Drupal Planet

The Drop Times: The Anatomy of a Drupal Decision

Dear Readers,

Open-source communities depend on more than just code. They rely on discussion, disagreement, and collaboration to shape projects' progress. In Drupal, dialogue is the anatomy of every decision. When the stakes are high or the path isn’t apparent, the process often begins with people asking questions, sharing use cases, and voicing concerns. DrupalCon Atlanta is in the books, but one update by Dries Buytaert is just getting started. During the Driesnote, Dries officially announced the launch of the Drupal Marketplace Initiative. Think of it as shelf space for the community’s best work, not just a place to download themes but a real way to explore, test, and launch starter sites confidently.

Marketplace Initiative is a clear example of an approach through dialogues. It's a proposal with practical goals but also a test of how Drupal makes decisions as a community. The core idea is to build a public marketplace for Drupal site templates, giving users easier ways to get started while making real examples of Drupal's capabilities more visible. The proposal includes both free and commercial templates. That last part has sparked debate, not because it's technically difficult, but because it touches on long-standing questions about values, equity, and direction.

Rather than settle those questions behind closed doors, the initiative is designed to gather input from across the Drupal ecosystem. It’s about how decisions get made in a project that serves many users with different needs. Whether you're excited about the potential or cautious about the trade-offs, this is the right time to speak up, and what comes next will be shaped by the people who show up now.

Right now, there are multiple ways to get involved. The working group has opened a Slack channel #drupal-cms-marketplace where you can jump into discussions, share ideas, and react to ongoing prompts. They’ve also released the first in a series of community surveys, starting with one focused on contributors, agencies, and Drupal Certified Partners. There are live community sessions planned too, open to anyone who wants to help shape how this all unfolds.

Dries didn’t take a side but made the case for a conversation. Many organizations already pay for templates off-platform through agencies or contractors. Bringing that activity into the open could create better options, reward contributors, and strengthen the ecosystem. But it also raises questions about fairness, values, and long-term sustainability. Those questions are now on the table; everyone is invited to weigh in.

This is how decisions happen in Drupal: not with final announcements but with open discussions that invite more people into the room. Dialogue remains the structure we build on. With that, let's move on to the important stories from last week.

INTERVIEWDISCOVER DRUPALEVENTORGANIZATION NEWS

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. You can also join us on Drupal Slack at #thedroptimes.

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

Tag1 Consulting: Migrating Your Data from D7 to D10: Debugging tips, performance considerations, Drupal CMS, AI-assisted migrations and more!

Welcome to the last article in the series. Today, we’ll wrap up by covering how to debug migrations, performance considerations, and the importance of checking your site for broken links before launch. We’ll also briefly discuss migrating into Drupal CMS and using AI to assist with the migration process.

mauricio Tue, 04/15/2025 - 06:24

Drupal Core News: Drupal 11.2 alpha phase begins May 7

Drupal 11.2 alpha phase begins May 7

In preparation for the minor release, Drupal 11.2.x will enter the alpha phase the week of May 7, 2025. Core developers should plan to complete changes that are only allowed in minor releases prior to the alpha release.

The 11.2.0-alpha1 deadline for most core patches is May 7, 2025.

The 10.6.x release branch of core will be created for the next maintenance minor release.

  • Developers and site owners can begin testing the alpha after its release.

  • The 11.2.x release branch of core will be created before the alpha is tagged. Future feature and API additions will continue to be targeted against the main development branch, 11.x.

  • After 11.2.x is branched but before 11.2.0-alpha1 is tagged, alpha experimental modules will be removed from the 11.2.x codebase. Their development will continue in 11.x only.

  • Following the release of Drupal 11.2 and 10.5, only security issues will be fixed in Drupal 11.1 and 10.4. Additionally, Drupal 11.0 and 10.3 will become end-of-life (EOL).

  • During the alpha phase, core issues will be committed according to the following policy:

    1. Most issues that are allowed for patch releases will be committed to 11.2.x and 10.5.x. Such issues may also be committed to 11.1.x and 10.4.x until the final normal bugfix releases of 11.1 and 10.4 on June 4, 2025.
    2. Most issues that are only allowed in minor releases will be committed to 11.x only. (Such issues may be released in 11.3 or another future minor.). A few strategic issues may be backported to 11.2.x, but only at committer discretion after the issue is fixed in 11.x and before the beta deadline. For these issues, leave them set to 11.x unless you are a committer.
    3. Most issues that are allowed in maintenance minor releases will be committed to 11.x and 10.6.x only. A few strategic issues may be backported to 11.2.x and 10.5.x, but only at committer discretion and before the beta deadline. For these issues, leave them set to 11.x unless you are a committer.

Roughly two weeks after the alpha release, the first beta release will be created. All the restrictions of the alpha release apply to beta releases as well. The release of the first beta is a firm deadline for all feature and API additions. Once the beta commit freeze begins, issues in the Reviewed & Tested by the Community (RTBC) queue will be committed to the next minor release only.

The release candidate phase will begin the week of June 2.

