Patches are an integral part of the Drupal development cycle. When something needs to be fixed, or new functionality added, it must come in the form of a patch before it can be applied to the project. Simplytest.me makes it super simple to apply and test a patch without needing commandline skills or any tech proficiency at all, really.

Before I go any further, I want to give credit where credit is due. Cathy Theys posted a great blog post on the Comm Press Blog and this is basically just a video presentation of that blog post, with slight modification.

The first thing we need to do is find a patch to test. This patch adds a usability feature to remember a username when someone incorrectly attempts to login, and then clicks the “reset password” link. Let’s test it using Simplytest.me.

Without the patch

First, let’s take a look at how Drupal 8 functions without the patch.

• Go to simplytest.me/project/drupal/8.x
• Click “Launch Sandbox”
• Complete the installation process
• Log out of the site
• Enter an incorrect password
• Click on the link “Have you forgotten your password?”

Here you’ll notice that the username field is empty. The patch we want to test should auto-fill the field with the username we entered on the last page. Let’s apply the patch and see if it works.

• Go to drupal.org/node/1952196
• Copy the patch link
• Go to simplytest.me/project/drupal/8.x
• Click “Advanced options”
• Click “Add a patch”
• Paste the link in the box
• Click “Launch Sandbox”
• Complete the installation process
• Log out of the site
• Enter an incorrect password
• Click on the link “Have you forgotten your password?”

This time, the username is retained, and we can simply click the “E-mail new password” button.

And now that we’ve tested the patch and it’s working as expected, we can change the status to “reviewed & tested by the community” and get this committed!

This example focuses on Drupal 8, but you can just as easily do this for a Drupal 6 or 7 project as well. One thing to keep in mind is that while you can apply multiple patches on Simplytest.me, all patches will be applied to the initial project that you select, so there’s currently no way to apply patches to multiple projects at once.