LostCarPark Drupal Blog: Drupal Advent Calendar day 24 - Experience Builder
Welcome back for the final door of the 2024 Advent Calendar. We’ve already covered all 22 tracks of the Starshot initiative, as well as some non-track aspects. For our final door, we are looking at something that is absent from the initial release of Drupal CMS, but is hoped to come to fruition in 2025 and revolutionise website theming. Let me introduce Lauri Timmanee, who is here to tell us about Experience Builder.
What is Experience Builder?At DrupalCon Lille 2023, Dries announced a new strategic initiative to build a Next Generation Page Builder. The goal of the initiative was to improve…
TagsLN Webworks: 8 Common Questions About Migrating from Drupal 7 to Drupal 10
Migrating from Drupal 7 to Drupal 10 is a significant upgrade for your website. While the process can be complex, even for experienced Drupal developers, it’s essential to make informed decisions along the way. As a reliable Drupal development company, we understand that a successful migration requires careful planning and execution. In this guide, we’ll answer the most common questions about Drupal migration to help you navigate this transition smoothly.
In this blog, we will shed light on some of the “what” and “how” of Drupal 7 to 10 Migration doubts and provide solutions from our experts. So, let’s get down to the most common Drupal FAQs.
Oliver Davies' daily list: How easily can you move changes between environments?
Regardless of how many environments your application has, you need to be able to move changes between them reliably.
You don't want to configure each environment and make every change by hand.
You want to automate this as much as possible so your changes are the same every time.
In Drupal 7, the Features module was used to export changes once and apply them again using a features revert command - although its original use case was to extract reusable features for different applications.
I've also written a lot of update of update hooks, like mymodule_update_8001 to apply changes when database updates are applied.
Since Drupal 8, we've had configuration management - a first-class way to export and import configuration changes - which I think was one of the best additions to Drupal 8, and something not available in some other CMSes, frameworks and applications.
There's an ecosystem around configuration management, including Config Split for per-environment configurations and Config Ignore to ignore sensitive information or changes you don't want to manage via imported configuration.
I recently worked on a project where we didn't have a CI pipeline running configuration imports on each change and things were very difficult to manage. Once that was in place, though, things were much easier, more consistent and changes were quicker to release.
Talking Drupal: Talking Drupal #481 - Drupal Marketing & Drupal CMS
Today we are talking about Drupal Marketing, how it applies to Drupal CMS, and what a Drupal and Drupal CMS Marketing Future look like with guest Suzanne Dergacheva. We’ll also cover Drupal 11.1 as our module of the week.
For show notes visit: https://www.talkingDrupal.com/481
Topics- Drupal marketing moves
- New brand
- Marketing people at the DA
- Goal of marketing
- How does this impact Drupal CMS
- Drupal CMS marketing
- How will you educate people about the differences between core and CMS
- Any challenges
- How do you like the new homepage
- Next steps to move the brand forward
- Case studies
- Why did you volunteer
- If someone wants to get involved how can they
- Brand Portal
- Drupal.org homepage
- Case study guidelines
- Webinar with Suzanne and Rosie Gladden about Key Strategies for Expanding Drupal’s Reach
- Advent Calendar - Freelock.com - 24 days of Drupal automations
Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Suzanne Dergacheva - evolvingweb.com pixelite
MOTW CorrespondentMartin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu
- Brief description:
- Have you been wanting a version of Drupal with improvements to the recipes system, the ability to write hooks as classes, and an icon management API? The new Drupal 11.1 release has all of that and more.
- Module name/project name:
- Brief history
- How old: created on Dec 16 by catch of Tag1 and Third & Grove
- Module features and usage
- We’ve talked a number times on this show about the recipes system, particularly because it’s at the heart of Drupal CMS. In Drupal 11.1 recipes can define whether or not to use strict comparison for provided configuration, and there are a ton of new config actions. These allow your recipe to place blocks, take user input, enable layout builder for content types, clone configuration entities and more. It’s a huge leap forward, and I think you’ll quickly see a number of recipes that require Drupal 11.1 or newer.
