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Plus Suite Overview

When to Use

When you need a WYSIWYG page builder experience in Drupal that improves on Layout Builder's UX with drag-and-drop block placement, inline editing, nested layouts, and a Photoshop-like toolbar — while staying native to Drupal's rendering pipeline.

Decision

Feature Core Layout Builder Plus Suite
Block placement Sidebar form, multi-step Drag-and-drop from sidebar
Editing Off-canvas forms Inline WYSIWYG editing
Preview Must toggle preview mode Always WYSIWYG
Nested layouts Not supported Layout blocks with blocks inside
Tooling Edit/layout tabs Photoshop-style toolbar with hotkeys
Placeholder content Empty blocks Auto-generated sample content
Media handling Form-based upload Drag from desktop onto page
Section reuse Not built-in Section Library integration
Workspace support Limited Full Tempstore+ strategy pattern

What Plus Suite Is

Plus Suite is a Drupal recipe (not a single module) that orchestrates 7+ contributed modules into a cohesive page-building experience built on top of core Layout Builder. Created by Tim Bozeman and backed by Tag1 Consulting.

Philosophy: "Drag. Drop. Done." — get content on screen fast with auto-generated content, then refine inline. The inline editing, entity forms, widgets, tools, sidebars, and modes are all pluggable.

Key Architectural Principles

  1. Drupal-native: Uses PHP/Twig rendering pipeline, not React. Standard entity forms, standard field API, standard caching.
  2. Drop-in replacement: Replaces Layout Builder's UI element (layout_builder → layout_builder_plus) while keeping the same data model.
  3. Pluggable everything: Modes, Tools, Sidebars, Sample Value Generators, and Block Properties are all plugin systems.
  4. Enhances, doesn't replace: Layout Builder data models, entity displays, and configuration remain unchanged. Other LB contrib modules should work.

Common Mistakes

  • Treating Plus Suite as a React-based page builder — it's fully Drupal PHP/Twig native.
  • Assuming it requires React knowledge — PHP developers can use it without frontend framework skills.
  • Confusing it with Canvas/Experience Builder — Plus Suite enhances Layout Builder; Canvas is a ground-up rebuild.

See Also