Earlier this year, the team behind the Drupal CMS launched Drupal 10, a new version of the Drupal platform with a number of features and improvements. Drupal 10 represents another step forward for Drupal as they continue to make improvements in a number of areas including performance, security and usability for all users.
In light of the recent launch, we have started preparing for Drupal 10 and have been hard at work getting our clients ready for Drupal 10 over the summer and leading into Autumn.
As with any major software release, there are always initial bugs related to the first release of the software, and so we will be formally moving everyone over to Drupal, 10.1 later this year.
Drupal 10 offers a number of advantages over its predecessors.
Improved admin theme
As part of the Drupal 10 release, the admin theme saw a complete overhaul. The new theme represents a major improvement in usability and reduces the learning curve in using your new website. The new cleaner theme also means sites are easier to keep up-to-date and create new content for, while maintaining the same flexible page section/body element approach that allows users to create bespoke pages for their website easily.
*Every website will have a different edit screen depending on their individual page requirements, however the new theme represents a new and improved way of laying out content.
Updated Text Editor
The new theme also sees the rollout of a new rich text editor. The new text editor features a number of quality of life improvements which make editing text and updating content much easier.
For those looking to learn more, the text editor is built on an open source platform called CKEditor 5. The new editor also makes the roll out of new features such as text styles, formatting options and image & video placement within content incredibly simple.
Future-proof software
The new Drupal 10 platform ensures the future proofing of the software. With users needing to upgrade to Drupal 10 to continue receiving regular security and software updates, the new version also updates Drupal's systems running “under the hood” to ensure your website continues to be maintained and performs at the levels expected by modern website users and admins.
Improved security & performance
Drupal 10 represents a step forward for Drupal, not only in its usability but also the software and tools it is built on. With a new approach Drupal has increased its performance and security, ensuring your website maintains an optimal loading speed, reducing failed loads while keeping security at it's core, to ensure a consistently good experience for your users.
Alongside the Drupal 10 update, we will be rolling out additional updates to PHP 8.1. Again this will see further improvements to security and performance of your website.
SEO
A recent addition to the theme is also the new SEO tab. This new tab allows users to leverage Yoast SEO, which is a popular Wordpress plugin (and requested by a number of our users) to improve their on page SEO. Through the updates in Drupal 10, we can help our users to help our users ensure they are following SEO best practices when creating and editing pages.
The Yoast SEO plugin is an optional extra and needs to be enabled on your site. If you would like to learn more or have the SEO plugin added to your website, please contact us directly or get in touch with your account manager.
Looking forward to Drupal 10?
All Drupal 9 clients will be contacted in the coming weeks to discuss the update and how best we roll this out for your website. However if you would like to speak to one of the team sooner or have any questions, you can get in touch here.
Our website is already using Drupal 10, however if you would like a demo of the new theme and new features, please get in touch and our team will be happy to help.
Each website is different, however typically the upgrade take 1-2 days and can be completed behind the scenes.
Some websites need a quick upgrade to the underlying server. This can cause downtime for 5-10 mins, however we will liase with you and find the right time for us to take the website down.
