Add metadata to settings for searchability

Created on 8 November 2022, over 2 years ago
Updated 1 July 2025, 6 days ago

Problem/Motivation

It can be very hard for a developer or end user of Drupal to find their way around the settings that Drupal core and contributed modules provide. Code might add menu items in multiple places (eg under Structure and Configuration), or just in a totally unexpected place. The developer may fail to add the right combination of changes to their yml files, with the result being that a settings page doesn't even appear in the menu system, but is instead only accessible by first visiting another page and clicking on a link there.

All of these issues and more could be addressed (at least in part) by adding additional metadata to settings, then using that metadata to provide new ways of locating settings, such as full text searching of tags or filtering by the module name.

Imagine for example something like the search tool that was added a while ago to the Admin toolbar, in which you could type "Clear caches" and get a dropdown with a link directly to the button. That would greatly improve the developer / administrator experience!

Steps to reproduce

Proposed resolution

Remaining tasks

User interface changes

API changes

Data model changes

Feature request
Status

Closed: won't fix

Component

Idea

Created by

🇦🇺Australia nigelcunningham Geelong

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  • 🇦🇺Australia pameeela

    Navigation has addressed the Admin Toolbar need in the meantime. It's true that things are hard to find sometimes, but adding metadata for searchability feels like adding more complexity. It would be better to improve the overall IA so that things are easier to find!

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