- Hooks have long been a powerful Drupalism that allow for deep customization of how your website functions. These hooks can now be written as classes, thanks to the new Hook attribute on methods. This will bring many of the object-oriented benefits of modern Drupal to the hooks system, and should also make it easier for developers new to Drupal to understand the code to create these customizations.
- A new Icon Management API allows themes and modules to define icon packs, with unique identifiers for each included icon.
- Drupal 11.1 also includes PHP 8.4 support. I haven’t been able to find any data on speed improvements compared to PHP 8.3, but there are interesting new features like property hooks, asymmetric visibility, new functions for finding array items, and more
- There are plans to use Workspaces for content moderation, so the UI for Workspaces is now in a separate module. For new site builds if you want your editors to be able to use Workspaces, you’ll need to remember to enable this new UI module as well
- New installs of Drupal 11.1 will also see improvements to the initial experience. These include defaulting to admin-created user accounts only, not adding the body field by default when creating new content types, and more.
- Drupal 11.1 also includes a new views entity reference filter, opt-in render caching for forms, and improved browser and CDN caching for Javascript and CSS, among a host of other improvements.
- A number of these improvements will also find their way into the upcoming 10.4 release, ensuring, for example, that recipes built to use the new config actions can be used with Long-Term Support (LTS) versions of Drupal, that will be supported until the stable release of Drupal 12 in mid- to late-2026
DXPR: A Christmas Message: Empowering Communities with AI for a Brighter Digital Future
This Christmas, I want to share a vision for the year ahead—one rooted in the principles of openness, collaboration, and empowerment. Just as the spirit of giving inspires acts of kindness, the open-source community, including Drupal, shows us how collective effort can create tools that serve everyone. At this pivotal moment in the evolution of artificial intelligence, I believe it’s our responsibility to ensure that AI becomes a force for good.
AI and the changing dynamics of influenceArtificial intelligence is rapidly transforming how communication happens. Governments and corporations use AI to dominate narratives, leveraging its power for hybrid warfare, infodomwarfare, and highly targeted campaigns. These tools amplify their voices and shape public opinion at an unprecedented scale.
But while some benefit from this technological leap, countless others are left behind. Grassroots movements, small organizations, and individuals working for positive change often lack access to the same advanced tools. This disparity risks creating a digital landscape where only the most powerful can influence and persuade.
AI has the potential to level the playing field—but only if we act now to make it accessible to everyone, not just those with vast resources. The Drupal community has long championed the idea that technology should empower rather than exclude, and this belief continues to inspire our work.
AI as a tool for empowermentAI offers powerful capabilities for creating, translating, and distributing content. But to truly empower communities, we must focus on making these tools both affordable and usable for all.
Here’s where AI can make the greatest impact:
- Empowering human rights advocates: AI tools can protect their causes, amplify their messages, and counter deceitful propaganda campaigns effectively.
- Breaking language barriers: Advanced localization features allow for accurate and culturally resonant translations, opening up global audiences.
- Countering misinformation: By identifying and responding to false narratives quickly, AI can help protect the credibility of those working for truth.
- Streamlining communication: Automation of repetitive tasks, such as content generation or scheduling, frees up time for more impactful work.
These applications make AI a practical and transformative tool, not just for large organizations, but for anyone looking to make a difference.
AI’s role: a realistic perspectiveLet’s be clear: AI will continue to play a significant role in shaping narratives, both for good and ill. It will be used for propaganda, hybrid warfare, and to amplify echo chambers. We cannot completely control this reality.
However, we can ensure that AI is also a force for good—a tool that enables collaboration, fosters mutual understanding, and empowers those working for positive change. By giving more people access to these tools, we can shift the balance away from dominance and toward dialogue.
This isn’t about revolutionizing AI’s role overnight; it’s about giving more people the resources they need to participate in the conversation.