Security support of Drupal 10 and 11 Drupal 10.3.x and 11.0.x Security releases will be provided until June 18, 2025. Drupal 10.4.x and 11.1.x Security releases will be provided until December 10, 2025.

See the Drupal core release process overview, the Drupal core release schedule, allowed changes during the Drupal 10 and 11 release cycles, and Drupal 10 and 11 backwards compatibility and internal API policy for more information.

Gizra.com: Bare-Bones Theming in Drupal with PEVB

Drupal gives us a lot—field formatters, and fancy layout builders modes. But what if you don’t need all that? If you’re a developer or themer looking for a simpler, more direct way to render content—without jumping through the usual hoops—the Pluggable Entity View Builder (PEVB) might be for you. See more about PEVB and our Drupal-starter in this video, from a presentation given in the (hallways) of DrupalCon Atlanta 2025

Talking Drupal: Talking Drupal #497 - Drupal Forge

Today we are talking about Drupal Forge, how it works, and why it’s changing Drupal with guest Darren Oh. We’ll also cover ECA VBO as our module of the week.

For show notes visit: https://www.talkingDrupal.com/497

Topics
  • Elevator pitch for Drupal forge
  • What is Drupal Forge built on
  • What is the pricing model
  • Does Drupal Forge only allow you to install Drupal CMS
  • Drupal Forge and templates, was there an influence on Site Templates
  • Why offer templates for Drupal Forge Camps
  • Is Drupal Forge open source
  • What is on the Roadmap
  • How can people get involved
Resources Guests

Darren Oh - drupalforge.org Darren Oh

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Kathy Beck - kbeck303

MOTW Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

  • Brief description:
    • Have you ever wanted a powerful and flexible way to create views bulk operations without writing code? There’s a module for that.
  • Module name/project name:
  • Brief history
    • How old: created in May 2022 by mxh, a prolific maintainer in his own right, and an active member of the group that has made the ECA ecosystem so far-reaching
    • Versions available: 1.1.1 and 2.1.1, the latter of which supports ^10.3 || ^11
  • Maintainership
    • Actively maintained
    • Security coverage
    • Documentation: sort of. The README has step-by-step instructions, and the project page has links to both an example model and a tutorial video
  • Number of open issues: 7 open issues, 1 of which are bugs against the current branch
  • Usage stats:
    • 320 sites
  • Module features and usage
    • With the module installed, your site will have a number of Events available within ECA, specifically for defining models that can perform bulk actions on the selected items in a view. In my own experience the most useful event is VBO: Execute Views bulk operation (one by one)
    • From there, you can define the logic of what needs to happen to the selected items. I’ve used it for fairly simple operations like changing content to a specific moderation state, but you could define complex logic that is conditional on field values, site configuration, or even global factors like the time of day
    • With one or more models defined, you can now add a field to your view for ECA bulk operations and then select which eligible models you want available in that specific view
    • It’s worth adding that the ECA model can also include logic to define who should have access to perform a particular operation, which could be as simple as checking the role of the current user, but can be as complex as you need
    • I came across ECA VBO during some recent work on the Drupal Event Platform, which is already available to try out on Drupal Forge, but there should be a more formal announcement on that front soon

Dries Buytaert: My phone's battery has been blogging for 7 years

Seven years ago, I wrote a post about a tiny experiment: publishing my phone's battery status to my website. The updates have quietly kept coming ever since, showing up at https://dri.es/status.

Every 20 minutes or so, my phone sends its battery level and charging state to a REST endpoint on my Drupal site. Timing depends on iOS background scheduling, which has a mind of its own.

For years, this lived quietly at https://dri.es/status. I never linked to it outside the original blog post, so it felt like a forgotten corner of my site. Still working, but mostly invisible.

Even after seven years, people still mention it from time to time. So I decided to bring it out of hiding.

I added a battery icon to my site's header. It's a dynamically generated SVG that reflects my phone's battery level and charging state.

It's a little goofy. But that's the fun of having a personal website–you get to make it yours.

Long live the Indie Web.

Mario Hernandez: Using modern image formats to improve performance

I've always been drawn to working with images, and when responsive images came onto the scene, I dove deep into learning everything I could about them.
I've written extensively about Responsive images if you need a refresher, but today, let's focus on modern image formats. In particular, WebP.

WebP

WebP is a modern image format developed by Google that provides superior compression and quality compared to traditional formats like JPEG and PNG. It supports both lossy and lossless compression, transparency, and animation, making it a versatile choice for web images. WebP helps improve website performance by reducing file sizes, which leads to faster loading times and better user experience.

Is WebP widely supported?

Since 2020, all major browsers support WebP. (Check caniuse for details). My site, this site, uses WebP exclusively for most images and although it is not a big site, I still see performance improvements.

Updating Drupal to use WebP

You would think that a big upgrade like this would be a complex task but you'll be surprised to learn that enabling WebP for new and existing images in Drupal is straightforward. Let's quickly go over the steps.

  1. Edit each of your image styles and add the Convert effect.

    Fig. 1: Selecting the Convert effect for an image style.

  2. Select and add the WebP format to the image style.

    Fig. 2: Adding the WebP format to an image style.

