Drupal Lightning Extend -> Sub-profile

What is this project?

The Lightning Drupal distribution provides a script which converts a legacy extend file into a sub-profile that extends Lightning. This project is used to test that functionality and Lightning's support for sub-profiles in general.

You do not need this package to convert an extend file into a sub-profile. The script to do so is included in Lightning itself. This is just an example.

How to use

This project isn't meant to be used. But you might find value in reading through the .travis.yml file.

If you just want to convert your existing project's lightning.extend.yml file into a sub-profile, Lightning provides a binary:

./vendor/bin/lightning-subprofile /path/to/your/extend/file/lightning.extend.yml

Note: The path to your bin directory might be different.

Note: The provided binary uses a custom DrupalConsole command that currently requires Drupal to be installed for it to work.

The script will create a sub-profile in /docroot/profiles/custom/ named lightning_extender. Install it with:

drush site-install lightning_extender

Lightning also provides a DrupalConsole command to create a new sub-profile interactively. To use that command, you must first install Drupal, then run:

drupal lightning:subprofile

Background

See related blog post: Extending Lightning - Part II

One of the problems with Drupal distributions is that they, by nature, contain an installation profile — and Drupal sites can only have one profile. That means that consumers of a distribution give up the ability to easily customize the out of the box experience.

To circumvent this problem, Lightning introduced lightning.extend.yml which allowed site builders to:

1. Install additional modules after Lightning had finished its installation
2. Exclude certain Lightning components
3. Redirect users to a custom URL upon completion

But this approach wasn't ideal. A better approach is to patch Drupal core to allow for true profile inheritance; that is, chain-able base-profiles and sub-profiles. (And to support getting that patch committed to Drupal core.)

Lightning has done that, and provided a script to convert an existing lightning.extend.yml into a sub-profile that uses Lightning as a base profile.

What this project does

All of this project's instructions are in its .travis.yml file. The file instructs Travis CI to:

1. Build the codebase from composer
2. Install Drupal Lightning with an extend file that:

• Installs two additional Drupal contrib modules
• Excluded Lightning Layout and Lightning Search

3. Convert the extend file into a sub-profile
4. Reinstall Drupal using the new sub-profile
5. Run Lightning's functional test suite
6. Run some additional tests that test the sub-profile