The most common way to use Drupal's Media items is to add fields to content types, allowing the Media entities to be associated with one or more pieces of content. For example, adding a cover image to an article, or embedding a set of YouTube videos into a tutorial. This is accomplished by adding a Media field to the content type in question.

In this tutorial we'll:

• Explain what the different Media field-specific configuration options do
• Add a Media field to the existing Article content type
• Explain what the different field-specific configuration options do
• Confirm that it worked by verifying that the form for adding an article has the new field

By the end of this tutorial you'll know how to add a Media field to any content type, or any other fieldable entity, in order to allow Media items to be associated with the content.

Media entities in Drupal are content entities, and can be administered like most other Drupal content entities. In most cases you'll likely add new Media entities via the Media Library widget when creating a new content entity like an Article. However, it's possible to add them to the library without having to attach them to a piece of content. You may also want to update an existing Media entity, or just search the library to see whether something already exists.

In this tutorial we'll:

• Learn what a Media entity is in Drupal
• Get an overview of the main Media management page
• Learn how to add, edit, and delete, Media entities
• Learn how to bulk edit Media entities in Drupal

By the end of this tutorial you'll know how to perform basic find, add, edit, and delete operations to manage the Media entities in your library.

Drupal site administrators can create new media entity types, with their own unique configurations and sets of associated fields. Different media types can be configured with different field names, permissions, moderation workflows, and display settings, making it possible to create truly custom content administration experiences. The process is similar to creating a node content type like articles or events with one major distinction: every media type inherits from a specific media source plugin. The source plugin provides domain-specific knowledge about the kind of resource being represented. For example, the Remote video source plugin used with the default Remote video media type knows how to consume and display videos from YouTube and Vimeo given only their URL.

Drupal core comes with a couple of common media source plugins, and contributed modules and custom code can add to this list, increasing the different media providers with which Drupal can integrate.

In this tutorial we'll learn how to:

• Install a contributed module that provides a new media source plugin.
• Create a new media type.

By the end of this tutorial you should be able to explain how source plugins relate to media types, and create a new media type.

The Drupal Media Library and Media ecosystem can be integrated with any third-party media provider by defining new media source plugins. Media types (Media entity bundles) have an important distinction compared to other content entity types like nodes. Every media type inherits from a specific media source plugin. The source plugin provides domain-specific knowledge about the kind of resource being represented. For example, media types dealing with images know how to validate file extensions and render <img> tags. Media types dealing with remotely hosted videos might know how to retrieve thumbnails from a remote API, and display an HTML video player and transcript.

In this tutorial we'll learn how to:

• Define a new source plugin
• Integrate a third-party API via its existing PHP library

By the end of this tutorial you should be able to create a new source plugin that exposes any third-party media resources you want to integrate with Drupal.

If the Media assets you want to use in your library support oEmbed, then you might be able to use them with a minimal custom code. Before you go down the path of creating a custom media source plugin try this approach first.

oEmbed is a standard way of allowing third party sites to embed an asset represented by a URL. The Remote Video source in core uses the oEmbed features of YouTube and Vimeo. When you paste a link into a Slack channel, and it displays a pretty card preview, or an embedded video or Spotify playlist, that's oEmbed in action. Does the Media you want to embed have a canonical URL? If so, paste it into the tool here and see if it displays oEmbed info in the results.

In this tutorial we'll:

• Learn how to enable additional oEmbed providers as Media sources
• Use the contributed oEmbed Providers module for compatible providers
• Demonstrate how to create a custom oEmbed media source plugin to further customize the results

By the end of this tutorial you should be able to embed any oEmbed-compatible content as Media assets in Drupal.

When using the Drupal Media Library to browse for available Media entities to attach to your content, the interface that you see inside the modal window is created using Views. This means you can change it for your specific use-case. This is most useful when you want to expose filters for custom fields to allow users to more easily locate content in your library. As your library of media grows, you can create powerful application-specific ways for content authors to segment the list and find their assets.

In this tutorial we'll:

• Learn how to edit the Views used by the Drupal Media Library browser
• Add a new exposed filter for the custom tags field on some media entities
• Demonstrate how this change affects the user interface for locating and selecting media

By the end of this tutorial you should be able to customize the View used by the Media Library to add new filters and make other use-case specific changes.

Media Source plugins in Drupal have a powerful feature, called field mapping, that allows an administrator to configure a Media entity type to automatically populate the value of custom fields based on metadata retrieved from the source content. For example, you can add a creator field to the Remote Video Media type, which can use YouTube as a source. When a content author adds a new Remote Video entity they can provide a URL for the YouTube video. Then the source plugin can extract the creator's name from the YouTube API and use that data to populate a custom field. This saves the content author from having to do that work themselves.

