Dear Subscribers, 

Sometimes, growth hinges on the effort we invest—the sweat equity makes all the difference. It's an ongoing journey that reminds us of our potential for continual advancement. Growth isn't just a milestone; it's a guiding force steering us toward realizing there's always more to achieve.

Let's take a moment to appreciate Drupal's remarkable evolution in this spirit of perpetual progress. With an ever-expanding community and a track record of powering some of the world's most influential websites, Drupal continues to ascend in popularity and capability. Its open-source ethos fosters collaboration, driving collective growth and empowerment for all involved.

As Drupal flourishes, so do its users. Its robust features and scalability ensure that businesses and organizations can adapt and thrive in today's dynamic environment. Drupal's unwavering commitment to security and its ever-growing community sets it apart from other CMS platforms. The truth that cannot be denied is the level of security it provides, which remains unmatched in the industry. Moreover, Drupal excels in providing customer-centric and personalized user experiences, empowering organizations to tailor their digital presence to the unique needs of their audience.

However, what truly propels Drupal's growth to unprecedented levels is its community-driven ethos. With a vast network of developers, designers, and enthusiasts collaborating and contributing tirelessly, Drupal evolves rapidly, staying ahead of the curve in innovation and adaptability. This collective effort fosters a culture of continuous improvement, ensuring that Drupal remains at the forefront of technological advancements.

Now, Let's take a moment to revisit the highlights from last week's coverage at The Drop Times.

I had the opportunity to connect with Amber Matz, a key contributor, who shared insights into the Documentation and Help initiative. Amber provided valuable insights into the initiative's goals and the recent updates to Drupal.org's documentation page, emphasizing the community's dedication to improving user experience. 

Elma John presented an exciting feature on MidCamp happening in Chicago. She conversed with Norah Medlin and Avi Schwab, the lead organizers of MidCamp 2024. Through their insights, we learned more about the event's agenda and the collaborative opportunities it offers for the Drupal community.

Alka Elizabeth shared insider views of DrupalSouth Sydney 2024, giving us a glimpse into key technical updates and diversity initiatives. Her article offered valuable perspectives on the enriching experiences shared at Drupal South, which took place on March 20-22. She also shared the list of winners of The Drupal Splash Awards 2024 in Australia and New Zealand across all categories, revealed during the DrupalSouth Sydney 2024 event held at Sydney Masonic Centre. 

Explore the evolving dynamics of Drupal's page-building features with André Angelantoni's latest series on The Drop Times. In part 1 of the series, André explores Paragraph-Based Solutions, shedding light on the progression of Drupal's page layout options. Stay tuned for insightful discussions on enhancing page-building capabilities in Drupal. The second part of the series is scheduled to be published today. 

The Drupal Pune Group announced its first meetup of 2024, scheduled for March 30 from 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM IST at Bookavibe - Book Cafe and Co-working space on Fergusson College Road, Pune. Following the success of the first in-person Drupal Camp in India last year, the group is gathering once again to discuss plans for future Drupal events and collaborations. Registration has officially opened for EvolveDrupal Atlanta, an event that brings together developers, designers, strategists, marketers, managers, and more for learning, networking, and inspiration. Don't miss this opportunity to be part of a vibrant Drupal community event.

DrupalCamp Ghent has issued a call for sponsors for its upcoming event. Sponsors' support is crucial in ensuring the camp's success, enabling organizers to provide valuable experiences to attendees. Consider becoming a sponsor to support the Drupal community and showcase your organization's commitment to Drupal. Antonio José Fuster, Community Manager - Technical Communication and Innovation at the City of Benidorm in Spain, revealed the dates for the upcoming DrupalCamp Spain 2024. The event is scheduled for October 25 and 26, with October 24 earmarked as Business Day. Stay tuned for more details about this exciting event!

Mark your calendars for June 12 as Drupaljam 2024 opens at the Fabrique in Utrecht. This gathering promises an engaging experience for Europe's Drupal community. Take advantage of limited-time early bird ticket offers available until March 31. Secure your spot now for this anticipated event! Don't miss DrupalCamp Colorado 2024, scheduled for June 25 and 26. This event allows attendees to foster new community ties and engage in thought-provoking conversations. 