Looking ahead with optimismAI is here to stay, and its impact will only grow. While challenges remain, the potential for AI to empower individuals and communities is enormous. By democratizing these tools, we can help bridge divides, amplify diverse voices, and foster a digital world that values collaboration over competition.
In this rapidly evolving landscape, the key to a fairer future is accessibility. With the right tools, anyone—whether a grassroots organizer, a small business, or a passionate advocate—can create, influence, and inspire. The Drupal community and the spirit of open-source collaboration remind us that technology can serve everyone, not just a privileged few.
As we celebrate this Christmas season, let’s also look forward to a new year filled with opportunity—where AI tools bring us closer together and empower us all to shape a brighter future. The work we are doing right now is shaping the world of tomorrow that is changing so rapidly.
Category Drupal Community Jurriaan RoelofsVMWare VSphere Update 12.24 - VMware-ESXi-8.0U3c-24414501-depot
Freelock Blog: Automatically moderate comments using AI
When you allow the general Internet to post comments, or any other kind of content, you're inviting spam and abuse. We see far more spam comments than anything relevant or useful -- but when there is something relevant or useful, we want to hear it!
With the AI module and the Events, Conditions, and Actions module, you can set up automatic comment moderation.
Like any use of AI, setting an appropriate prompt is crucial to getting a decent result. Here's the one we're trying out:
The Drop Times: Drupal4Gov Earns Nonprofit Status: Empowering Government Through Open Source
Droptica: How to Build a Job Application Form in Drupal? A Detailed Guide
On-page job application forms allow you to quickly and efficiently collect information from candidates interested in job opportunities, facilitating the process of selecting resumes of future employees. In this article, I’ll show you how to build a recruitment form with the Webform module and embed it on a Drupal landing page. All this without having to spend hours on tedious configuration. I invite you to read the article or watch an episode of the “Nowoczesny Drupal” series.
LostCarPark Drupal Blog: Drupal Advent Calendar day 23 - AI Track
Welcome back for the penultimate door of this year’s Drupal Advent Calendar, and today we’ve recruited the legendary Mike Anello to bring us up to speed on a big topic, the AI track of Drupal CMS.
The stated goal of the AI track is to make it easier for non-technical users to build and extend their sites - it is really interesting to note that this is mainly geared towards admin-facing UI, not site user-facing AI. With that in mind, let’s take a look at what is included (so far!)
AI generated alternate text for imagesWith virtually no configuration (other than entering your LLM API key) the…
The Drop Times: Hope and Progress Ahead
As 2024 comes to a close, it’s time to reflect on an inspiring year for the Drupal community. This year marked the beginning of the transformative Starshot Initiative, setting an ambitious vision for the future of Drupal. Among the highlights was the highly anticipated release of Drupal 11, a milestone that brought enhanced capabilities, improved user experience, and reinforced Drupal’s position as a leading open-source content management system.
This year wasn't only about technical achievements—it was a year of hope and collaboration too. The community has come together, embracing challenges with resilience and charting a path forward with optimism. Much like the spirit of Christmas, this year’s developments remind us of the joy in beginnings and the promise of what lies ahead.
As we step into this festive season, let’s celebrate the milestones we’ve achieved and the community that made it all possible. Let’s also look forward to an even brighter future, one filled with innovation, inclusivity, and growth for Drupal. Here’s to a new year brimming with possibilities and the collective hope that Drupal continues to shine even brighter in 2025. Happy holidays!
