It seemed daunting to me - could I really become an official back end specialist? By now, if you are experimenting and testing Drupal out as much as you should’ve been, you will have run into quite a few hooks. I studied for this exam longer than any of the other ones. Study what Acquia says is on the test but also get experience by doing it yourself. Pick something you want to accomplish and then Google how to do it with a theme. Get familiar with how to move and show things in blocks and view modes, it all comes naturally as you try to accomplish simple coding goals. There’s a lot of overriding in the theme layer, so learn the naming conventions and you’ll be fine. Look at what Drupal is doing in these functions and get familiar with it, and a lot of the rest is easy. If you look at this link ( ) you will see a list of functions related to the Theme API. If you poke around ’s theming documentation you’ll run into a lot of example code if you know what to search for. I believe that when you get to this level of development, it really helps to see example code. Studying for this exam was eye-opening for me. I started looking at code that I had written that could have very easily and effectively accomplished the same thing but in more extendable, reusable way. Whenever I was outputting HTML it was always raw from a module or theme. I thought that stuff was only for base themes and popular contributed themes. Front End Specialist Examīefore taking this test I had never used the theme() function or the hook hook_theme() before. Do this with Views, PHP (object oriented too), MySQL and a Linux server from Digital Ocean or AWS. The more comfortable you are with a variety of issues and roadblocks that you run into and fix during the process, the better you will do on the test. There are examples, documentation, questions and answers, and issue queues all over the Internet. Create a page that prints out your username. Pick something simple that you want to accomplish and then Google how to do it with a module. My advice is similar to my advice for the Site Builder exam poke around. You can accomplish quite a bit without diving too far into the back end. You don’t have to be a full stack developer or a back end guru to pass this test Drupal 7 does a lot of heavy lifting for you if all you’re looking to do is extend and create modules and themes. They also expect more PHP knowledge than the first test. This is where experience with modules becomes important. Study what shows up on these pages and any more of the basic Drupal 7 features and you’ll get familiar enough to answer the questions correctly. Create a taxonomy library and then some terms. Create a block with some content in it and get it to show up on the page. Create a content type and some nodes to go along with it. Poke around in the content, user, and block pages. Though the questions are based on certain things, there is an element of the test that requires you to have used a Drupal 7 site before. Whether it’s a MAMP install or Digital Ocean Droplet, have access to a site that you can learn from. The #1 piece of advice I have for people that are about to take the Drupal 7 Site Builder exam is this: get access to a Drupal site that you can mess around with without consequences. You don’t have to be comfortable with the languages except for HTML, so I wouldn’t focus on them too hard. The programming languages it states you need to have experience with are HTML, CSS, JavaScript/jQuery, and PHP. It states that there will be questions about content modeling, content and user management, programming skills, module and theme management, and security. I started by reading Acquia’s description of what one needs to know before taking the test. My not-so-secret way to calm my nerves is simple: preparation and hard work. In general, I recommend that if you closely follow the content and notes provided by Acquia on their Certification Program page, you will be prepared to pass on your first attempt. In early 2019 I started preparing for the Site Builder exam and I developed the study plan that I used for each of the four Drupal 7 exams. My goal was to become an Acquia Certified Grand Master in Drupal 7. Taylor shared his thoughts on how he worked through this challenge: Congratulations to Taylor Evanson who is Agileana’s first Acquia Certified Grand Master in Drupal 7!
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