By Michael Ross

This article was published in the print magazine Drupal Watchdog, Volume 4 Issue 1, 2014-05, on page 21, by Tag1 Publishing. The magazine was distributed at Drupalcon Austin, 2014-06-02.

Prior to Drupal 8, the core directories (includes, misc, modules, profiles, scripts, and themes) were located in the installation's root directory. Drupal 8 consolidates them into a new "core" subdirectory, which tidies up the root directory and should make it easier to track changes to core versus contrib or custom files. There are still three root subdirectories for modules, profiles, and themes, which can be used for custom and contrib projects. Each directory initially contains only a README.txt file explaining the repurposing and how developers can still use the pre-D8 "sites/all" scheme.

Figure 1. Drupal 8 root directories and files

Copyright © 2014 Michael J. Ross. All rights reserved.