Beginning Drupal 8

Chapter 8 ■ Drupal Blocks
Figure 8-2. The “Block layout” page
On the “Block layout” page you will see that Drupal 8 provides a number of prebuilt blocks that can be
placed on pages on your site. Pick a few by selecting from the list of blocks in the “Place blocks” box in the
right column of the page. Click the title of a block and, on the “Configure block” form, pick a region from the
select list (e.g., Sidebar First if you are using the Bartik theme). After assigning the blocks to regions, click the
“Save blocks” button. If you return to your site’s homepage, you’ll now see the blocks that you enabled in the
regions where you assigned them.
Rearranging Blocks
It is likely that, at some point in time, you’re going to want to reorder how blocks appear on a page. In the
previous example shown in Figure 8-1, we may want to have the “Recent content” and “Recent comments”
blocks appear above the “Who’s new” block. To reorder the blocks, navigate to the “Block layout” page as
described in the previous section. On the “Block layout” page, shown in Figure 8-2, simply click and hold the
plus sign (+) next to the block that you want to move, and drag that block to the position where you want it
in the list of blocks for that region. When you release the mouse button, you’ll see that Drupal reordered the
items (temporarily). You’ll see a message at the top of the list of blocks stating “You have unsaved changes.”
Scroll to the bottom of the page and click “Save blocks.” Drupal will save the changes and display a message
stating that the changes were made. Return to the homepage by clicking the “Back to site” link at the top left
of the page and you will see the blocks in their new order.
Reassigning and Deactivating Blocks
Drupal also provides the mechanisms for moving a block to a different region and deactivating a block that is
already visible on a page. To make the changes, navigate to the “Block layout” page (Structure ➤
Block layout).
On the “Block layout” page (refer to Figure 8-2), click the Region drop-down list for one of the blocks
you enabled and assigned to a region and select the option. Immediately upon selecting ,
that item will disappear from the region section of the “Block layout” page and will reappear at the bottom
of the page in the Disabled section. Next, click the Region drop-down list for another one of the blocks that
you assigned to a region and select a different region from the select list. Immediately after selecting the new
location, the block you selected will move to the newly assigned region within the block listing, and it will
93