Behind Drupal projects, there are often small business rules that end up complicating the lives of editorial teams. With Exclusive Boolean, we chose to turn one of these rules into an open-source module so the entire community can benefit from it. Here’s a look back at a specific need we encountered during a project... and how we contribute to the Drupal ecosystem.
At bluedrop.fr, there is a simple rule: when we solve a problem that could help others, we try to share it with the Drupal community.
That's exactly how Exclusive Boolean, our new Drupal module, was born.
While it doesn't add a revolutionary feature, it does address a situation that many editorial teams face without necessarily knowing how to handle it properly.
And it's often this kind of small tool that makes a project more robust.
The issue: when only one piece of content needs to be highlighted
Let's take a very concrete example.
You manage a Drupal site. Each news item has a boolean field "Featured" that allows it to be highlighted on your homepage. A boolean field is a field that can only have two possible values (Yes/No), like a checkbox in a form that is either checked or unchecked.
The business rule is simple: only one news item can be "Featured" at any given time.
However, without a specific mechanism, nothing prevents a contributor from marking multiple news items as "Featured".
Over time, several items end up being highlighted at the same time. The editorial teams must remember to manually uncheck the previous item before promoting a new one.
A simple task... but one that leads to omissions and inconsistencies.
An automated business rule
The Exclusive Boolean module meets this need precisely.
It ensures that only one piece of content of the same type can have an enabled boolean value.
Specifically, when an editor checks the "Featured" field on a new news item, the module automatically deactivates this same field on the previously featured news item.
Editorial teams no longer have to worry about maintaining this exclusivity: Drupal enforces the business rule for them.
Why not handle this manually?
We could simply ask contributors to remember to remove the old "Featured" content before selecting a new one.
In practice, this step is easily forgotten, especially when several people are publishing content.
Result : several pieces of content end up being highlighted at the same time, which forces teams to correct the data.
With Exclusive Boolean, this business rule is applied automatically.
A small module... that improves the editorial experience
In a Drupal project, we often talk about performance, architecture, or security.
But a large part of a site's quality also depends on the comfort of the teams who publish content every day.
A CMS that automatically applies business rules is often more valuable than a lengthy user guide.
This is the philosophy that drives us when we develop modules: reducing friction, making interfaces smarter and ensuring that Drupal truly supports its users.
Why publish this module on Drupal.org?
Because we have been using Drupal for many years and have always believed it was normal to give back. That's the whole point of open source after all.
Each project exposes us to new needs.
When one of them can be useful to other agencies, local authorities, companies, or independent developers, it makes sense to share it with the whole community.
Exclusive Boolean is a modest contribution, but it clearly illustrates our way of working: turning a concrete need encountered in production into a reusable, documented, and shared component.
Do you have a specific business rule or a need that doesn't yet exist in Drupal? Let's talk together : we like turning our clients' challenges into long-term solutions, and sometimes even into new open source contributions.