Chromatic

Change Drush Command Annotations with an Alterer Service

Change Drush command annotations with an alterer Service instead of overriding an entire command.

Adam Zimmermann

• September 27, 2023

Introducing the Orange Logic Digital Asset Management PHP Library and Drupal Module

Our team at Chromatic is excited to announce the release of an open-source Drupal module and PHP Library to facilitate integrating Orange Logic’s digital asset manager Orange DAM with Drupal.

Adam Zimmermann
Mark Dorison

• July 18, 2023

Improving Tugboat QA Environment Build Times with Parallelization

Running build commands in parallel with Robo is a great way to reduce build times.

Adam Zimmermann

• October 11, 2022

Cache Busting Drupal Libraries with Versions

Configuring a Drupal library's version may seem mysterious, but it is important for caching.

Adam Zimmermann

• June 27, 2022

Managing Large Menus & Memory Usage during Drupal Cache Clears

Hundreds of menu items can bring cache clears to a grinding halt if not managed correctly.

Adam Zimmermann

• March 22, 2022

Streamline Your Next Website Migration Project With a Data-Driven Content Audit

Evaluating existing content is critical prior to website migration. Use this checklist to perform a content audit that sets your new site up for success.

Larry Walangitan
Adam Zimmermann

• January 19, 2022

How to Use a Website Migration as an Opportunity to Maintain & Tune Up SEO Performance

Migration can be an opportunity to improve website SEO performance, editorial experience for your team, and user experience on the front end. Learn how.

Matthew Daniel
Adam Zimmermann

• November 18, 2021

Visualizing Drupal's Configuration Management Process

The missing illustrated manual to the Drupal configuration system and the processes around it.

Adam Zimmermann

• November 11, 2021

Is a Decoupled Website Structure Right for Your Client’s Needs? The Answer Is Complicated.

A decoupled website architecture gives your clients access to a high-performance machine to serve their business. But will that machine wind up being more trouble than it's worth? Learn the deciding factors that play a big role in securing an organization’s digital future.

Adam Zimmermann
Chris Free

• October 27, 2021

Website Migration Guide: Nail the Strategy, Avoid Roadblocks, and Enjoy Long-Term Benefits

Learn how to develop a website migration strategy to overcome common replatforming challenges and reap the benefits of improved site performance.

Adam Zimmermann

• September 2, 2021

Sharing content across multiple sites with a publishing platform offers tremendous opportunities, but it isn’t always easy. Understanding the editorial and technical hurdles is key to creating a solution that works well and addresses the business needs.

Adam Zimmermann

• January 26, 2021

Introducing the Template Diff Module

Comparing Drupal template overrides with their counterparts in the base theme doesn’t have to be hard.

Adam Zimmermann

• January 8, 2021

Managing Drupal Configuration with Automated Checks

Managing Drupal configuration and keeping it in sync requires attention to detail and process. Automation can add to the problem, but also solve it.

Adam Zimmermann

• November 2, 2020

Automating and Standardizing Drupal Deployments with Ansible

Learn how Ansible can be used to standardize and automated Drupal deployments.

Adam Zimmermann

• November 2, 2020

A Strategic Approach to Custom Migrations

Learn some high-level techniques and troubleshooting for handling complicated migration use cases in Drupal 8 and ways to troubleshoot migrations.

Clare Ming
Asaph Kotzin
Adam Zimmermann

• October 9, 2020

The Hidden Costs of Building a Website

There is more to the total cost than the initial price.

Adam Zimmermann

• June 17, 2020

GitHub has a hidden trick that allows for sharing PR & issue templates.

Adam Zimmermann

• May 18, 2020

Patching info files with Composer

Understanding Composer's preferred install settings can be essential when applying module info file patches.

Adam Zimmermann

• March 13, 2020

Script Management with Composer

Composer already manages our PHP dependencies, so why not let it manage our utility scripts too?

Adam Zimmermann

• January 28, 2020

My Sabbatical

A month of little to no plans is sometimes just what you need.

Adam Zimmermann

• October 23, 2019

Drupal 8 Deployment Scripts

Deploying the latest changes to your site can take many forms. Understanding the steps involved and why each one matters will help prevent deployment surprises.

Adam Zimmermann
Nathan Dentzau

• May 1, 2019

Is working remotely right for you?

We pooled together some of our thoughts on what makes for a good distributed worker, advice on how to manage working from home day after day, and the upsides as well as the challenges of working for a distributed company.

Clare Ming
Adam Zimmermann

• April 3, 2019

Migration Memory Management with Batching and Limits

Migrations are fraught with unexpected discoveries and issues. Fighting memory issues with particularly long or processing heavy migrations should not be another obstacle to overcome.

Adam Zimmermann

• March 15, 2019

Creating and Using Entity Storage Methods

Entity storage methods are an often used, yet easily overlooked tool for improving data retrieval and code architecture.

