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Drupal comes with a toolbar which is useful when administering a Drupal site. If you log in and have the correct permissions, you’ll see a toolbar across the top of the page that allows you to access back-end configuration pages.
The Admin Toolbar module extends the functionality of the toolbar and gives you lots of extra features such as drop-down menus, access to cache and cron settings and an autocomplete search.
In this tutorial, you will learn how to install and configure Admin Toolbar and its sub-modules.
Getting Started
Let’s begin by downloading the Admin Toolbar module.
Run the following Composer command:
composer require drupal/admin_toolbarThen go to Extend and install Admin Toolbar and its three sub-modules.
Functionality around the toolbar is spread across four modules in total. Here’s a breakdown of what each module does.
Admin Toolbar
Provides an improved drop-down menu interface to the site toolbar.
Admin Toolbar Extra Tools
Adds menu links like Flush cache, Run Cron, Run updates, and Logout under the Drupal icon
Admin Toolbar Links Access Filter
Provides a workaround for the common problem that users with ‘Use the administration pages and help’ permission see menu links they don’t have access permission for. Once the issue https://www.drupal.org/node/296693 be solved, this module will be deprecated.
Admin Toolbar Search
Provides quick search functionality for configuration pages.
Let’s take a look at each module in more detail.
Admin Toolbar
This module is the base module of Admin Toolbar. After installation, it provides drop-down functionality on top of the standard toolbar.
There is a new version 3.0.0 released recently, which requires Drupal 8.8 or above. With this version, a new configuration form was introduced to limit the number of bundles to display in the drop-down menu, resulting in performance issues.
To configure this new mechanism, go to:
Admin > Configuration > User interface > Admin Toolbar Tools
The default value is 20, but can be modified here. Just pay attention to the warning on this page which says ‘Loading a large number of items can cause performance issues.’. We can leave it 20 by default to start with.
Admin Toolbar Extra Tools
This sub-module adds extra drop-down functionality to the base module by providing the following additional functions:
- Additional menu items are available in the drop-down functionality
- An extra Drupal logo icon will be attached to the left corner of the Admin Toolbar, which provides additional functions in a convenient manner:
- Index – provides a list of functions indexed in alphabetical order
- Flush all caches – flush all caches, or individual caches of the system.
- Run cron – run a cron job immediately, instead of waiting for the default time period of 3 hours.
- Run update – run a system update process, generally after system or module updates.
- Logout – provide fast access to the logout function.
Admin Toolbar Links Access Filter
This sub-module offers a workaround for users which have the ‘Use the administration pages and help’ permission but not access to the specific pages. Menu items are still visible even if the user doesn’t have access.
Once https://www.drupal.org/node/296693 is fixed this module will be deprecated.
This sub-module doesn’t require any configuration, just install and you’re done.
Admin Toolbar Search
An ‘Admin toolbar quick search’ box is provided on the Admin Toolbar. This is useful for beginners, site builders or administrators who are not familiar with Drupal. They can find the functions they are looking for, administrative or configuration pages by searching here.
Summary
Admin Toolbar is a must-have module on any Drupal site. It gives site administrators and builders a better user experience when managing content and configuration.
I especially like the quick search functionality offered by “Admin Toolbar Search”. This makes it easy to search for configuration pages.