In this tutorial we'll learn:

• How to discover what source metadata is available
• How to configure a Drupal Media type to automatically populate custom fields

By the end of this tutorial you should be able to add a custom field to a Media type on your Drupal site and automatically populate it with data retrieved from the source content.

One of the most powerful features of Drupal's Media Library is that it enables content authors to re-use media entities. Have a favorite image that you like to use with all blog posts about a specific topic? Or a default icon you want to use for a tutorial unless an alternative is provided? The Media Library can accommodate this without requiring you to keep a copy of the image locally and then attach it to every node where it's needed.

This can lead to a potential issue when an editor deletes an image, thinking they've also deleted all the content that used it. If they missed a post referencing the now deleted image, what happens when there is no image to show?

The contributed Entity Usage module provides a mechanism for tracking relationships between entities. This is essential functionality when working with a library of reusable media entities because it helps ensure that media entities attached to content are not deleted.

In this tutorial we'll:

• Discuss the use case for the Entity Usage module
• Learn how to configure Entity Usage to keep track of relationships between media entities and nodes that reference them
• Prevent media items from being deleted if they are in use somewhere on the site

By the end of this tutorial you should be able to explain what the Entity Usage module does, and how to use it to solve common problems related to deleting items from a large Media library.

A commonly asked question is, "How do you add images to the body of a content item in Drupal?" You can allow users to embed images, videos, or any other media into a field configured with a WYSIWYG editor, such as CKEditor. In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to enable Drupal’s Insert Media button for CKEditor, and configure the corresponding text format so that it can render embedded Media entities.

Content authors can then use the Media Library to select images (or other media) to embed into the page.

In this tutorial we'll:

• Learn how to enable the Insert Media button for CKEditor
• Demonstrate how to insert media into the body of a content item (or any other field configured to use CKEditor)

By the end of this tutorial you should know how to configure Drupal to allow content authors to embed images in content items.

Drupal's media management tools, the Media and Media Library modules, provide content authors with drag-and-drop media and asset handling, full WYSIWYG editor integration, and a library of reusable media assets. There's minimal configuration required to get started, but full control via Drupal's standard Entity and Field systems for those who need it.

In this tutorial we'll:

• Provide an introduction to the media system in Drupal and its use-cases
• Explain the Drupal core features that the Media system is built on
• Link to other tutorials that will go into much more depth on these topics

By the end of this tutorial you should know what role the Media and Media Library core modules fill and know whether or not you'll want to make use of them on your project.

Media entities are standard Drupal fieldable content entities. For the most part, they function, and are managed, in the same way as Nodes. So if you've previously created content in Drupal, much of working with Media entities should be familiar -- with some notable exceptions related to the connections between Media types and the media resources they represent.

In this tutorial we'll:

• Get an overview of Media entities, Media types, and Media fields in Drupal
• Point to other tutorials that go into more depth on individual topics
• Learn some basic terminology and concepts related to the Media system in Drupal

By the end of this tutorial you'll have an overview of the pieces that make up the Media system in Drupal core.

Media source plugins provide the link between media entities in Drupal and the actual media asset itself. They are the code that understand the difference between an image, a video, and a Tweet, and perform the translation that allows the media ecosystem to treat all media entities equally. For example, local image files, and remote YouTube videos, can both be catalogued in a similar way as media entities, but they need very different handling when it comes to displaying them.

Media sources are represented as plugins, there are a handful in Drupal core, and a developer can add new plugins to represent any type of media your application needs to catalogue.

In this tutorial we'll learn:

• How media source plugins relate to Media Types
• The responsibilities of a media source plugin

By the end of this tutorial you should be able to define the role of a media source plugin and understand what's required to define your own.

The Drupal core Media Library module provides an enhanced user interface for locating Media entities and attaching them to an article. It's a drop-in replacement for the default entity reference widget which uses a not very intuitive autocomplete field. Using the Drupal core Media Library module requires minimal configuration.

If you want to provide content creators with a gallery-like library of Media entities that they can browse through in order to find the ones they want to add to their content, the Media Library is the easiest way to do it. It can be configured to work with both Media fields and the CKEditor powered WYSIWYG editor commonly used for editing the body field of Drupal nodes. There's really no reason not to use it.

In addition to providing a better UI for locating existing Media entities, the Media Library provides a way to create new Media entities right from the content creation form. This prevents an otherwise confusing requirement where Media entities need to be created, via a different set of forms, before they can be used.

