Drupal 8 - Appnovation | Open Digital Delivered. · Drupal 8 is a testament to the Drupal...

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Drupal 8: Developed to Deliver Drupal Domination

An Appnovation Digital eBook

Issue 9

www.appnovation.com


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The information in this E-Book is written by Tim Thomas with contributions from Michael Parker.

© 2016 Appnovation Technologies

We hope you learn a lot from our free resource.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us

online or in person at any of our offices around the world.

We look forward to hearing from you soon!


Thank you for downloading our E-Book:

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Table of Contents

Introduction P.4

Overview P.5

Key Elements P.6

Key Features in Action: iconective.com P.8

Top Ten: Where FeaturesMeet Functionality P.11

Business Benefits P.13

FAQ’s P.15

Conclusion P.17

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IntroductionDrupal 8 was released in November 2015.

Yes, it’s here, and it’s time to talk about the basics, the bene-fits and the bonuses.

Even though we are less than a year out from the launch date, more and more companies are either migrating from earlier versions of Drupal, or adopting Drupal for the first time, using Drupal 8.

Here at Appnovation, we live, love and breath all things Drupal, so it should come as no surprise that Drupal 8 is a big deal to us. With a cast list of over 3,000 contributors, Drupal 8 is a testament to the Drupal community, in which we have an active role, our dedication, and the ever-increas-ing popularity of open technologies.

In this eBook, we certainly can’t cover everything that would be a gargantuan task. What we can, and will do is explore some of the reasons why people are drawn to Drupal 8, and outline key elements and the overall benefits of Drupal 8.

So, we’ll share as much information as possible, whether you are ready for Drupal 8 now, are or considering it in the com-ing weeks or months. It’s the eternal open source question: Drupal 8, Ready to Migrate?

And why, exactly, do we consider ourselves able to write this, what are our credentials?

Well, with a Drupal development team responsible for devel-oping hundreds of Drupal websites, in-house core contribu-tors, and Drupal 8 module moderators, we are involved in the funding, development and advancement of Drupal. We hope that lets you know how committed we are to sharing our Drupal 8 knowledge, and validates our expertise.

With so much to say about Drupal 8, it would be impossible to put out a piece that covers everything, but we wanted to start with an introduction for everyone, whether you’re new to Drupal, or just wondering why Drupal 8 is so superior to

Drupal 6 or 7.

That said, we wanted to produce something that will inform, instruct and educate people about some seminal elements of Drupal 8, while offering some insight into the business bene-fits that it has to offer.

As you’ll discover, as you read on, the result of this mass collaboration is truly spectacular, and has created a CMS plat-form which redefines the user experience, and resoundingly augments how we can order, collate, produce and manage online content.

As you’ll see, we’ve tried to round up the best features, functions, and business benefits. With all this information, Drupal 8 will seem clearer than ever, and you’ll soon see why Appnovation is so proud to leading the Drupal 8 charge.

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Exciting Drupal 8 Core Featuresto Know

Drupal 8 Overview1

Drupal 8 is here. But what, exactly, is so desirable about Drupal 8, so ‘must-have’ about it?

What new features make it so superior to, let’s say, Drupal 6 or 7?

Of course, those earlier iterations are still entirely workable, and can still be enhanced without the migration, but Drupal 8 is definitely something worth considering. It may not be for everyone yet, but in time, we think it will be.

It’s been 5 years since the launch of Drupal 7, so it’s cer-tainly time, but are the features and user experience there?

We certainly think so, and this eBook is designed to dis-cuss, highlight and determine what Drupal 8 can do, what if offers, and the benefits you will enjoy from upgrading or migrating.

With over 3,000 contributors, and having been in devel-opment (in one way or another) since 2011, it’s certainly something of an open technologies magnum opus, that’s for sure.

But in terms of what Drupal 8 does for you, that depends on who you are: a developer, a designer, a site-architect, a content writer, or simply someone who is considering migrating to Drupal 8, from an earlier version, or another CMS altogether.