Excitement buzzed at DrupalSouth Sydney 2024 when Tim Doyle, CEO of the Drupal Association, made a surprise announcement during his closing remarks. DrupalCon Asia 2024 is set to happen in Singapore, likely from December 4-6, 2024, sparking enthusiasm among the global Drupal community. DrupalSouth Sydney 2024 featured captivating keynote sessions, including one by Dries Buytaert, the pioneer of Drupal. Buytaert delivered an inaugural keynote on the topic "The Drupal Project Update," providing valuable insights into the future direction of Drupal.

After a notable tenure as Program Manager and Drupal Innovation Coordinator, Alejandro Moreno López bids farewell to the Drupal Association. In his heartfelt LinkedIn post, Alejandro reflects on his journey with the organization and praises its dedication to advancing open-source technology. 

Drupal is witnessing a new wave of discussions and proposals, particularly around marketing and features. Notable figure Andrew Kucharski, CEO of Promet Source, ignited conversation with a thought-provoking post on LinkedIn. Kucharski addressed the need for a more accessible and polished list of Drupal features and benefits for a broader audience. Click here to get a detailed insight. 

We understand that there are additional stories worth exploring. However, due to current constraints in selection, we must temporarily halt further exploration.

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

Thank you,

Sincerely
Kazima Abbas
Sub-editor, TheDropTimes.

Drupal 11 development has reached a point where the system requirements are being raised in the development branch. To prepare core developers for this and to inform the community at large, we are announcing the following requirements for Drupal 11.

Webserver

We announced in mid-February that there is an RFC to remove support for Windows in production. Other webserver requirements are unchanged.

PHP

Drupal 11 will require PHP 8.3 and older versions of PHP are not supported. Note that as of Drupal 9.4, a policy was adopted to automatically drop support for PHP versions no longer supported by the PHP maintainers, so future minor versions of Drupal 11 will increase the requirement further.

Database

The minimum database requirements for backends supported by Drupal 11 are MySQL 8.0, MariaDB 10.6, PostgreSQL 16 and SQLite 3.45.

Composer

Similar to Drupal 10.2, Drupal 11 will require Composer 2.7.0 or newer; this change was made for the Composer security fix released in February 2024.

Browsers

The existing browser policy has not changed and there was no need to update it for Drupal 11. Drupal already drops support for older versions of browsers as new ones get released.

PHP and JavaScript dependencies

Drupal 11 will depend on Symfony 7, PHPUnit 10 and jQuery 4, work is ongoing to update to these versions'.

Drupal 10 will receive long term support

Drupal 10 will continue to be supported until mid-late 2026 and the release of Drupal 12.

Avi Schwab, is a prolific contributor to Drupal, and one of the lead organizers of MidCamp, an annual gathering of the MidWest Drupal community in Chicago.

The Drupal Association has published this guest blog on behalf of author John Picozzi, in collaboration with Chat Hester, Stephen Cross, Nic Laflin, Mike Anello, and AmyJune Hineline.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”  - Margaret Mead

In my mind, the above quote distills the Drupal Community down to one sentence and perfectly describes its mission. Many in the community also use “Come for the code, stay for the community” to highlight that Drupal is more than just open-source software; it’s a community of committed citizens focused on helping each other, growing skills, and developing world-changing open-source software. As many are aware, Drupal 7 will reach end-of-life (EOL) at the end of this year. Many are working to move their sites to Drupal 10, while others are looking to “Level Up” their skills to work with the latest and greatest Drupal version. This story highlights the journey of one developer and how we as a community came together to help him (and hopefully many others) achieve Drupal 10 readiness. 

Our story starts with Drupal Slack and the following message from Chad Hester (chadhester). 