Adam Zimmermann

• March 14, 2019

Custom Entity Methods in Twig Templates

Entities and their methods are no longer limited to use within PHP, they are now available in Twig as well.

Adam Zimmermann

• February 1, 2019

The Cost of Custom

Custom code gives you exactly what you need, but it comes with a cost.

Adam Zimmermann

• October 12, 2018

Headless Architecture with the Meredith Multi-Tenant Platform

Presented at Decoupled Drupal Days 2018 in New York City, this session analyzes how Chromatic and Meredith Corporation evaluated the benefits of decoupled architecture for Meredith’s brand portfolio.

Adam Zimmermann
Alfonso Gómez-Arzola

• August 27, 2018

Selling Code

A pull request is like a product looking for a buyer. Are you selling yours effectively?

Adam Zimmermann

• August 22, 2018

Migrating Drupal File Fields to Media Entities without the Migrate Module

Learn how to update your Drupal content model to use media entities without the overhead of a traditional migration.

Adam Zimmermann

• May 7, 2018

Decoupled Drupal – What You Need to Consider

“Decoupled Drupal” sounds cool and just about everyone else seems to be either doing it or talking about it, so it must be the best solution for you, right? Well, maybe. As with most things, the answer is more nuanced than one might think.

Adam Zimmermann
Alfonso Gómez-Arzola

• March 6, 2018

Announcing a New Decoupled Drupal Project: FamilyCircle.com

FamilyCircle.com provides expert advice about teens, family, food, style and home life, from the editors of Family Circle Magazine. When the time came to design and deploy a headless Drupal/Node.js platform, Meredith Corporation called on Chromatic’s expertise to help lead the way.

Adam Zimmermann
Alfonso Gómez-Arzola

• December 18, 2017

How To: Multiple Authors in Drupal

A brief rundown of how to configure Drupal to display multiple content authors.

Adam Zimmermann

• September 18, 2017

Replacing hook_boot and hook_init Functionality in Drupal 8

Adam uncovers methods of firing code on every page in Drupal 8, the right way.

Adam Zimmermann

• April 18, 2017

Code Reviews are Worth Their Weight in Gold

Code reviews are not just a quality assurance (QA) process with a different name. They offer a wide variety of benefits to everyone involved, that go well beyond the inherent advantages of a QA process benefits.

Adam Zimmermann
Chris Free

• February 28, 2017

Dynamic Default and Allowed Values for List Fields in Drupal 8

Discover the hidden dynamic allowed values and dynamic default values functionality of list fields.

Adam Zimmermann

• February 7, 2017

Managing Complex Configuration with Drupal 8

Configuration management (CM) in Drupal 8 is great. However, when more complex configuration scenarios arise, we must find solutions to problems that core CM functionality doesn’t address (yet).

Adam Zimmermann

• January 17, 2017

Migrating (away) from the Body Field

The body field is struggling to keep up as we move towards a more structured web. Learn how we used the Migrate module to extract images, create new image entities, and re-embed them as tokens into the body field.

Adam Zimmermann

• August 18, 2016

The Anatomy of a Good Ticket

A great user story or ticket can mean all the difference in the world. Here's our guide on what makes a great ticket.

Adam Zimmermann

• January 9, 2016

Programatically Creating and Storing WordPress Migrate Migrations in Drupal

Migrations are never glamorous, but doing them right and verifying their integrity is essential to their success. The WordPress Migrate module gives you an easy turnkey solution to migrating content into Drupal from WordPress.

Adam Zimmermann

• September 28, 2015

Hot-fix a Workbench Moderated Node with a Pre-existing Draft

If you use the Workbench Moderation module, you have undoubtedly created drafts for new or updated content. These drafts can often get stuck in the editorial workflow as they await approval from editors and other stakeholders.

Adam Zimmermann

• February 19, 2015

How to Implement a Content First Workflow

In college I once had an art history class immediately after a class devoted entirely to databases. Soon enough I'd realized the combination taught me an important lesson in the web design process: Content precedes design.

Adam Zimmermann

• November 5, 2014

Converting Drupal Text Formats with Pandoc

Switching the default text format of a field is easy. Manually converting existing content to a different input format is not. What about migrating thousands of nodes to use a different input format? That isn't anyone's idea of fun!

Adam Zimmermann

• June 18, 2014

Entity Caching Strategies with Drupal

There comes a time where you sit back and look at your Drupal site and realize that you've created a monster.

Adam Zimmermann

• October 3, 2013

Using Imagick with Drupal

When someone asks, "Can Drupal do that?" the answer is almost always yes. However, when a recent project required that Drupal merge CMS capabilities with Photoshop-like functionality, I began to question if Drupal really was the right solution.

Adam Zimmermann

• December 17, 2012

Insights by Adam