Paragraphs are powerful site-building entities. They allow for the grouping of fields into re-usable components that can be templated and styled. Moreover, they make for a great user experience for content creators as they allow for predefined field types, with limits on the types and length1 of data or content that is allowed to be entered. This not only helps content creators but also allows for consistent front-end design; the rendering of the components that make up the front-end.
1To limit the length of a field's data, you need the max-length module. You can use this on any field, not only Paragraph fields.
Setting up Paragraphs is a two part process; first you create a Paragraph type, after which you attach it to an entity using a reference field. For more details on the Paragraphs module, for the unfamiliar out there, I have written an in-depth guide on how Paragraphs works. For those that are familiar, read on to find out how to add them to custom block types for use in Layout Builder and why you might want to.
Many Ways to Make Paragraphs Instances as Blocks Available in Drupal Layout Builder
The only way to make Paragraph types available in Layout Builder is through attaching them to a block.
As with most things in web development, there are many ways to do things, and using attaching Paragraphs to blocks is no different.
I look at three ways here, but that's not to say these are the best; they are just what I have been using and they work well. They are a way to use Paragraphs with a fairly vanilla set up of Layout Builder. By that, I mean a progressively enhanced out-of-the-box Layout Builder.
The three ways are:
- Attaching Paragraph Types Directly to Block Types.
- Using the Paragraph Block module to attach your paragraph type to a custom block type automatically.
- Using the Paragraph Blocks module to convert Paragraph instances to be made available in Layout Builder.
Please note the similar names on the second two methods' modules that are used.
The first two ways allow you to use paragraphs in custom block types, which means you can use them anywhere you can use blocks.
The third way only allows you to use the block created on the page/layout that they are created, so the blocks aren't technically a custom block type. For a look at the third way, please read the Paragraphs Module article.
In the rest of this article, we will look at one and two, but focus mainly on option one.
Attaching Paragraph Types Directly to Block Types
If you have read my (Coming Soon) Auditing and Finalizing Components for Drupal article, you will be familiar with how I arrived at this way of using paragraph types in block types for Layout Builder components and why it is my favourite now.
To keep a long story short, it provides a better creator user experience; it does this by limiting the creation of block instances or components to two ways; either globally reusable blocks or inline non-reusable blocks that are created directly on the layout page.
To use paragraph types in a block type is no different from with content types. You add a reference field and then add the paragraph types that are allowed.
When using paragraph types in block types, however, it is very likely you'll only allow one paragraph type. This is because you are using paragraph types for their structured fields more than the ability to combine a unique arrangement of content on the page. This said, you may want to allow multiple paragraph types in a block type, and it is possible to do so.
As I said, it is no different to add a paragraph type to a block type, however, in the next section, How to add Paragraph Types to Block Types, is a quick run through on how it is done. For more details on using the Paragraphs module, be sure to read the Paragraphs module's article that I shared earlier.