Day One with Drupal 11

Introduction

Welcome to the wild side of content management. If you’re coming from WordPress, Sanity, or any other CMS, buckle up – you’re about to discover why Drupal developers have that distinct mix of pride and battle scars in their eyes. Don’t worry, though; we’ve all been there, questioning our life choices while staring at a Views configuration screen.

Reality Check: Coming from WordPress? That wp_posts table you know and love? Forget it. Drupal’s content architecture is like playing with LEGO Technic instead of Duplo – more pieces, more possibilities, and yes, occasionally stepping on a sharp brick in the dark.

What You’ll Build

We’re diving straight into building a real-world entertainment platform. By the end of this chapter, you’ll have:

• A fully configured local development environment using DDEV
• Content types for venues, shows, and artists with meaningful relationships
• A basic ticket booking system integrated with MercadoPago
• Views to display your content in ways that would make your WordPress experience jealous
• Your first “why is this cached?” moment (it’s a rite of passage)

Prerequisites

• Docker installed and running
• Basic command-line familiarity
• Experience with another CMS (so you know what you’re comparing against)
• A sense of humor (trust me, you’ll need it)

Technical Journey Map

1. Environment Setup with DDEV
2. Content Type Architecture
3. Building Relationships (between content, not team members)
4. Views Configuration
5. Basic Ticket System Integration
6. Twig Templating Essentials

War Story: “I spent three hours trying to figure out why my content wasn’t displaying, only to realize I hadn’t clicked ‘Save’ on the View. We’ve all been there. Now I have a poster above my desk that just says ‘SAVE THE VIEW’ in large, accusatory letters.” - Sarah, Senior Drupal Developer

Quick Quiz Preview

• Troubleshooting a broken relationship between content types
• Debugging caching issues in Views
• Identifying the correct hooks for content type alterations
• Understanding the difference between content types and bundles

Debugging Challenges You’ll Face

• The infamous “White Screen of Death”
• Caching issues that make you question reality
• DDEV container communication quirks
• Those moments when Views just… don’t

Are you ready to begin your journey into Drupal? Remember, as we like to say: “In Drupal, there’s always another way to do it – and someone in the community will definitely tell you about it.”

Next up: Setting up your DDEV environment and creating your first content type without losing your sanity (pun intended, former Sanity CMS users).