BE: Hide the Description field in VA footer menu UIs

[randimays]

Description

In the CMS for the VA footer (both columns and bottom rail), the Description field is used with help text above that reads Shown when hovering over the menu link. This is inaccurate; DSVA does not support using tooltips (link hover behavior) for accessibility reasons.

We should remove or update this text to more accurately reflect what this description field can be used for.

In the case of the VA footer, we will not be relying on this field at all (even though it is filled out for most, if not all of the current footer links). We are updating the footer code to pull the Title field instead, which is more accurate.

User story

AS A CMS editor
I WANT the Description field to be hidden since it's not used
SO THAT I don't mistakenly use it.

Engineering notes / background

Leverage scaffolding for this approach that we already used on menus driving homepage Hub list.: docroot/modules/custom/va_gov_home/src/EventSubscriber/FormEventSubscriber.php

Analytics considerations

Quality / testing notes

Acceptance criteria

• Description field is hidden from Drupal footer links menus
  • VA.gov Footer bottom rail menu
  • VA.gov Footer menu

[wesrowe]

This needs "design" on new help text – @thejordanwood or I can probably come up with something once we understand what the Description field is really used for.

[thejordanwood]

Since the description field is currently not needed, the team has decided that it's best to hide the field to avoid any confusion.

Slack thread where the decision was made.

[wesrowe]

Ticket body is updated consistent with decision above. @dsasser @chri5tia, assigned to you for async refinement.

[chri5tia]

Strategy

I plan to create an array of menu link forms by ID and populate it with the footer and bottom rail form IDs.
This array can be used in the future for other menu forms easily.
I will create a function called removeMenuLinkDescription(), not specific to footers so that it can be used by other menus.
The function will use hook_form_alter() to remove the Description field before rendering.

It'll have to be added to the formAlter() function that already exists for the va_gov_home event subscriber.

I will leave the field exposed to admins because there is content in the field, in case it needs to be removed.
I will change the help text of that field to reflect that it should not be used/that it is deprecated.

[dsasser]

Strategy

I plan to create an array of menu link forms by ID and populate it with the footer and bottom rail form IDs. This array can be used in the future for other menu forms easily. I will create a function called removeMenuLinkDescription(), not specific to footers so that it can be used by other menus. The function will use hook_form_alter() to remove the Description field before rendering.

It'll have to be added to the formAlter() function that already exists for the va_gov_home event subscriber.

I will leave the field exposed to admins because there is content in the field, in case it needs to be removed. I will change the help text of that field to reflect that it should not be used/that it is deprecated.

Overall this should work fine. I do have some thoughts/suggestions:

• Create a new module, va_gov_menu (or something similar)
• In that module, create a trait (or service) that any module can use, and add the new removeMenuLinkDescription() method there.
• Move the hubMenuHideAddtributes(), hubMenuHideExpanded(), hubMenuHideViewMode(), and hubMenuHideParentLink() methods from Drupal\va_gov_home\EventSubscriber into the new service/trait.
• In va_gov_menu, add an event subscriber that will respond to the menu IDs (using the array as you suggested)
• Leverage the trait to make the changes to the menus.

[chri5tia]

ACs are met. I decided to table the work to make this extendable to other menus for now until it's needed and focus on other work.
main...chri5tia:va.gov-cms:VACMS-14793-Hide-Footer-Description-Field-B-Service

[chri5tia]

Not sure what happened but the PR doesn't seem to be attached anymore. This still needs a review: #15069

[wesrowe]

just noticed this one might be languishing – thought I'd call it out so there's not a rush to close.