Drupal 10: everything you need to know

Drupal 10: What's New?

Given that one in eight business websites runs on Drupal, it is essential to leverage its capabilities. The sites of organizations using Drupal rely on the continuous improvement of the software. Its ability to scale securely is already a key trait that elevates it as the content management system of choice for ambitious organizations seeking a great digital experience, regardless of the size of the company.

As an open-source project, Drupal regularly receives thousands of contributions for its development, ensuring that its innovations stay a step ahead of other closed system software. Fortunately, this is the brightest Drupal update yet, and there is much to be excited about. Here is what awaits us.

Drupal 10 Olivero theme for front end

The old Bartik theme will be replaced by the elegant and modern Olivero theme. This theme is magnificent right out of the box.

Named in honor of Rachel Olivero (1982-2019), a Drupal contributor, head of the organizational technology group at the National Federation of the Blind, and acclaimed accessibility expert, the Olivero theme features accessibility functions that ensure Drupal 10 works for everyone.

Drupal 10 Claro Theme for back end

Claro is the modernized back-end that will replace the Seven theme designed in 2009. A lot of work has been done on color contrast and the unification of elements in the various user interfaces of the Drupal 10 core. Touch targets are larger and admin tabs have been moved based on user research and better accessibility. The look is fresh, making Drupal more attractive. In the past, the appearance did not match the underlying power of Drupal, making its infinitely flexible capabilities seem outdated just because of its appearance. Claro gives it a refined look that invites the discovery of Drupal's power.

CKEditor 5 for Drupal 10

CKEditor 4 will reach the end of its life in 2023, so we will be moving to CKEditor 5. On the front end, it is a very refined content editing experience. For example, links and images can now be edited instead of having to open additional dialog boxes.

Another update to CKEditor 5 that excites us is the improvements for copying and pasting documents from Word or Google Docs into the content editor. It will remove the copied and pasted markup from those programs.

For an additional fee, CKEditor 5 Premium Features is available, a project contributed with real-time collaborative editing and commenting features, as well as Word and PDF exports.

A new object model, plugin, and configuration system enable these features. The Drupal community has worked with CKSource to implement the update, and Acquia developers also contributed to the effort. At the beginning of the initiative, critical Drupal requirements, such as plugin configuration based on the user interface, were not possible, nor was source code editing supported. Now both are.

Starter kit theme generator in Drupal 10

Drupal themes are not usually created from scratch; instead, they are built on base themes. In Drupal 9 and earlier versions, this was supported with runtime inheritance, where both the base theme and the sub-theme were present in the system. However, this approach was risky. If the base theme changed something in an update, the appearance or behavior of the site could break.

With Starterkit in Drupal 10, create a fork from a compatible theme and work on your copy from there. Whatever version you copied from is automatically preserved. If there are updates to the theme you started with, it is now up to you to review and apply those changes to your version, greatly improving its stability.

Drupal 10: A modernized platform

With these features on the horizon, we must ensure that certain elements are in place before we can work on Drupal 10. For example, Drupal 10:

• It will be launched with Symfony 6.2, which implies an update from Symfony 4 in Drupal 9
• Requires PHP 8.1, but can also support PHP 8.2
• It is incompatible with Internet Explorer
• Requires Composer 2.3 for development

These updates will enhance the Drupal experience by improving support, increasing site performance, and providing a more modern user experience for both developers and non-technical users alike.