Let’s take a look…

Changes in Fields

Responsive Images

Fields in Everything

CK Editor

Drupal 8 Views

Web Services

Quick Edit Module

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Drupal 8 Key Elements2

Drupal 8 comes fully loaded with features, elements and superior func-tionality. Not only are there more features, they are now tailor-made to improve a multitude of things… administration user experiences, mobile experiences, and optimized to streamline/enhance the content editing, managing and theming processes.

Big Pipe inCore

Custom Modules

Content Editing Abilities

Quick Edits (making your site easier

to use and update)

Views in Core

Built in Web Services

Loading Speeds

Javascript Automation

Theme Engines

Mobile First Focus

HTML Native Availability

Configuration Management

*Another Drupal 8 strength:

If a module isn’t available for your core business needs, we can build one for you. Put simply, using Drupal 8, we can help to build your Drupal ecosystem, tailored for and to your business needs.

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When talking about stellar elements of Drupal 8, it would be remiss not to mention the Drupal 8 security element.

Drupal 8 security improvements are numerous, making it the safest version of Drupal ever released. In an environment rightly obsessed with online security, the importance of this Drupal 8 feature must not be understated, and cannot be overstated.

Features that are available via patches and modules in Drupal 7 are now built into Drupal 8. Safety, of course, can never be underval-ued as a key element, and Drupal 8 certainly concurs with that.

View Integration

Content Editing

Multilingual Mobile Friendly

Web Services

Page Load Speed

HTML5 Support

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Key Features in Action: iconectiv.com3

Our latest Drupal 8 project was iconective.com, who had some serious requirements for what is their first Drupal site.

Prior to their newly launched Drupal 8 site, they were in serious need of a CMS which augmented their online presence and ability to manage their site. Our experts set about designing and developing the best way to do this, enabling them to manage their con-tent, and harness the power of Drupal 8 to deliver tangible business benefits.

Looking for a multitude of solutions, the focus was on some key features offered in Drupal 8, as touched upon earlier this eBook:

• Theme engines• Mobile first focus• HTML native availability• Configuration management• Quick edits/

Content editing abilities• Views in core.

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Loading SpeedsWith iconectiv.com, it was instantly evident that their pages rendered much more quickly. The fact that pages load more quickly, is both an enhancement of the user experience, and a clear demonstration of the power of Drupal 8 ‘under the hood’..

Content Editing AbilitiesThe iconectiv website benefitted from superior content editing abilities, enhanced by Drupal 8, mainly by virtue of more modules being worked into core. The tighter integration means that there is a more unified user experience.

Though these are just some of the features that we have used/leveraged in building the site, the overall results reflect an ex-cellent example of how Drupal 8 takes usability, functionality and content management to a much higher level.

In particular for inconectiv.com, the configuration management element was a particularly beneficial element for their business model due to their continuous integration requirements. Also mobile first focus is definitely a key factor in building the site.

Block SystemWhen creating the iconectiv.com Drupal 8 site, Appnovation developers utilized the block system, fully utilizing the signifi-cant improvements that Drupal 8 offers in this area.

With Drupal 8 development, the entire approach to site building is decided on whether to use the core block system, panels (contrib module), or context (contrib module).

Because of the improvements in the core block system, the iconvective.com team found that their ability to manage blocks was much more powerful.

More info for this specific feature: https://www.drupal.org/docs/8/api/block-api

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Quick EditsExpanding on the above point of more modules being in-tegrated into core, this means that the contextual editing capabilities are much more consistent.

Throughout iconectiv, there are contextual editing options available, whether it be a menu, block, or a view. This rep-resented a very strong improvement for site administrators , and their overall user experience.

Mobile First FocusDrupal 8 has a few mobile first enhancements on the admin-istrative side, namely, the administrative toolbar, and some of the administrative pages. This is helpful for making quick edits ‘on the go’.