DrupalCon Singapore 2024- Breaking Barriers, Busting Bubbles, and Building the Future of Drupal in Singapore
- An Enriching Experience to Carry Forward: Reflections from DrupalCon Asia
- Drupal 11 Gets its First Feature Release - Drupal 11.1.0
- QED42 Debuts AI-Powered Twig-to-SDC Module
- From Data to Impact: How a Decoupled Drupal & Gatsby Transformation Empowered IDMC’s Global Advocacy
- Drupal Needs to Innovate: Neurodiversity Might be the Answer
- New Video Explores Why Drupal is the Ideal Choice for Editors, Marketing, and HR
- New Greek Payment Modules for Drupal Commerce by E-Sepia Web Innovation
- DrupalCamp Spain 2025 Set for Santiago de Compostela on September 18-20
- Shape the Future: Register and Submit Your Session for Drupal Dev Days 2025
- Drupal Costa Rica Meetup to Preview New Drupal CMS Before Official Launch
- Time is Running Out: Submit Your Session Proposal for MidCamp 2025!
- Acquia Engage Awards 2025: Submission Deadline Set for January 10
- Florida DrupalCamp 2025: Join the Dive Day Adventure
- Drupal Iberia 2025 to Take Place in Cáceres, Spain on April 4-5
- FOSDEM 2025: Session Schedule Released for Europe’s Premier Open Source Conference
- Final Call: FOSSASIA Summit 2025 Session Submission Closes on December 22
- Drupal Sapporo Meetup to Explore Integration with Open Source Applications on 26 December
- Vardot Leads the Way in Crafting Open-Source RFP Template
- 1xINTERNET Publishes Exclusive Interview with Drupal CMS Search Track Leads
- Pantheon and Sapio Research Release ‘The State of Enterprise Websites in Europe’ Report
To get timely updates, follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. You can also join us on Drupal Slack at #thedroptimes.
Desktop Virtualisierung für mobile Windows-Clients
LN Webworks: LN Webworks at DrupalCon Singapore 2024
It's the Second DrupalCon for LNWebWorks, filled with incredible memories and the opportunity to forge new connections. This time, the event is hosted at the prestigious ParkRoyal Collection Marina Bay Hall. Luckily, our hotel—Carlton City Hotel —is just a stone's throw away, making it a quick 5-minute cab ride to the venue. Here's a glimpse of my hotel room view, showcasing the breathtaking skyline of the tallest buildings!
#! code: Drupal 11: The Queues API
I've talked a lot about the Batch API in Drupal recently, and I've mentioned that it is built upon the Queue API, but I haven't gone any deeper than that. I wrote about the Queues API in Drupal 7, but thought I would bring my understanding up to date.
A queue is a data construct that uses a "first in, last out" (or FILO) flow where items are processed in the order that they were added to the queue. This system has a lot of different uses, but is most important when it comes to asynchronous data processing. Drupal and many modules make use of the queue system to process information behind the scenes.
The difference between a queue and a batch is that the batch is for time sensitive things where the user is expecting something to happen. A queue, on the other hand, is more for data processing that needs to happen behind the scenes or without any user triggering the process.
Batches also tend to be stateless, meaning that if the batch fails half way through it is sometimes difficult to re-start the batch from the same point. It is possible if you create your batches in just the right way, but this is actually a little rate. A queue manages this much better by having all of the items in the queue and then giving you options about what you can do with each item as you process it. This means that you might pop a queue item back into the queue for later processing if it failed.
In this article I will look at the Queue API in Drupal 11, how it is used and what sort of best practices are used when using the API.
Creating A QueueTo create a queue in Drupal you need to create an instance of the 'queue' service. This is a factory that can be used to create and manage your queues inside Drupal. By default, all queues in Drupal are database queues (handled via the queue.database default queue factory), although this can be changed with configuration settings.
Freelock Blog: Automatically set fields on content
One of the easiest things to do with the Events, Conditions, and Actions (ECA) module is to set values on fields. You can populate forms with names and addresses from a user's profile. You can set date values to offsets from the current time. You can perform calculations and store the result in a summary field, which can make using them in views much more straightforward.
LostCarPark Drupal Blog: Drupal Advent Calendar day 22 - Gin Admin Theme track
Once more, we welcome you back to the Drupal Advent Calendar, to see what’s behind door number twenty-two. Today we are welcoming back an old friend, the Gin Admin Theme which was covered all the way back in Door 1 of the 2023 Drupal Advent Calendar.
