Planet Drupal

The question we want to answer in this blog post is whether Drupal is still the leading CMS platform in 2022 and beyond. If you have been thinking of trying out Drupal, this article will help you decide whether it is still worth it in 2022. Let’s jump right in!

I have been attending Drupal Dev Days for the fifth time and I have to say that this year’s event was as great as the other ones. The tech talks were really interesting and I learned a lot about new trends in the industry. In this article my highlights.

We are working on porting Feeds to Drupal 8 today at the Global Sprints weekend in Amsterdam. We would like to know from you how you use these and similar import/export modules and what functionality you like but still miss in Drupal 8.

As always the Drupal Association puts videe-recording of most sessions on DrupalCon Youtube.
That is also true for the now ongoing DrupalCon New Orleans 2016.
An excellent option for learning and understanding Drupal. (and following the event!)

Drupal 8 is better than Drupal 7. Data-modelling, performance, multi-language. It feels so much more robust this day. More functionality is in-core and fully tested.
In a conceptual way, Drupal 8 is not so different from Drupal 7. The Administration-UI’s are the same and you probably will also use the same modules for a project. Site builders will feel really comfortable.
All-in-all I am getting excited about Drupal 8!

More than 125+ sessions from last week's Drupalcon in Barcelona are on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/user/DrupalAssociation/videos

Posted by the Drupal Association.

Hope you can learn from it too!

One little Drupal community secret: the main-event of a DrupalCon might be sprinting... Right now (Saturday 26th Sep) the Drupal community is pushing hard on the first next-gen CMS that will have stable releases early 2016.

This article contains a detailed instruction on how to setup the Entity Translation module for Drupal 7 websites.
Entity Translation is part of Drupal 8 core and its approach is to translate fields instead of full nodes/entities.

Goal of this tutorial is to set up a multilingual website that can be navigated in multiple languages by visitors and to enable the content to be easily manageable by editors / cms administrators.
To get multilingual right, it’s critical that you configure your content-types and fields with care and precision and upfront, because if content is already in your database it is almost impossible to change these configurations.
So let's go.

Recently I was building a Drupal site with Display Suite, Entity Reference and Bootstrap. In this blog I want to share why that combination and some tricks I used to get a great frontend and editor-UX.

Today we are talking about DDEV, The DDEV Community, and It’s Future Sustainability with guest Randy Fay and Andrew Berry. We’ll also cover DDEV Drupal Contrib as our module of the week.

For show notes visit: www.talkingDrupal.com/456

Topics

• What is DDEV
• In March you posted the DDEV Project Plan for 2024, what is the contributor training initiative
• DDEV has grown rapidly over the past few years, what do you attribute that to
• You seem to be the face of DDEV, who else is involved
• How is DDEV funded
• What happens when you retire
• Does the DDEV Foundation have employees
• What is DDEV coded in
• What is your favorite feature of DDEV
• What is next
• How can people get involved

Resources

• DDEV Project 2024 Plans
• DDEV Contributor Live Training
• Scheduling and signup
• DDEV Discord
• Nerdsniping XKCD Comic
• Level one learning xz utils

Guests

Andrew Berry - deviantintegral

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Randy Fay - rfay

MOTW Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted a local DDEV environment optimized for working on a Drupal contrib project? There’s a DDEV add-on for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • DDEV Drupal Contrib
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Apr 2023 by Moshe Weitzman, a Drupal core maintainer, and according to his resume the first American to contribute to Drupal
  • Versions available: 1.0.0-rc8
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained
  • Test coverage
  • Documentation - Lengthy README
  • Number of open issues: 2 open issues, 1 of which is a bug
• Module features and usage
  • The add-on adds two ddev commands to help during setup:
  • ddev poser creates a temporary composer.contrib.json, adding drupal/core-recommended as a dev dependency. It also runs composer install and yarn install so that all dependencies are available
  • The additional ddev symlink-project command adds symlinks from your project files to an expected path within the custom modules directory of the installed version of Drupal
  • Once it’s set up, you can easily run tests locally exactly the way they will be run in GitlabCI. It’s also even easier to apply any of the automatic fixes that are available, for example by running ddev phpcbf or ddev eslint with the –fix flag
  • You can also commit the generated .ddev directory inside your project, to make it easy for other contributors to use the same tools
  • I will note that after running ddev poser I got errors trying to use composer to add any other projects to the local environment, for example to use admin toolbar for manual testing
  • That said, this is another great example of how the set of Drupal developer tools is always improving, and also illustrates to the power of DDEV’s add-ons

Dear Readers,

Marketing in the open-source community often grapples with a unique set of perceptions and challenges. Traditionally, the open-source ethos values transparency, community collaboration, and accessibility, sometimes viewing commercial activities with scepticism. However, effective marketing is not antithetical to open-source values; it can amplify the reach and impact of projects like Drupal. By embracing strategic marketing, open-source projects can attract a wider audience, ensuring their tools and innovations benefit more users and contributors. This expanded reach helps sustain the project's growth and ensures it remains competitive in a rapidly evolving technological landscape.