Theme EnginesAnother reason why iconectiv.com went for Drupal 8 is the theme engine element. Using TWIG provides better ab-straction between presentation and logic. The TWIG syntax is more “front-end friendly”, in that it is more concise, and doesn’t clutter template files with php variables.

This is also beneficial for collaboration, as it means that front-end developers/designers who are more comfortable on the HTML/CSS side, will feel a lot more comfortable working with the Drupal theme engine.

We also found that, because of various modules being rolled into core, content type display modes played a big part in this project. Rather than relying on views and views templates, like in prior Drupal versions, we created views to utilize dis-play modes.

This gave the templates a much more consistent feel, and they are much more manageable knowing that the field dis-play configurations are all in one place.

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D8 Top 10: Where Features Meet Functionality4

When it comes to features and functionality,

Drupal 8 Delivers...

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Views in Core Views is the most used Drupal module, in fact, it’s a key building block to how Drupal functions, and stands head and shoulders above other CMS’s, so it makes a lot of sense that it has now been moved into core… so it’s used ‘out of the box’.

Semantic Versioning (http://semver.org/)

Drupal 8 now uses semantic versioning. This meant that, with major, minor, and patch releases, we will always know if there are bug fixes, new features, or API breaking changes. Simply superb, just like Drupal 8.

Object Orientated Much of the code is now object orientated, a lot of this being due to “getting off the island”.

The Release Cycle A new minor release is launched every 6 months. This means, in simple terms, that we don’t have to wait 5 years to get new features into core. Time, cost and all around effi-ciency. Drupal 8 delivers again.

Getting off the island Reference: http://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/off-the-island-2013

Drupal now uses lots of code that wasn’t initially written, or invented for use with Drupal. In essence, it’s just good, standard code from the wider PHP community. This allows flexibility of development, never a bad thing. Drupal development con-tinues to offer even more flexibility for users and developers alike.

Another added advantage, is the presence of ‘small’ updates, meaning that there are fewer things you need to test – i.e. going from D7 to D8 could be quite a leap, but with multiple, smaller updates throughout the year, it makes things much easier to manage (like cooking a lobster, slowly boiling the water, if you will).

Plugins, Events, & ServicesThese are all new concepts in Drupal 8, when writing mod-ules it gives a whole new scope of how to build things.

Big Pipe This is one of those features we could add in a minor release and was added in 8.1.0. Big Pipe is a concept from Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/big-pipe-pipelining-web-pages-for-high-performance/389414033919/) to build faster loading pages.

Twig Templates Previously the front end was written in PHP frontenders don’t like php. Twig is a lot better.

(http://twig.sensiolabs.org/)

Time to Migrate To help people move from Drupal 6 or Drupal 7, Drupal 8 adds basic migration. It’s that simple, we’re not sure why you wouldn’t want to do it!

Configuration ManagementDrupal has always suffered from configuration living in the database alongside content, but Drupal 8 changes that…for the better. Configuration can now live in YAML files, and can also be managed along side code.

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Drupal 8 Business Benefits5

Rocketing Results for your Business

So, Drupal 8 has a multitude of features, and stands out as a superior CMS.

We get all that.

But in terms of user experiences, and business benefits, what’s the real story?

Well, here’s just some of what you can enjoy….

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Lights, Camera, Drupal 8…Action… In April 2016, Google’s algorithm started to rank mobile-friend-ly websites higher than non-responsive ones. This alteration has, and continues to affect millions of websites. IN some cas-es, sites have reported a traffic reduction of up to 50 percent.

With over 100 billion mobile searches now made every month, and consumers spending three hours and 16 minutes a day on their smart phone, however, this should come as no great surprise.

As ever, the Drupal community has adopted a forward-think-ing approach to these changes, as you would expect. Drupal 8 actually goes beyond being ‘mobile friendly’, and effortless-ly strides into the arena of being ‘mobile first’.

