Drupal 10 Release: What to Expect and What you should Know?

The long-awaited Drupal 10 update has been released on 14th December 2022. We’re very happy to walk you through what this upgrade has to offer, whether you’re a seasoned Drupal Developer or brand-new to the Drupal community. We have a lot of reasons to be thrilled about the release, which we’ll go into shortly, but the main one is that we’re happy to be contributing to and expanding this community. 

Let’s get started,

What’s new about Drupal 10?

Considering that Drupal powers one in eight enterprise websites, expanding on its features is essential. The software’s continuous advancement is crucial for the websites of companies like Nasdaq, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, IBM, and Pfizer. No matter the size of the business, ambitious enterprises looking to swing for the fences of the digital experience already favour it  as their content management system of choice due to its capacity to securely scale. 

Because it is an open-source project, Drupal regularly receives tens of thousands of contributions to its growth, making certain that its inventions continue to be one step ahead of R&D centres for closed system software.

One of the most widely used content management systems for websites nowadays is Drupal. Regular updates, development, and the generation of subsequent versions are all a normal part of the life cycle of any software. The improved and upgraded version of Drupal 9 will be Drupal 10. It includes some new features that have been updated and several deprecations that have been removed.

Fortunately, this Drupal version is the brightest thus far, and there is much to be excited about. Here is what to expect. 

Front End of Olivero

Olivero, a slick and contemporary theme, will take the place of the outdated Bartik theme. This theme looks gorgeous right out of the box. The page’s trendy design will also catch the attention of users who are pursuing it. The Olivero theme has been created to make the most of the capabilities of the new system and to work with features that are popular with users, like Layout Builder.

The back end of Claro

The Seven themes, which was designed in 2009, will be replaced by Claro, a more contemporary back end. The various user interfaces of Drupal 10 core were designed with colour contrast and element unification in mind. Based on user research and to improve accessibility, touch targets have been made bigger, and administrator tabs have been moved. The new appearance makes Drupal appear inviting. In the past, Drupal’s appearance didn’t correspond to its inherent power, making its infinitely flexible capabilities appear outdated based solely on appearance. It now has a classy appearance that invites visitors to discover more about Drupal’s power.

CKEditor 5

In 2023, CKEditor 4 will no longer exist, so we’re switching to CKEditor 5. It offers a very sophisticated content editing interface on the front end. For instance, you no longer need to open additional dialogue boxes to edit links and images. 

Improving copy-pasting from Word or Google Docs into the content editor is another exciting CKEditor 5 update. Copy-pasted markup from those programs will be removed.

The contributed project CKEditor 5 Premium Features offers Word and PDF exports as well as real-time collaborative editing and commenting features for a fee.

These features are made possible by a new object model, plugin, and configuration system. The upgrade was carried out in collaboration with CKSource, with developers from Acquia also contributing. Critical Drupal requirements like UI-based plugin configuration and source editing weren’t supported at the beginning of the initiative. Now, both are.

Starterkit theme generator

Most Drupal themes are built on top of base themes rather than starting from scratch. This was supported by runtime inheritance in Drupal 9 and earlier, provided that both the base theme and the derived theme were installed on the system. But it was a risky strategy. The site’s appearance or functionality could break if the base theme changed in an update. 

To work on your copy of Starterkit in Drupal 10, you must fork a compatible theme. Any version that you copied from is automatically kept. If the theme you started with has updates, it is now your responsibility to review and incorporate those changes into your version, greatly enhancing its stability.

 A Contemporary Platform

You need to make sure a few things are in place before using Drupal 10 with these upcoming features. As an illustration, Drupal 10 will 

•  Be made available alongside Symfony 6.2, Drupal 9’s upgrade from Symfony 4
• Have Internet Explorer-incompatibility
• Need PHP 8.1 but also has support for PHP 8.2
• Composer 2.3 is required for the development.

By strengthening support, enhancing site performance, and delivering a more contemporary UX for developers and non-technical users alike, these updates will enhance the Drupal experience.

Decoupled menus

We have long known that Drupal performs admirably as a headless CMS. Version 10 will include changes in this area as well. One of the most important enhancements in this edition will be decoupled menus, a feature that will make it simple to edit the menu from the administrative panel. This reduces the need for developers to make minor tweaks to websites created using front-end frameworks like React or Angular. More solutions that will make the decoupling technique easier to deploy will undoubtedly be included in Drupal 10.

How should one be ready to upgrade to Drupal 10?

Users of Drupal 9 should keep an eye on recent upgrades and check their website using tools like Rector or Upgrade Status to determine how much effort will be involved in updating to Drupal 10 and which modules won’t operate with the newest version. It will be as simple as updating from version 9 to version 10 of the Drupal core. Unfortunately, users must have some technical knowledge. Both manually and with the aid of Composer are good alternatives.

On November 2, 2021, Drupal 8 reached the end of its support period and was discontinued. As a result, its users should update the system as soon as possible to version 9, and then following its official release, to version 10. Upgrades to Drupal 9 are very simple because version 8 and version 9 weren’t very different. The procedure is broken down into several steps and is officially documented. Use the Upgrade Status module as well.

Although Drupal 10 should have already been released by then and will have tools for migrating from version 7, you may currently migrate (not update) to version 9, the majority of whose modules will be converted to version 10 on the day of its release. Drupal 7 will be supported till November 2023. The migration procedure is undoubtedly more difficult, and it’s unlikely to be completed without the assistance of trained professionals.

Regular website updates help us maintain security and business continuity and may reduce the work required if we transition to a newer version. Atlas Softweb has expert Drupal developers who will guide you in your Drupal migration. Contact us to get an estimate of the cost of Drupal Website Development and Maintenance.