Why do we call ourselves “Chapter Three”? It’s often said that in a novel, the real action doesn’t start until three chapters in, with the first two used to set up the characters and the scene. We like to think of ourselves as a place where the “real action” takes place, hence the name Chapter Three. It’s a name we landed on nearly two decades ago and one that still suits us.
So who are we – such that this name synonymous with action befits us? As we describe on our home page, we are innovators, creators, leaders, designers, strategists, content therapists, and experts. To illustrate how we live up to our own messaging, we’ll dive into these self-designations one at a time.
What exactly does it mean to be an innovator? While an invention is something created out of the blue (like the telephone), an innovation is a creative modification of an existing technology (like the iPhone). At Chapter Three, we save ourselves and our clients time and money by not trying to reinvent the wheel. Instead, we leverage existing technologies, improving upon and customizing them to maximize efficiency and productivity.
Throughout our blog, we highlight the small but significant adaptations we’ve made to pre-existing tools and technologies that have made life easier for our clients and our designers and developers. It’s how we’ve always operated. The people we hire are natural problem solvers, and when they hit a snag, they innovate a solution.
The Big One: Next-Drupal
Like everyone else, our team members found themselves with extra time on their hands during the pandemic. This is when we dreamed up Next-Drupal, a state-of-the-art, Next.js-based, front-end framework for building decoupled Drupal sites. We launched Next-Drupal in late 2021 and will release the 2.0 version in February of this year.
Any major feat of innovation like Next-Drupal has room for improvement. Our team has, since the introduction of Next-Drupal, been busy with secondary innovations related to it. These include creating custom code for handling 404 errors in Next.js, developing a DrupalClient.fetch method for making GraphQL requests in Next-Drupal, and a figuring out a patchless strategy for integrating excerpts with JSON:API results in Next.js.
Other Innovations
Our innovations at Chapter Three also go beyond the parameters of Next-Drupal. Among our more notable contributions to the Drupal community have been:
- Document OCR, an AI tool for turning PDFs into HTML
- Admin Dialogs, a custom module for displaying forms and log messages in a dialog window that reduces the number of page loads
- A custom Drush plugin for exposing relevant data for consumption by third-party APIs
- Best practices for programming calendars
- Single sign-on integrations for developer portals
- An innovative approach to creating a microsite ecosystem using a single back-end platform and codebase
We’ve also approached design in an innovative fashion over the years. In our groundbreaking work with the Judicial Council of California, we expanded what the Storybook platform could do in creating flexible front-ends for the council’s constellation of websites with a unified back-end. We’ve also encouraged the introduction of design systems by the JCC and other multisite clients as a pivotal design element.
Innovation and the Spirit of Open-Source
At Chapter Three, we care a lot about the broader Drupal community and the principles of open-source technology. We participate in DrupalCons and other open-source events, generally with something new to contribute to the community at large. And we’re not the only ones. Drupal wouldn’t be the powerful and versatile platform it is today without the contributions of thousands of innovators from around the world and across the industry.
With an open-source solution like Drupal, what you’re getting is the sum total of a community of contributors working on everything from safety enhancement to bug fixes to new design features. With a proprietary platform, on the other hand, you’re limited to what the employees of a given company have to contribute.
At Chapter Three, we are not only innovators, but also a small cog in a giant innovative machine. We’re here to help you solve problems in your digital ecosystem. If you have a project with complex parameters and tough-to-meet needs, we’d love to hear from you. Contact us today and let’s get innovating!
