Custom Drupal Views: Filters, Plugins, and REST Export

From our practice: a client wants a price range filter, but Drupal only offers a text field. Or need to display products from a custom table, but Views only works with entities. In such cases we develop custom plugins — and it's faster than it seems. Over 8 years of experience in Drupal allows us to implement such tasks turnkey in 2–3 days. The performance of a custom solution is 3 times higher than similar via Preprocess or template hacks. And if a REST API for external systems is needed — Views provides ready JSON export with CORS configuration in half an hour.

Why Views Requires Customization?

Standard Views covers 80% of tasks — filters, sorts, pagination, export. The remaining 20% are custom logic: filter by related entities with aggregation, output data from external API, non-standard row format. Without code these tasks are either unsolvable or require template hacks that kill performance. A custom plugin works 3 times faster than a similar solution via Preprocess. For example, a typical problem is INP (Interaction to Next Paint) above 200 ms when rendering a complex list. A proper row plugin with node tag caching reduces INP to 50 ms.

How to Create a Custom Filter in Half a Day?

The fastest way is hook_views_query_alter(). Suppose you need to filter products by price from and to. Pass GET parameters price_from and price_to, add conditions to the query. This does not require creating a plugin, but the logic remains in the module. For reusability we write a filter plugin with @ViewsFilter annotation. This approach ensures clean architecture and the ability to test the filter separately. We use PHP 8.3+ with typing and strict types — this reduces bugs at review stage.

What If Standard Views Doesn't Work with a Custom Table?

If your data is stored in a separate table (e.g., product_stats), Views won't see it by default. You need to register the table via hook_views_data(): specify base field, relationships to node_field_data, and data types for each column. After that the table becomes available in UI. Then write filter and sort plugins if the data type is non-standard. In one project we connected a custom table with stock and discounts exactly this way — it took 4 hours including tests.

How We Do It: Tech Stack and Case Study

We use Drupal 10/11, PHP 8.3+, Drush for config export. Example from our practice: an online store needed a custom block "Discounted products" with a filter by discount percentage and sorting by stock quantity. Standard Views cannot work with custom table product_stats. We registered the table via hook_views_data(), wrote a filter plugin for discount percentage and a sort plugin for stock. Result: block renders in 40 ms, cached by node tags.

Configuration of such View in YAML:

# views.view.discount_products.yml id: discount_products label: 'Discounted products' module: views description: '' base_table: product_stats base_field: id display: default: display_options: fields: title: id: title table: node_field_data field: title relationship: nid price: id: price table: node__field_price field: field_price_value discount_percent: id: discount_percent table: product_stats field: discount_percent stock: id: stock table: product_stats field: stock_quantity filters: status: value: '1' discount_percent: id: discount_percent table: product_stats field: discount_percent operator: '>=,' value: { min: '', max: '' } expose: operator: 'discount_percent_op' identifier: discount sorts: stock_quantity: order: ASC pager: type: some options: { items_per_page: 10 } relationships: nid: id: nid table: product_stats field: node_id relationship: node_field_data required: true style: type: html_list row: type: fields block_1: display_plugin: block 

Hook for custom filter:

<?php use Drupal\views\ViewExecutable; use Drupal\views\Plugin\views\query\QueryPluginBase; function my_module_views_query_alter(ViewExecutable $view, QueryPluginBase $query): void { if ($view->id() !== 'discount_products') return; $discount = \Drupal::request()->query->get('discount'); if (!empty($discount['min'])) { $query->addWhereExpression(0, 'product_stats.discount_percent >= :min', [':min' => (float) $discount['min']]); } if (!empty($discount['max'])) { $query->addWhereExpression(0, 'product_stats.discount_percent <= :max', [':max' => (float) $discount['max']]); } } 

Row plugin for product card:

<?php namespace Drupal\my_module\Plugin\views\row; use Drupal\views\Plugin\views\row\RowPluginBase; use Drupal\views\ResultRow; /** * @ViewsRow( * id = "product_card", * title = @Translation("Product card"), * help = @Translation("Renders products as cards"), * display_types = {"normal"}, * ) */ class ProductCardRow extends RowPluginBase { public function render(ResultRow $row): array { $node = $row->_entity; $view_builder = \Drupal::entityTypeManager()->getViewBuilder('node'); return [ '#theme' => 'product_card', '#node' => $node, '#title' => $node->getTitle(), '#price' => $node->get('field_price')->value, '#discount' => $row->discount_percent, '#stock' => $row->stock_quantity, '#url' => $node->toUrl()->toString(), '#cache' => [ 'tags' => $node->getCacheTags(), 'contexts' => ['user.roles'], ], ]; } } 

Programmatic use of View:

<?php use Drupal\views\Views; $view = Views::getView('discount_products'); $view->setDisplay('block_1'); $view->setExposedInput(['discount' => ['min' => 20, 'max' => 50]]); $view->execute(); $results = $view->result; foreach ($results as $row) { $node = $row->_entity; // render } 

Registration of custom table for Views:

<?php function my_module_views_data(): array { $data = []; $data['product_stats']['table']['group'] = t('Product Stats'); $data['product_stats']['table']['base'] = [ 'field' => 'id', 'title' => t('Product statistics'), 'help' => t('Custom table with discount and stock'), ]; $data['product_stats']['node_id'] = [ 'title' => t('Node ID'), 'relationship' => [ 'base' => 'node_field_data', 'base field' => 'nid', 'id' => 'standard', 'label' => t('Node'), ], 'filter' => ['id' => 'numeric'], 'sort' => ['id' => 'standard'], 'field' => ['id' => 'numeric'], ]; $data['product_stats']['discount_percent'] = [ 'title' => t('Discount percent'), 'filter' => ['id' => 'numeric'], 'sort' => ['id' => 'standard'], 'field' => ['id' => 'numeric'], ]; $data['product_stats']['stock_quantity'] = [ 'title' => t('Stock quantity'), 'filter' => ['id' => 'numeric'], 'sort' => ['id' => 'standard'], 'field' => ['id' => 'numeric'], ]; return $data; } 

Approach Comparison: hook vs plugin

Work Process: From Analysis to Deployment

What's Included in Custom Views Development

• Custom plugins for filters, sorts, fields, and rows
• REST Export display with CORS configuration
• Integration with custom database tables
• Documentation on usage and further customization
• Compatibility guarantee with latest Drupal versions

Timeline and Cost

Timeline depends on complexity: a simple custom filter — from half a day, a complex project with custom table and REST — 2–3 days. Cost is calculated individually. On average such customizations save up to 60% of budget compared to template hacks. Contact us — we will assess your project for free. Get a consultation on architecture and optimization.

For more on Views API see the official Drupal documentation. Order development — get a ready solution with compatibility and performance guarantee.