Module Monday: Inline Entity Form

How to Edit and Manage Content With Entity Reference Fields and Nested Relationships

With Drupal's custom content types, custom fields, and the addition of the popular Entity Reference module, site builders can whip up complex content models without a line of code. Editing those complex inter-related content types isn't always easy for content creators, though. The "Create a node, save it, then create its parent, then link the two" workflow is frustrating and error-prone. Fortunately, the Inline Entity Form module can help.

Screenshot of administration screen

Like many of the nifty Drupal tricks these days, Inline Entity Form is a custom field editing widget. On any content type with an Entity Reference field, choose it as the field's editing widget, and the rest is magic. When you create a new piece of content, you'll get the form to create the referenced entity on the same form. It works smoothly with multi-value fields, and can use a simple autocomplete picker to link existing entities if they already exist.

Screenshot of resulting change to site

The challenge of creating and populating complex nested content relationships has always been a tricky one in Drupal. Inline Entity Form was created by the Drupal Commerce team to simplify the management of complex product collections, and it solves the problem quite nicely.

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