the parts that send developers back to step one.
Regulatory changes in government documents are often small edits buried in large files. Identifying them manually is time-consuming and error-prone. This session walks through the end-to-end process of building a custom Drupal module that highlights differences between content revisions, making those changes visible and navigable for both editors and anonymous users.
We'll cover the full module development cycle: defining requirements from a Figma spec, researching the Drupal hook and render pipeline, decisions for performance enhancement, and iterating when real data broke assumptions. Spoiler: 172 text changes on a single page is not something a reasonable designer expects.
This session offers a practical, honest look at how Drupal modules actually get built, and the UX influence on those decisions, including the parts that send developers back to step one.