unb-libraries/custom-entity

A Drupal module improving the developer experience of working with custom entities.

Installation

The module is a composer package hosted on packagist and can be installed by running

composer require unb-libraries/custom-entity

or by adding it to your project's composer.json file:

{
  "require": {
    "unb-libraries/custom-entity": "dev-9.x-1.x"
  }
}

Enable the module by running

drush en custom_entity

or via the Drupal UI under /admin/modules.

Usage

The module enhances Drupal by providing implementations of:

Access handlers

The Drupal\custom_entity\Entity\Access\EntityAccessControlHandler dynamically grants or denies access to an entity whether a user has permission of the form <OPERATION> <ENTITY_TYPE> entities.

For example, in order for a user to get permission to edit a node entity, the user would need to have the edit node entities permission assigned to them.

In order to activate the access control handler, set it in an entity's type definition:

<?php

use Drupal\Core\Entity\ContentEntityBase;

/**
 * Defines the "my_entity" entity type.
 *
 * @ContentEntityType(
 *   ...
 *   handlers = {
 *     ...
 *     "access" = "Drupal\custom_entity\Entity\Access\EntityAccessControlHandler"
 *   },
 *   ...
 * ) 
 */
 class MyEntity extends ContentEntityBase {
   // ...
 }

Currently bundle-level permission checking is not supported by the handler.

Permission handlers

Permissions handlers create entity permissions of the form <OPERATION> (<BUNDLE>) <ENTITY_TYPE> entities. Add permissions handler for an entity type as follows:

<?php

use Drupal\Core\Entity\ContentEntityBase;

/**
 * Defines the "my_entity" entity type.
 *
 * @ContentEntityType(
 *   ...
 *   handlers = {
 *     ...
 *     "permissions" = "Drupal\custom_entity\Entity\Access\EntityPermissionsHandler"
 *   },
 *   ...
 * ) 
 */
 class MyEntity extends ContentEntityBase {
   // ...
 }

Extend the Drupal\custom_entity\Entity\Access\EntityPermissionsHandler class to create more customized permissions.

Route handlers

The Drupal\custom_entity\Entity\Routing\HtmlRouteProvider enhances Drupal default HtmlRouteProvider by providing the following additional routes for any entity type that activates it:

entity.my_entity.delete-all: creates a form route to delete ALL instances of an my_entity, if according delete-all link and form handler are defined.
entity.my_entity.<FORM_HANDLER>: creates a form route for a given form handler, if my_entity defines the according link.

The following defines an entity with entity.my_entity.delete-all and entity.my_entity.activate routes:

<?php

use Drupal\Core\Entity\ContentEntityBase;

/**
 * Defines the "my_entity" entity type.
 *
 * @ContentEntityType(
 *   ...
 *   handlers = {
 *     ...
 *     "form" = {
 *       "activate" = ...
 *     "routing" = "Drupal\custom_entity\Entity\Routing\HtmlRouteProvider"
 *   },
 *   ...
 *   links = {
  *    "activate": "/my-entities/{my_entity}/activate",
 *     "delete-all-form": "/my-entities/delete-all",
 *   }
 * ) 
 */
class MyEntity extends ContentEntityBase {
  // ...
}

Field types

The following new entity field types are provided:

Creator

This field type adds a reference to the user who initially created it to an entity. Add this field to an entity as follows:

<?php

use Drupal\Core\Entity\ContentEntityBase;
use Drupal\custom_entity\Entity\UserCreatedInterface;
use Drupal\custom_entity\Entity\EntityCreatedTrait;

/**
 * Defines the "my_entity" entity type.
 *
 * @ContentEntityType(
 *   ...
 * )
 */
class MyEntity extends ContentEntityBase implements UserCreatedInterface {
 
  use EntityCreatedTrait;
   
  /**
   * {@inheritdoc}
   */
  public static function baseFieldDefinitions(EntityTypeInterface $entity_type) {
    $fields = parent::baseFieldDefinitions($entity_type);
    
    $fields[static::FIELD_CREATOR] = static::getCreatorBaseFieldDefinition($entity_type);
    
    return $fields;
  }
}

Editor

This field type adds a reference to the user who most recently edited an entity. Add this field to an entity as follows:

<?php

use Drupal\Core\Entity\ContentEntityBase;
use Drupal\custom_entity\Entity\UserEditedInterface;
use Drupal\custom_entity\Entity\EntityChangedTrait;

/**
 * Defines the "my_entity" entity type.
 *
 * @ContentEntityType(
 *   ...
 * )
 */
class MyEntity extends ContentEntityBase implements UserEditedInterface {
 
   use EntityChangedTrait;
   
   /**
   * {@inheritdoc}
   */
  public static function baseFieldDefinitions(EntityTypeInterface $entity_type) {
    $fields = parent::baseFieldDefinitions($entity_type);
    
    $fields[static::FIELD_CREATOR] = static::getEditorBaseFieldDefinition($entity_type);
    
    return $fields;
  }
 }

Forms

The following base forms are provided:

ConfigEntityForm

Base form for config entities that comes with mandatory id and label fields pre-configured. Use it as follows:

<?php

use Drupal\custom_entity\Form\ConfigEntityForm;

/**
 * Form for "my_config_entity" entities. 
 */
class MyConfigEntityForm extends ConfigEntityForm {
   
   /**
   * {@inheritDoc}
   */
  public function buildForm(array $form, FormStateInterface $form_state) {
    $form = parent::buildForm($form, $form_state);
    
    // add additional form fields here.
    
    return $form;
  }
 }

ConfigEntityBundleForm

Base form for config entities that are bundles of content entities. Built on top of ConfigEntityForm, it allows for additional configuration of a bundle class.

Services

Submodules

More features can be added by activating any of the following sub-modules:

Module	Description
custom_entity_alias	Creates path aliases for views related to custom entities.
custom_entity_events	Dispatch and subscribe to custom entity events.
custom_entity_mail	Send emails upon creating, editing, deleting custom entities.
custom_entity_revisions	A collection of components to ease working with custom entity revisions.
custom_entity_ui	Enhances FieldUI to provide an administration UI for custom entity types.
custom_entity_update_n	Provides services to simplify custom entity update N hooks.