The Migrate API is a very flexible and powerful system that allows you to collect data from different locations and store them in Drupal. It is, in fact, a full-blown extract, transform, and load (ETL) framework. For instance, it could produce CSV files. Its primary use is to create Drupal content entities: nodes, users, files, comments, etc. The API is thoroughly documented and their maintainers are very active in the #migration slack channel for those needing assistance. The use cases for the Migrate API are numerous and vary greatly. Today we are starting a blog post series that will cover different migrate concepts so that you can apply them to your particular project.

In Drupal, a view is a listing of information. It can a list of nodes, users, comments, taxonomy terms, files, etc. A view scans your website using any criteria you specify and presents the results in the format of your choice. Example formats include a HTML table, a RSS feed, a PDF document, a CSV document, an interactive map, an image slideshow, or a JSON representation to be used as a REST endpoint. The same content can be presented in multiple formats at the same time. For instance, you can present a table of user information and on the same page a link to download the data in CSV format.

Let’s continue our journey to understand more Drupal concepts. As you might have already noticed, they build on each other. Today, you will learn how nodes, content types, and fields can be used as part of views configurations. Also, you will find examples of blocks that are created using views.

We have already talked about nodes, content types, and fields. In Drupal, they often comprise the main content of a page. Very likely you will want to display extra information along the page. This can be accomplished using containers called blocks. For example, the main content of a page can be a news article and a block can be used to display a list of other articles written by the same author. You could also use a block to show a search box or copyright text. Let’s explore what Drupal blocks have to offer.

After understanding the difference between nodes and content types, let’s learn a new concept. Fields are Drupal's atomic data storage mechanism. They allow you to save discrete pieces of information which can be used for displaying, filtering, and sorting purposes.. Fields can be attached to nodes, users, taxonomy terms, blocks, and other Drupal entities. It is possible to share a field among bundles of the same entity. For example, you can share an image field among different content types (bundles) of the content (node) entity.