One of the most rewarding aspects of working with Drupal is the vibrant community. Reconnecting with colleagues and friends from around the world and witnessing the passion everyone has for Drupal and Open Source is consistently inspiring.Unsurprisingly, Drupal CMS was a hot topic at DrupalCon, where an entire track of talks was dedicated to the various initiatives that constitute one of the most ambitious changes in Drupal’s history. Dries Buytaert, the co-founder of Drupal and an influential leader in the open-source community, provided invaluable insights in his keynote presentation, showcasing the latest enhancements in Drupal CMS.
What I found particularly impressive was the ability to use AI for content migration, intelligently mapping the source and destination. Content migration can often feel like a laborious task, so experiencing how AI can manage this process within Drupal was a real eye-opener.
Drupal Recipes
In addition to these four, another ten Recipes are in development, including AI, Data Privacy, Media Management, Search, Analytics, Marketing, and Workflows.
Photo by Paul Johnson on Flickr
We look forward to seeing you next year!
Drupal AI
The Experience Builder is set to replace Drupal’s other UI tools, such as View Modes, Layout Builder, Blocks, and Views, becoming the primary tool for displaying content. Its design focuses on Content Creators, Frontend Developers, and Designers, providing them with the flexibility to create aesthetically pleasing pages using the content structure that Drupal offers.Building pages will feel more intuitive, akin to using tools that content creators are already familiar with, such as PowerPoint. This is yet another way that Drupal is breaking down barriers for non-technical users.Recipes serve as a way to bundle together common functionalities, configurations, and content, offering users an accelerated route to achieving their objectives. For instance, if you want to run events on your site, there’s a Recipe that supplies you with content types, maps, calendars, and registration functionalities.
Drupal Experience Builder
Dries also emphasised the responsibilities we have when leveraging AI, particularly the need to maintain human oversight, ensure transparency, and provide choices when selecting the AI tool for integration. Drupal is committed to using AI in an ethical and sustainable manner that respects copyright.
Drupal’s content display management has evolved significantly over the past few years. The introduction of Layout Builder represented a substantial leap forward, introducing a drag-and-drop interface that allows users to preview how a page will look during construction. Drupal’s new Experience Builder takes these advancements to new heights.
Currently, there are four main Recipes available (Events, SEO, Multilingual, and Accessibility), each combining the best-in-class contributed modules to offer a pre-configured set of tools that allow you to get started immediately.AI has certainly captured the spotlight in 2024, and Drupal’s AI initiative is genuinely impressive. What began as a seemingly standard AI chatbot has revealed itself as a powerful site-building partner. Do you want to rename a content type? Drupal AI can do that for you. Would you like to add a filter to your calendar so users can select by region? Drupal AI can handle that too. The tool can even create new fields and new content types for you.
The Community
Drupal CMS (formerly known as Drupal Starshot) is set to revolutionise how non-technical users engage with Drupal, enabling them to get started with just a few clicks. From installing Drupal directly in the browser to swiftly selecting Recipes that tailor the site to their specific needs, along with utilising AI-driven site-building tools, Drupal CMS is transforming the introduction of non-developers to the platform.