That's it!

Fun fact!: WebP support was introduced to Drupal core in Drupal 9.2.0, which was released on June 16, 2021. Before this core integration, WebP support in Drupal was only available through contributed modules or custom code. The inclusion in core made the format's benefits available to all Drupal 9.2+ sites without requiring additional modules.

Demo

I did a quick and simple test to show the difference in file size when adding a typical JPEG image to an article, then converting it to WebP using the steps above. The test was done in Drupal 10.x.

First: Using a JPEG image

Using a JPEG image on an article node, shows a file size of 289kb.

Fig. 3: Example shows using a JPEG format.

Then: Using a WebP image

After converting the imag eto Webp by updating the image style of that image, the file size was reduced to 76kb. That's about 60% file size reduction.

Fig. 3: Example shows using a WebP format.

NOTE: This was a pretty basic comparison test. File size reduction will vary depending on original file zize, format, and other preferences on your site.

What about other formats like Avif?

The Avif image format is also a great option with many benefits. The browser support is really good at the time of this post (See caniuse), and it's worth looking into it as an alternative to WebP, or even combining the two depending on your media needs.

In closing

It's all about the small wins. This one is pretty simple but can provide significant performance benefits. Give it a try!

Resources

Golems GABB: Drupal cloud development using devcontainers

Drupal cloud development using devcontainers Editor Fri, 04/11/2025 - 13:38

Hi there! What is the best way to improve Drupal development and encourage teamwork among development groups? This question is important for many developers, especially as remote teams and complex projects become more common. Setting up and maintaining traditional Drupal development environments can take a lot of time, often leading to problems and delays. In this article, your Drupal development company will look at how devcontainers can improve your Drupal cloud development process for the better.

DDEV Blog: Building an Off-Ramp from WordPress with DDEV

TL;DR: DDEV was a huge force multiplier, enabling me to focus on writing a WordPress plugin to export WordPress content for use in Grav CMS. More information on the plugin can be found at the GitHub repository wp2grav_exporter.

Popular content managment systems like WordPress and Drupal store content in databases (MySQL/ PostgreSQL/ etc.). Grav CMS stores content and configuration in local files (Markdown and YAML respectively). Grav's simpler flat-file storage mechanism is one of the things that drew me to start dabbling with it.

Why consider leaving WordPress?

While the recent shenanigans from Automattic's CEO accelerated my work, it wasn't the primary reason I developed this content exporter. I fell in love with Grav development back in 2018 when I first started writing a Drupal 7 exporter, and I wanted to port something similar over to WordPress. I value data portability, empowering the end user to control where their content is used! In the end, it's about giving options.

Why DDEV?

DDEV is a fantastic tool, and it is perfect for my PHP development workflow. It made spinning up two local developlment sites a breeze. I normally relish building and configuring my own automated environments, but DDEV makes it so simple to configure local environments. Additionally, DDEV comes with many "quickstart" configurations, meaning that popular CMS's like Drupal and WordPress work out of the box with nearly all settings ready to go.

Development setup

I made two different directories, one for WordPress and the other for Grav. After running ddev config on each respective directory, ddev start on each starts serving the content.

I installed DemoPress in the WordPress environment to help generate random test content and users to export.

Xdebug

Step debugging is imperative while trying to inspect content in-flight. Xdebug needed to listen on two different ports to avoid collisions between the two sites, and the DDEV docs are informative on how to configure this. I personally use VSCode, but other IDE's should work just as well, too. Step debugging was crucial to finding appropriate data structures and information I needed my converter plugin to use in a Grav site.

Wp2grav_exporter WordPress plugin

The wp2grav_exporter plugin is the resultant labor of love. It automatically exports:

  • Users and assigned roles
  • Post Types, including custom types
  • Posts and associated custom fields, including ACF fields
  • File attachments
  • Site metadata

Additional screenshots of example content exports can be found at the plugin's GitHub page.

After running the export, content was drag-dropped between my two DDEV directories, and I could immediately test how content looked. The exported post configurations are encompassed in a Grav plugin, so the end user is free to use whatever theme they want!

Final thoughts

DDEV has saved me countless hours with its easy setup and dependability. If you haven't yet taken it for a test spin, I can't recommend it enough!

Find an issue with my exporter? Submissions are welcome at the project's issue queue!

Acquia Developer Portal Blog: Discovering Drupal: A Journey into an Exceptional CMS

Drupal is more than just a content management system; it’s a gateway to innovation, creativity, and endless possibilities. Before stepping into the Drupal world, I saw CMS platforms as rigid structures with predefined functionalities. But Drupal? It completely changed my perception. It’s not just a tool, it’s a playground for developers, where ideas come to life, solutions evolve, and digital experiences are redefined.

As I began my journey with Drupal, I quickly realised that it’s more than just a platform, it's an ecosystem. From its modular architecture to a thriving open-source community, Drupal offers something for everyone, whether you’re a beginner like I was or an experienced developer looking to push boundaries. The more I explored, the more I realised that Drupal isn’t just about building websites, it's about creating dynamic, scalable, and future-proof digital experiences.

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