The importance of marketing for open-source projects like Drupal cannot be overstated. It is not merely about promoting a product but telling a compelling story that resonates with potential users and contributors. Shawn Perritt, the Brand and Creative Director of Acquia, who is leading the brand refresh, believes that every great idea should live at the intersection of creativity and commerce.

According to Suzanne Dergacheva, the lead of the Promote Drupal team, strategic rebranding and marketing efforts help to refresh Drupal’s image, making it more relatable and appealing. These efforts ensure that Drupal continues to attract diverse contributors who bring fresh perspectives and innovations. The right marketing strategies help articulate Drupal's value proposition, highlighting its robustness, flexibility, and vibrant community, driving adoption and engagement.

The recent Drupal brand refresh, discussed at the Drupal Branding Panel session at DrupalCon Portland 2024, exemplifies how marketing can reinvigorate an open-source project. The rebranding initiative introduces new design elements and a refreshed DrupalCon logo, better capturing the spirit of open source and Drupal’s innovative edge without losing its core values. This strategic rebranding is not just a visual update; it represents a concerted effort to position Drupal as a leading digital experience platform, ensuring its relevance and appeal in the market.

With that, let's move on to the important stories of last week.

Last week, Suzanne Dergacheva, co-founder and strategist at Evolving Web, also the lead of the Promote Drupal Initiative and a member of the Drupal Branding Panel, spoke with The DropTimes. In this interview, Suzanne discusses the ongoing Drupal rebranding efforts. She shares insights into the key factors that prompted the rebranding, the collaborative contributions from the community, and the challenges faced in a competitive landscape. Suzanne also highlights how the new branding strategy aligns with Drupal’s commitment to the open web and the significance of community feedback in shaping the final decisions. This conversation provides a comprehensive overview of the exciting changes underway for Drupal, complementing our earlier interview with Shawn Perritt, about the brand refresh.

Another highlight from last week is that Kazima Abbas, sub-editor of The DropTimes, had the chance to connect with Christina Lockhart, Digital Marketing Manager with the Drupal Association. The interview explores her role in promoting Drupal through digital marketing, her efforts to empower women in the tech community, and her initiatives to support women within the Drupal ecosystem. Christina also shares her insights on ensuring equal access to leadership roles and the potential impact of emerging trends like AI on Drupal's future.

The 20thDrupalJam was celebrated in Utrecht, the Netherlands, with over 330 participants in attendance. This year's event was especially festive, highlighted by a personal keynote from Dries Buytaert. The day featured a variety of engaging presentations, insightful workshops, and stimulating discussions and panels. Esmeralda Braad-Tijhoff shared the key highlights.

The Drupal AI Meetup debuted last week, marking the beginning of a series of quarterly meetups dedicated to exploring the intersection of Drupal and artificial intelligence. This new initiative aims to bring together enthusiasts and experts to delve into the dynamic fusion of these fields, writes Nico Grienauer, the event organiser.

Drupal 10.3 is available now! Drupal has announced the release of Drupal 10.3, the third and final feature release for Drupal 10. This update introduces several new features, including an experimental Navigation user interface, stable Workspaces functionality, and Single-Directory Components support, among others.

A significant development has emerged in the Drupal ecosystem with the announcement of a new AI Initiative module. Reported by Jamie Abrahams from FreelyGive and Marcus Johansson from OSK Berlin, this module aims to consolidate the best features of various AI modules into a comprehensive set of foundational tools for all AI applications in Drupal.

Last week, Drupal introduced a new community Frontend Bundler Initiative to address the lack of a standard method for installing JavaScript dependencies in Drupal. The initiative aims to create a unified approach to managing these dependencies, drawing on discussions and collaborations with key contributors like Lee Rowlands and Théodore Biadala. Additionally, Jürgen Haas announced the release of ECA 2.0.0 for Drupal 10.3 and 11, featuring significant improvements such as dynamic event subscriptions, 74 new plugins, and a comprehensive code clean-up. 

