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Join Mukesh Agarwal, CEO of Innoraft, as he recounts an unforgettable experience at DrupalCon Singapore 2024—the first Asian gathering of Drupal enthusiasts in nearly a decade. This landmark event showcased cutting-edge innovations, visionary insights, and community-driven contributions that are shaping the future of the Drupal ecosystem.

From the highly anticipated launch of the Drupal CMS Release Candidate to the inspiring 41st Driesnote and hands-on workshops exploring the latest technological breakthroughs, the conference was a celebration of innovation and collaboration. Mukesh shares key highlights, technical revelations, and the spirit of community that makes Drupal more than a CMS—it’s a movement.

Dive into the highlights and discover how DrupalCon Singapore 2024 has set the stage for a transformative 2025.

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.

Significant changes arrive with Drupal 11.1, marking a shift in how developers work with content types and hooks.

No More Default Body Field

The default body field will no longer be automatically generated when you create a content type. This change moves away from the traditional standard where the body field serves as the primary content container. In the past, when starting a new Drupal site, the body field was always expected to be present. 

It was a standard feature that developers relied on. Now, new sites will have various field names such as `field_description`, `field_text`, and `field_content`. This shift in naming conventions may lead to some adjustments in how content is managed.

But I noticed that the body field was slowly being phased out and replaced with the paragraph field, where instead of adding all your content into a single field, you would build out your page using paragraph types, or as we would often call them, components.

Dries Buytaert announced the Experience Builder Initiative earlier this year, with the aim to become the default Drupal tool for layout design, page building, and basic theming. The main goal is to create a tool that site builders love, with an amazing out-of-the-box experience. The development of Experience Builder is going very well with the first stable release expected in late 2025, at which point it is also planned to be part of Drupal CMS 2.0.

Complementing the tool, a month ago we published a call for partners to design and implement a comprehensive design system for Experience Builder and thus Drupal CMS. Now we’re thrilled to announce that we have selected Mediacurrent as the partner to collaborate with on this project!

We were amazed by the quality, creativity, and expertise demonstrated in the proposals submitted by our community. In the extensive evaluation process, the selected partner stood out for their thoughtful approach, in-depth understanding of user needs, and a clear actionable roadmap. Their proposal reflected a strong focus on usability, accessibility, and scalability, ensuring the design system will empower designers, developers, and content marketers alike.

To maintain transparency with the community and celebrate the exceptional quality of their work, we’re pleased to share the winning proposal. You can see an overview of activities and high-level timeline and their design system showcase. Thanks to Mediacurrent for being willing to share your proposal with the community.

Work on this exciting project will kick off in January, with an early preview of the work for DrupalCon Atlanta in March 2025 and a stable release later in the year.

We want to thank everyone who submitted a proposal and contributed their time, effort, and creativity to this initiative. We’ve had an impressive turnaround that shows how the Drupal CMS project is bringing the community together to work towards the same goals.

Stay tuned for updates as we progress on this exciting journey!

Drupal Advent Calendar 2024 Addendum - The Drop Times and 24 Days of Automation james Tue, 12/24/2024 - 23:30 Image Body

I hope you enjoyed this year’s Drupal Advent Calendar, and our whistle-stop tour of Starshot tracks. If you missed it, you can catch up here.

I want to touch on a couple of things that I missed during the regular calendar schedule.

The Drop Times

The Drop Times is a Drupal news site that covers everything happening across the Drupalverse. They do a superb job of covering DrupalCons and Drupal Camps around the world. Since the announcement of the Starshot initiative, they have been dutyfully covering all the news from the initiative, and they have been a valuable source of information when…

Automatically Geolocate Santa Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 12/24/2024 - 07:00 Tags Content Management Drupal Drupal Planet Map

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We've reached the last day of the calendar, and it's time for Santa's visit! Santa has been visiting some famous places all month. With the Geocoder module, Leaflet, a Geofield, and an Address field, you can automatically put each address Santa has visited on the map!

You do need to configure a geocoder source. We're using OpenStreetmap, from the geocoder-php/nominatim-provider.

The DropTimes interviews Tony Barker, a leading Drupal Frontend Specialist at Annertech and Media Management Track Lead for Drupal Starshot. Discover his journey, insights on media management, and how Drupal CMS is set to transform user experience with advanced features, accessibility, and AI-driven innovation.

Drupal Advent Calendar day 24 - Experience Builder james Tue, 12/24/2024 - 09:00

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…

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• Experience Builder
• Drupal Starshot

The Twig tweak module in Drupal 10 is extremely beneficial for developers when working with twig templates. Find code snippets along with examples to implement Twig tweak in Drupal 10.

A Christmas Message: Empowering Communities with AI for a Brighter Digital Future Jurriaan Mon, 12/23/2024 - 18:05

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 influence

Artificial 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 empowerment

AI 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 perspective

Let’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 optimism

AI 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.

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Drupal Community Jurriaan Roelofs