How to enhance your Drupal Headless Commerce website with a decoupled approach
If you're a Drupal Commerce user, you know that the platform is incredibly powerful and flexible. However, there are times when you may need to enhance your website with features that Drupal Commerce doesn't yet offer.
In this blog post, we'll show you how to use a decoupled approach to add those features while still benefiting from the power and flexibility of Drupal Commerce. Stay tuned!
What is a Headless CMS?
A headless CMS is a content management system that stores your content in a database and makes it accessible via an API. This means that the frontend of your website (the part that your visitors see) can be built using any programming language or framework, as long as it can communicate with the CMS API.
There are many benefits to using a headless CMS, but the two that are most relevant to Drupal Commerce users are flexibility and integration.
With a headless CMS, you're not limited to using Drupal's templating system. This means that you can use whatever tools and frameworks you're already familiar with to build the frontend of your website. And since the CMS is decoupled from the frontend, it's much easier to integrate with third-party services and applications.
Why use a decoupled approach?
There are many reasons why you might want to use a decoupled approach with Drupal Commerce. Maybe you're looking to add a feature that Drupal Commerce doesn't yet offer. Or maybe you want to use a different templating system or programming language for the frontend of your website.
Decoupling can also make your website more scalable. If you have a high-traffic website, decoupling the frontend from the backend can help improve performance by offloading some of the work to the frontend server.
Finally, decoupling can make your website more manageable. If you have a team of developers working on the frontend and backend of your website, decoupling can help them work more independently from each other.
How to enhance your Drupal Commerce website with a decoupled approach
If you're looking to enhance your Drupal Commerce website with a decoupled approach, there are a few things you'll need to do.
First, you'll need to install and enable the Drupal Commerce API module. This module exposes all of Drupal Commerce's core functionality via an API, allowing you to build the frontend of your website using any programming language or framework.
Next, you'll need to choose a JavaScript framework for the frontend of your website. There are many options to choose from, but we recommend React or Angular.
Once you've chosen a JavaScript framework, you'll need to install and configure the Drupal Commerce API module on your Drupal website. This module will provide you with the ability to query the Drupal Commerce API from your JavaScript code.
Finally, you'll need to write the code for the frontend of your website. This can be anything from a simple HTML/CSS website to a fully-featured single-page application.
Once you've finished writing the code for the frontend of your website, you'll be able to deploy it to a server and start using it with your Drupal Commerce website.
Final Thoughts
Drupal headless CMS is a great choice for decoupled websites. Drupal is a great choice for building a headless CMS. It has a robust API that makes it easy to access your content from anywhere, and it's very flexible when it comes to structuring that content.
Plus, there are already a few great options for headless Drupal modules that make it easy to get started with a decoupled website.
Headless Drupal Development
If you're interested in using a headless approach to enhance your Drupal Commerce website, we can help. We're experts in both Drupal and decoupled web development, so we know how to build websites that are flexible, scalable, and easy to maintain.
Get in touch today to learn more about how we can help you enhance your Drupal Commerce website with a decoupled approach.