In this guide we will walk you through the process of installing and setting up the Shorthand Drupal plugin.

You can download one of Shorthand's Drupal plugins from the Drupal.org module page. For detailed installation steps go to our setup guide below.

The version 4.0 plugin provides a repository/library of stories fetched independently of posts. Shorthand stories can be fetched and updated with each version being stored. These versions can be used interchangeably as post content should the need arise, such as reverting to a previous version of a story.

NOTE: Once you've setup Shorthand's Drupal plugin, you must prepare your Shorthand stories from the Shorthand publishing panel to make them visible to the plugin:
​https://support.shorthand.com/en/articles/113-plugins-for-wordpress-and-drupal

The Shorthand Drupal module can be installed via a file download or through Composer (more advanced).

You will need:

To install a module via file download, follow these steps:

1. Go to our Shorthand Drupal Module page and download the latest version under the “Releases” header. Select “Download zip” and keep a record of where the file is saved.

2. log in to your Drupal Admin and navigate to Extend > Add New Module . Select the Zip file and click Continue.

This will install the Shorthand Module but won’t activate it on the site, you will need to select Activate newly added modules and scroll down to the bottom of the page.

3. Add your Shorthand API Token to Drupal

4. Find the entry marked Shorthand and select both the Shorthand and Shorthand Examples modules and then click Install.

To install a module via Composer, follow these steps:

Installing via Composer requires you to have shell access to the server which is hosting your Drupal website. If you are unfamiliar with this, you should install the module manually via the file method described above.

1. Find the latest version of the Shorthand Drupal module you wish to install from the Drupal Module page under Releases.

2. Copy the latest install snippet, eg: composer require 'drupal/shorthand:^4.0'

3. Paste this into your shell/console in a directory the Drupal site is installed under, for example:

This will install the Drupal Module onto your website but won’t activate the Shorthand or Shorthand Examples modules.

5. Add your Shorthand API Token to Drupal

6. Select Extend in your Drupal website Admin, then scroll down to the Shorthand modules and select both. Click Install.

Once you’ve installed the Shorthand Module into your website, you will need to add your Shorthand API Token to Drupal. See this support document for instructions on how to generate and access a token from the Shorthand dashboard.

To add a story from the Shorthand platform to your Drupal site, you will need to navigate to Content in the Drupal admin and click the Shorthand tab.

This section will allow you to add stories via the Download story link under the Action column.

Update a story from the same page as adding a story, simply navigate to Content then choose the Shorthand tab (/admin/content/shorthand) and click Update Story next to any of those you wish to update.

This will update Drupal with any updates made to the story on the Shorthand platform since the last download/update, but it won't update/republish the published version of story in Drupal. To update the published version you can go to Content (/admin/content), find the story and select Edit and it should take you to a page like the one shown below where you can select the most recently updated version, ensure the Published box is checked and then select Save to publish the updates.
​

Reverting to a prior published version
You can revert to a previously published version of a story in Drupal by selecting the date/time corresponding to the version you want to revert to and then selecting Save to re-publish it, but note that those updates will not be reflected in Shorthand, so if you want to keep the Shorthand version of the story in sync with Drupal you will need to manually make the updates in Shorthand.

The Drupal 7 plugin is simple in its design and use. Upon a post being saved or created a fresh version of the selected Shorthand story will be fetched; which can take some time.

From the "Content" page select "Add content".

Select "Shorthand story".

From here you can select any Shorthand story that's set as ready to publish.

Upon selecting a story the other fields will populate with data provided by Shorthand's API, e.g. tags, title, authors etc.

Upon saving the post the selected Shorthand story will be downloaded from Shorthand; larger stories may take some time to download.

Once saved, the story is ready.

Every Drupal installation may have aspects to the theme or other plugins that might interfere with the display of a Shorthand story once imported, most of which can be addressed with some custom css code changes to the story or Drupal theme.

Every issue can be unique and we do offer support for customers when setting up their Drupal integration with Shorthand.