“Hey, I have an idea that I wanted to run by you… Since I'm looking for more contracting work, getting back in to Drupal development is on my radar. I haven't done development work since Drupal 7, though. I'm out of practice since ~2015. There are lots of people who learn Drupal for the first time, but I wonder if anyone has documented their experience re-learning Drupal. Perhaps that's something that could be good as a Talking Drupal mini-series. What do you think?”

I thought it was an interesting idea and told Chad I would take it back to the team at Talking Drupal to discuss. The Talking Drupal team, Stephen Cross (stephencross), John Picozzi (johnpicozzi) & Nic Laflin (nicxvan), discussed and loved the idea. Working with Chad, they refined the show format and structure to something like a scrum meeting, where each week they reviewed what was done, what challenges were faced, and what tasks should be completed in the week to come. While brainstorming about the mini-series format they also thought of community members who could be involved. 

At Talking Drupal, we strive to provide the Drupal community a platform for learning and awareness. We also include the community in creating that content as much as possible. To that end, we identified Mike Anello (ultimike) of DrupalEasy as a great choice for a mentor and AmyJune Hineline (volkswagenchick) of the Linux Foundation as a host for the series. After identifying all the folks we planned to include, Stephen started outreach, and quickly, everyone was onboard. Within three weeks of the above Slack message, we started recording our first episode. From that point, we started recording weekly and planned eight episodes. 

Everyone contributed to the goals of this mini-series and added their perspective. We wanted to ensure the series would help the community move from Drupal 7 development to Drupal 10 development. However, we also wanted to go above and beyond with real open-source contributions. Mike provided that via a capstone goal of having Chad contribute an automated test to a real-life contrib project. This goal was a perfect outcome and would not only empower Chad to contribute but could empower anyone who watched the series. Overall, we have set out to bring in community members to build content for others. Allowing community members to push/pull others forward in their skill set. 

Today, we are happy to share the first episodes of the Talking Drupal Mini Series: Skills Upgrade. A developer's journey from Drupal 7 to Drupal 10. Through this effort the community has come together to support its members to grow and learn. The power of the Drupal Community isn’t in the software we develop, it's in the people we empower. Those people are empowered to learn, grow, and use amazing open-source software. Indeed, I believe this group of thoughtful, committed citizens have done their little bit to change the world. 

Episodes will be released over the next few weeks. Thank you, and Enjoy!

Drupal is a CMS that colleges from different countries eagerly use. According to a report by The Drop Times, up to 80% of the world's top 100 universities chose Drupal for at least one of their websites. We wanted to find out how this technology is used in Poland and what other content management systems are popular among Polish higher education institutions - both public and private. This report presents the results of our analysis. 

Google Analytics 4 has taken the world of web analytics by storm. It is an incredible tool that helps you understand how users interact with your business website. You can use these insights to deliver personalized experiences to your customers, enhance loyalty, and boost your revenue. If you have availed of Drupal services and run a Drupal-powered website, this blog will help you delve into how you can successfully combine Drupal and GA4 to accomplish phenomenal results. 

How to Combine GA4 With Your Drupal Website

Given the fantastic user insights provided by GA4, its combination with Drupal can take your business website on an upward spiral of growth. As Drupal is a cutting-edge content management system, its combination with GA4 can result in the creation of an incredible marketing strategy and improvement in your site’s performance. 

Since its debut in 2010, Drupal 7 has provided a stable foundation for innumerable websites. But moving to a newer version—like Drupal 10—becomes crucial to guarantee security, performance, and access to the newest features as Drupal 7 approaches its end of life on January 5, 2025. 

Even though this Drupal upgrade has the potential to be revolutionary, it's important to know what features you might face while upgrading from Drupal 7 to 10. This will enable you to plan appropriately and gain a clear understanding of what to anticipate. 

A DrupalCamp is a one- or two-day event that centers on the Drupal open source web content management system, and tends to bring together people from a geographical region. The goals are primarily, of course, knowledge sharing and increasing awareness of and helping to grow the Drupal community. It's not easy to do this without also increasing awareness and knowledge of the tools we all use along with Drupal as well, which makes the gatherings all the more valuable.