In this tutorial we'll:

• Install and configure the Media Library module to work with Media fields
• Use the user interface provided by the Media Library to improve the experience of finding and selecting Media entities to associate with a piece of content

By the end of this tutorial you'll know how to replace the default entity reference widget used for selecting Media entities with the much improved Media Library UI.

Media entities, like any content entity, work great with all the different features Drupal provides for changing the way things are displayed: view modes, Layout Builder, theme templates, and more. We're big fans of using view modes to create a component-like design system where entity types have view modes representing the different context in which they're displayed. Then we theme the view modes. This works great for displaying Media entities associated with a page and for changing the way that Media assets are displayed within the Media Library browser.

In this tutorial we'll:

• Create Hero and Sidebar view modes for Media entities
• Configure the Image Media type to use the new view modes and style each one differently
• Use the new view modes to render Image Media assets within a Layout
• Update the Media library view mode that's used by the Media Library browser to display additional information alongside the thumbnails used when selecting Media to attach to a page

By the end of this tutorial you should be able to change the way that Media assets are displayed by using view modes and display formatters in a Drupal site.

Drupal 8.8.0 introduced a bunch of new features intended to make it easier over the long-term to maintain a Drupal project using Composer. In doing so it establishes some new best practices, and moves into Drupal core solutions that were previously maintained by the community. This is all good news. But, it means if you're using Composer to update from Drupal 8.7.x or lower to 8.8.0 or higher you'll need to do a bit of additional work to untangle everything.

This tutorial is especially useful if you started your Drupal project using the drupal-composer/drupal-project template and would like to convert to use the new templates (i.e. drupal/recommended-project or drupal/legacy-project) included with Drupal 8.8.x core.

In this tutorial we'll:

• Convert our project to use the new drupal/core-recommended, and drupal/core-dev Composer packages
• Explain which commonly used Composer packages are deprecated, and which new ones replace them
• Learn how to use the drupal/core-composer-scaffold Composer plugin
• Cover tips for troubleshooting updates

Furthermore, in order to Upgrade to Drupal 9 from Drupal 8, you will first need to update your Drupal 8 site to at least version 8.8, as the upgrade paths for Drupal 8 site from before Drupal 8.8.0 have been removed from Drupal 9.

By the end of this tutorial you should be able to update your Drupal projects using Drupal core 8.7.x or lower to Drupal core 8.8.0 or higher using Composer. And be ready for an upgrade to Drupal 9.

Drupal's development has a regular release cycle consisting of major, minor, and patch releases. Drupal releases use semantic versioning for its version numbers. Since we're committed to making sure our tutorials are kept up-to-date with the latest and greatest version of Drupal we figured it would be a good idea if you knew how to keep your Drupal site up-to-date with the latest "point" releases as well.

This tutorial will cover:

• How to determine the type of update
• The standard update procedure
• Update Drupal using Drush
• Update Drupal using Composer

This tutorial won't cover:

• How to perform a major version Drupal upgrade, for example, from Drupal 6 or 7 to the latest version of Drupal. For that, see our guide, Learn to Migrate to Drupal.

There’s no one-size-fits-all path to upgrade from Drupal 9 to Drupal 10, but there is a set of common tasks that everyone will need to complete.

In this tutorial we’ll:

• Explain the differences between Drupal 9 and Drupal 10 that affect the upgrade path.
• Walk through the high-level steps required to upgrade from Drupal 9 to Drupal 10.
• Provide resources to help you create an upgrade checklist and start checking items off the list.

By the end of this tutorial you should be able to explain the major differences between Drupal 9 and 10, audit your existing Drupal 9 projects for Drupal 10 readiness, estimate the level of effort involved, and start the process of upgrading.

There’s no one-size-fits-all path to upgrade from Drupal 8 to Drupal 9, but there is a set of common tasks that everyone will need to complete.

In this tutorial we’ll:

• Explain the differences between Drupal 8 and Drupal 9 that affect the upgrade path.
• Walk through the high-level steps required to upgrade from Drupal 8 to Drupal 9.
• Provide resources to help you create an upgrade checklist and start checking items off the list.

By the end of this tutorial you should be able to explain the major differences between Drupal 8 and 9, audit your existing Drupal 8 projects for Drupal 9 readiness, estimate the level of effort involved, and start the process of upgrading.

Knowing how to clear Drupal's cache is an important skill for any developer. You'll likely find yourself doing it frequently in order to get Drupal to register the changes you make to your code, or other updates you make via the UI. It is also a good first step to trouble shooting problems with your Drupal site: Clear the cache before you do any other debugging to ensure it's not just a bad cache entry.