Aten Group is hosting a webinar titled "Migrate with Might: Tips and Tricks for Drupal's Migration Tools" on June 26, 2024, at 2 PM EDT. Joel Steidl, VP of Engineering at Aten, will lead the session. The webinar aims to explore Drupal's versatile migration system, which is instrumental in data integration tasks. The DropTimes has released a complete list of Drupal events for this week. Find the guide here.

In interesting news, Lauri Timmanee has joined the DrupalCamp Spain 2024 as the featured speaker. The event has also extended its deadline for papers until June 30, 2024, and has opened the call for training proposals. Also, Submissions for the 2024 Splash Awards Deutschland und Österreich, honouring outstanding Drupal projects in Germany and Austria, are now open until July 31.

PHPCamp 2024, held on June 8th, was a resounding success. The event stood out with its relaxed atmosphere, where knowledge-sharing, impromptu demos and collaborative problem-solving took centre stage. 

amazee.io has partnered with ANNAI Inc. to bring its open-source Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) to Japan. The company aims to empower local businesses with scalable, flexible application delivery and hosting solutions.

We acknowledge that there are more stories to share. However, due to selection constraints, we must pause further exploration for now.

To get timely updates, follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Also, join us on Drupal Slack at #thedroptimes.

Thank you,
Sincerely
Alka Elizabeth
Sub-editor, The DropTimes.

TL;DR: Zero to Drupal 10 on Aegir 3 in About Fifteen Minutes For those in a hurry: Start with a fresh Ubuntu 22 VM. Clone this git repository and follow the instructions in the README file. Use the Aegir 3 site migration process to move your Drupal sites to your new setup. Happy migrating! For more detailed information, keep reading. Background: Tectonic Drift At Consensus Enterprises, we’re dedicated to helping organizations transition smoothly from Drupal 7 to Drupal 10 on Aegir 3.

Drupal 10.3 introduces a new experimental navigation module, offering a modern alternative to the traditional toolbar.

Key features of the new navigation bar:

• Located on the left side of the screen.
• Automatically expands menus on hover.
• Allows users to drill down through configuration pages.
• Replaces the top toolbar on the home page.

To try it out:

1. Ensure Drupal 10.3 is installed.
2. Go to “Extend” and search for “navigation”.
3. Install the “Navigation” module (not “Navigation top bar”).

The new navigation bar provides a fresh, modern look for Drupal sites. However, as an experimental module, it may contain bugs or undergo changes in future updates.

Those interested in exploring this new feature can install the navigation module and experience the updated interface firsthand.

What new Drupal 10.3 feature are you looking forward to?

In Drupal, local tabs are an essential feature used to organize and display multiple configuration pages in a user-friendly manner.These tabs group related pages together, providing an intuitive and seamless navigation experience. 

By using local tabs, administrators and users can easily access different settings and configurations from a single interface without having to navigate through multiple pages. This functionality enhances the overall user experience, making it easier to manage and configure various aspects of a Drupal site efficiently. 

To create the Drupal Local tabs we can follow these steps:

Create A Module

• First Create a module  For example “custom_module” 
• After that define the custom_module.info.yml File in your custom module directory 

Structure:

custom_module/

 Custom_module.info.yml

• In this file, you can define your module name,  version, and description 

  name: Custom Module
                    description: Custom Module
                     type: module
                     core_version_requirement: ^8 || ^9 || ^10

Drupal 11 Modules Overview Editor Mon, 06/24/2024 - 15:36

Have you been thinking about making a serious improvement to the performance of your Drupal site? It is supposed that Drupal 11 will be released sometime this year. So, the upcoming version of Drupal promises many big moves on many grounds, including improving several core aspects of the CMS. Here's a brief overview of what’s new in Drupal 11:

Drupal Gutenberg v4.0, set for release in August 2024, will feature a major UI refactor specifically tailored for Drupal, moving away from WordPress components. It will introduce single-field editing and make the editor entity agnostic, allowing for editing various content types. The update will also integrate with the Drupal Starshot initiative, enhancing the overall Drupal editing experience.

Search is a core competency of most websites, however, so often it doesn’t perform the way users desire. It’s possible to get good results from Search API in Drupal with a rigorous approach and a bit of fine tuning.

Takeaway: Government CMS preferences vary dramatically by level and size: While smaller cities favor specialized proprietary solutions, larger entities and States prefer flexible open-source platforms or enterprise solutions. That's why it's important to pick a CMS that fits your government’s context and needs.

Here's what I've been working on for my Drupal contributions this week. Thanks to Code Enigma for sponsoring the time to work on these.

Last week I wrote about how to set up Drupal for core contributing using DDEV. This week I decided to write a bash script so I wouldn't have to remember what I did, it would "just work".