paragraph_group

Introduction

As field counts and Paragraphs content grow in a Drupal site, editing forms can become difficult to navigate and manage.

Paragraph Group solves these problems at their source, by automatically and properly organizing your editing pages, without modifying your content. Standing on the shoulders of both the Field Group module and the Paragraphs module's nested content innovation, Paragraph Group simplifies field and nesting complexity by introducing a simple yet powerful structured editing approach for navigating and managing complex content:

• Vertical Drilldown:

  Accordion-based navigation for more effective nested Paragraph editing
  

• Horizontal Grouping:

  Automatic allocation of fields into tabbed Field Groups
  

Through this dual-axis Content Architecture Philosophy, Paragraph Group tidies Drupal’s content editing forms, restores clarity to structured content, and makes nested Paragraphs of any depth easier to edit and manage.

Key Features

Paragraph Group module achieves the two architecture objectives above through the following main features:

1. Paragraph Details Widget

The core feature is an improved widget for Paragraph fields, based on the HTML <details> element — the native HTML successor to the jQueryUI Accordion. This new Paragraph Details Widget makes it easy to expand/collapse nested Paragraphs, and improves navigation in complex content structures. Through its integrated navigation buttons and accordion-based interface, the widget ensures intuitive drill-down of nested Paragraphs, and thus elegantly realizes the Vertical Drilldown axis of our architecture vision above.
(See brief demo gif or full demo gif)

2. Administrative Title Field

A lightweight Administrative Title Field can be added to Paragraphs, and is displayed as the summary of the Paragraph Details Widget. This field is essential for enabling editors to track which Paragraph they're editing, without needing to repurpose an existing content field.
(See screenshot)

3. Automated Field Groups

With minimal configuration, Paragraph Group can automatically organize a content type’s fields into Field Groups, and thus cohesively actualizes the Horizontal Grouping axis of our architecture vision above.
(See animated gif)

4. Settings Page

It is not enough merely to offer a useful new widget, if that widget is potentially applicable to hundreds of entities across a Drupal site. Through its comprehensive settings page, Paragraph Group also enables site builders to easily apply Paragraph Group's features to all relevant components in their sites, simply by ticking some checkboxes.
(See animated gif)

5. Broad Drupal / Paragraphs Ecosystem Compatiblity

In addition to theme compatibility tools introduced in version 2.x, Paragraph Group version 4.x is now built on the Paragraphs Stable widget rather than the Legacy widget, enabling Paragraph Group to now leverage this widget's built-in drag-and-drop functionality and broader Paragraphs compatibility, whilst still retaining its clean <details> element interface. Version 4.x of Paragraph Group is now also compatible with Drupal CMS 2.0 and its Field Group configuration, and introduces broader compatibility with modules across the Paragraphs and wider Drupal ecosystem.

Feel free to review this documentation page for more detailed information about Paragraph Group's features, editorial philosophy, technical credentials and new ecosystem integration approaches.

Conclusion

While Paragraph Group module certainly excels at tidying up your editing forms after the fact, the module and it's approach are also best used from the very beginning of your next Drupal journey to ensure avoiding the many pitfalls of insufficient content planning and architecture in your next Drupal project.

Because with Paragraph Group module, you no longer have to choose between the depth of nested Paragraphs and the breadth of Field Groups-based content architecture — or combine them haphazardly. You can have tidy, coherent edit forms with the best of both worlds, significantly improving the content authoring experience of your Drupal site.

Please click the screenshots to see animated gifs of the module in action.

Addendum

Requirements

Paragraph Group module requires:

• The Paragraphs and Field Group contributed Drupal modules installed as dependencies.
  

• One of the Claro or Gin themes to be set as the site’s Administration Theme. Seven theme was supported in previous versions of Paragraph Group, but is now deprecated along with the Drupal versions it shipped with.