So why feature it again? Well back then, Gin was something of a rebel, for use on cutting edge Drupal sites, but perhaps a bit too “punk” for respectable production sites.
But a year later Gin is becoming respectable, and as part of that, it has been selected as the default admin theme for Drupal CMS.
Drupal CMS is focused on giving the easiest to…
TagsLostCarPark Drupal Blog: Drupal Advent Calendar day 21 - Search
Today is the twenty-first day of our Advent Calendar, and we are looking at how you will search your Drupal CMS site. We are joined by Baddý to summarise the work her team is doing…
The Search Track, led by Baddý Breidert, Dr. Christoph Breidert and Artem Dmitriiev from 1xINTERNET, has made substantial progress since DrupalCon Barcelona. A key achievement is the integration of the Search Recipe into the Drupal CMS project. This recipe provides a flexible framework for configuring search functionalities based on specific user needs.
To enhance advanced search capabilities, the team has…
TagsComputerMinds.co.uk: Views Data Export: Sprint 1 Summary
As explained in the previous article in the series I've started working on maintaining Views Data Export again.
I've decided to document my work in 2 week 'sprints'. And so this article is about what I did in Sprint 1.
Sprint progressAt the start of the sprint there in the Drupal.org issue queue there were:
- 204 open bugs
- 276 other open issues.
So that's a total of 480 open issues.
By the end it looked like this:
- 91 open bugs
- 17 fixed issues.
- 81 other open issues
So that's a total of 189 open issues, a 60% reduction from before!
Key goalsIn this sprint I wanted to:
- Tame the issue queues on Drupal.org and get a handle on what the common frustrations and missing features were.
- Read and understand all of the code in the Drupal 8.x-1.x branch.
Taming the issue queue
As mentioned in a previous article I decided to close down pretty much all the tickets for the Drupal 7 version of the module. This is the codebase that I'm most familiar with, but it's causing a lot of noise in the issue queue, so getting rid of that is a great first step, and pretty easy.
https://www.drupal.org/project/views_data_export/issues/3492246 was my ticket where I detailed what I was going to do, and then I went about doing that.
This felt immensely good! I went through each Drupal 7 ticket and gave it a quick scan and then pasted-in my prepared closing statement. It took just over an hour, and was like taking a trip down memory lane: seeing all those old issues come up and remembering when I triaged some of them originally.
After this initial round of work, I've also been working in the 8.x-1.x queue to close out duplicate and solved issues. I've been focussing on support requests which are usually super quick to evaluate and close out. However, this means that I've not really had a chance to look through all the feature requests and bugs, so I still don't really have a handle on what's needed/broken with the module.
Understanding the codeI had a good old read of the code. There's some really great stuff in there, and there's some obvious room for improvement.
But, at least I know what the code does now, and can see some obvious problems/issues. But also, the codebase is small, and there some automated tests, so we've got a great platform to get going with.
Giving directionThere were a few tickets for 8.x-1.x where there were contributors making great contributions and I was able to provide some guidance of how to implement a feature or resolve a bug. I feel like the issue queue has been lacking any kind of technical leadership and so many tickets are collections of patches where developers are fixing the problem they have in quite a specific way. I'm really looking forward to giving some direction to these contributions and then at some point committing and releasing the great work!
Future roadmap/goalsI'm not committing myself to doing these exactly, or any particular order, but this is my high-level list of hopes/dreams/desires, I'll copy and paste this to the next sprint summary article as I go and adjust as required.
- Get the project page updated with information relevant to Drupal 8.x-1.x version of the module
- Update the documentation on Drupal.org
- Not have any duplicate issues on Drupal.org
MidCamp - Midwest Drupal Camp: Last Chance Proposal Help: MidCamp 2025 Session Proposal Workshop
Missed the last Session Proposal Workshop? Don't worry; we have another one in January right before the submission deadline!