Developing a CiviCRM Drupal module

In this recipe, we will explore how a CiviCRM Drupal module works. The basic code for this module is already available online.

How to do it…

In this example, we have a contact that is in a specific group. We are going to fire off an e-mail if someone edits that contact.

1. Set up your own local development environment.
2. Download, install, and enable the Drupal Devel module, available at http://drupal.org/project/devel.
3. Navigate to https://github.com/eileenmcnaughton/civicrm_developer.
4. Download the ZIP file for the module and expand it. It expands as a directory called civicrm_developer-master.
5. Rename it civicrm_developer.
6. Install and enable the module.
7. In CiviCRM, add a contact to a group. Make a note of the contact ID; in this case, it was 51.
   

   Here, a contact was added to the Media group.

8. Navigate to Contacts | Manage groups. Note the ID of the Media group. In this case, the ID was 7. In your own implementation, the ID is likely to be different.
9. Click on the Edit...