Using responsive images adjusting well to the size of the user’s smartphone is one of the important factors of website success. Especially, on the Drupal platform, optimized images play a vital role in enhancing the overall loading speed of the platform, image interaction, and optimum user experience.
If you have using Drupal 7 for a while, setting up responsive images require a third-party extension. However, Drupal 8 follows a simple step-by-step method to fully optimize the images according to the different sizes of devices.
So, here in this post, we will be discussing the steps required to set up responsive images using the assistance of the Drupal 8 developer.
But, before we start this short guide, let’s first understand the importance of responsive images.
Why Responsive Images are Important?
Images are building blocks of your Drupal website. They are larger in size as compared to the textual content and play a significant role in catching the user’s attention. If images take more time to download on your platform, whether accessed on desktop, tablet, or mobile, it will surely degrade the performance. As a result, users stay away from your website.
Therefore, it is imperative to optimize images and make responsive according to the different screen size & user experience. Of course, this makes the overall user experience goes satisfied and engaged while looking at the perfectly fitted images on the respective device.
Images Styles of Drupal Platform
There are two types of image types available with the Drupal platform. One is Image Styles and the other is Responsive Drupal images styles. No doubt, our concern here is fully inclined towards responsive images to capture the user’s attention. Still, get to know the difference between the two.
Image Styles: These are the original images that you display at the frontend only after cropping the same. Such files remain unchanged of their original value and only shorten or bigger in size as compared to different screen sizes.
Responsive Image Styles: Responsive images possess much interactive and engagement value as compared to image styles. These images are optimized according to the mapped media and device’s screen size. It automatically adjusts to the specific version of the user’s device to display an engaging graphical representation. Most importantly, responsive Drupal images hold more value compared with image styles to make your website goes fast and highly responsive.
Step-By-Step Process to Make Images Responsive on Drupal 8
To enable responsive images on the Drupal 8 platform, simply hire Drupal developers and let then follow the below-mentioned steps:
* Enable the responsive image module
* Setup the breakpoints
* Setup the image styles for responsive images
* Assign the responsive images style to the image field
Now, let’s discuss the above points in brief detail.
Enable the Responsive Image Module
Just like in Drupal 7, there is no need to download an extra image module in Drupal 8. It’s an inbuilt feature in the platform that can be enabled using the following few steps.
* Go to the Admin>>Configuration
* Click on the checkbox next to the “Responsive Image”.
* Click “Install”.
Setup the breakpoints
In case, you are using the default theme, Bartik of the Drupal 8 platform, then there is no need to set up breakpoints. Otherwise, you have to set up the same for the theme directory using the following steps.
* Create a file in the root of the theme directory called “yourthemename.breakpoints.yml”.
You can create several breakpoints and each one depicts the required size of the image to load on a particular device.
Setup the image styles for responsive images
In this step, you need to create image sizes for different breakpoints. There will be one image style for each breakpoint that you can set. Simply follow the below-mentioned tutorial.
* Image style of 400px by 200px for a minimum breakpoint for 0px up to the breakpoint not more than 740px. It is used for smartphones.
* Image style of 1000px by 450px for a minimum breakpoint of 740px up to the breakpoint not more than 1200px. It is used for tablets.
* Image style of 500px by 400px for a minimum breakpoint of 1200px and above. It is used for desktop.
Assign the responsive images style to the image field
In this stage, you will assign image style to each breakpoint in the following manner.
Go to Home>>Administration>>Configuration>>Media (/admin/config/media/responsive-image-style) and click on “Add Responsive Image”.
Conclusion
Now, you must have got the idea of enabling responsive image style for the Drupal 8 platform to enrich the overall user experience. It is a modern-day and result-oriented approach to make essential changes in the platform keeping users in mind. Also, avail best Drupal Web Development Services from OrangeMantrato optimize your platform to receive maximum conversions.