Now, tables, videos images, themes….all responsive, which makes them compatible across all devices, from iPhones to tablets, to desktops. Another important advance is how administrative pages are so much easier to navigate, and are generally much more user friendly on mobile devices.

With a new ‘back to site’ feature, this enhanced mobile user experience really does augment performance and streamline efficiency. What more could you want? (and yes, that’s a rhetorical question, just in case you were about to send a list of requests…..)

Making it Multilingual… Drupal 8 talks your language… (whatever it is!)Language, it’s something that we all use… and with Drupal 8, it takes fewer modules to make a site multilingual, than in all previous versions.

Thankfully, Drupal 8 has now revealed a new ‘love of lan-guage’, reaching a new linguistic level that offers much more to users from around the globe

Having a CMS that operates in your language is not just im-portant, it’s not a luxury item, it’s a fundamental imperative for millions. Drupal 8 has now ensured that both internation-al site visitors and web developers, can have the appropriate linguistic capabilities at hand, the value of which can not be overstated.

Multi-lingual websites can now include their choice of up to 94 languages, with any number of translation capabilities now available, and built right in.

Access, Access, Access…In a highly competitive CMS field, Drupal 8 is, without any real doubt, one of the most agile and customizable out there, offering huge potential for marketing.

Thanks to Drupal 8, many of the finest features are now built in, offering incomparable efficiency, opportunities and incredi-bly easy user experiences to administrators.

Having a scalable and responsive website is, among all the other ways of generating leads and establishing your brand, a highly effective way to achieve these things.

Mobile First Focus, Benefiting your business on any device…Drupal 8 is, among its many other valuable elements, a mo-bile-first leader.

With more and more companies employing this mobile first focus approach, Drupal 8 is leading the way in this arena.

Languages? Done. Accessibility? Of course. But what about Security?If it’s good enough for the White House (yes, that’s a Drupal site…) then that should answer the security question without need for further comment. But of course, we won’t leave it at that.

Put simply, Drupal 8 offers one of the most secure CMS op-tions available. I mean, would the “leader of the free world” entrust his online presence to be anything other than the best?

Security audits are of paramount important to Drupal users, developers and the wider Drupal community, so it’s not surprising that this new iteration is so comprehensive and thorough in terms of security.

With features in Drupal 7 (modules or patches on drupal.org) built in to Drupal 8, security is simply not something users need worry about.

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Drupal FAQs6What does the

release of Drupal 8 mean for Drupal 6,

or indeed 7?

I’m thinking about moving my

Drupal 7 site to Drupal 8, should I wait or migrate?

There are sites that are running D6 or Drupal 7, and they are still perfectly feasible, workable and functional. That said, with no core security patch-es being released, the sooner you migrate, the better. When it comes to purely safety concerns, nothing really rivals Drupal 8.

At Appnovation, we love Drupal 8, but we know that timing is everything, and requirements drive decisions. If you have a complex site, for example, you might find it’s better to wait before migrating, as a number of con-triuted modules have yet to be written for Drupal 8.

However, if you are sitting on the migration fence, so to say, we will al-ways help you assess your site, and let you know what is required to get it running on D8…or whether to wait to migrate. Whether it’s now or later, Appnovation is ready to help you make the change.

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Is Drupal 8 meant for a particular size

of organization, or does it favor a

particular industry type?

I assume that there are some

sites already using Drupal 8?

No - it’s got the power for enterprise needs and the flexibility for smaller sites too.

Yes... iconvectiv.com is Appnovation’s latest Drupal 8 project, but of course, there are plenty of Drupal 8 sites out there.

Can I, and if so, how can I update

the code of my own modules?

I wonder if it’s better to say here that we can plough back any changes we make to improve D8 and modules into the community... also, we are having a D8 sprint day in November to fix bugs in D8... 7

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So, we’ve taken a whistle-stop tour of Drupal 8, so how would we sum it all up? Well, in terms of CMS superiority, Drupal 8 boasts superb integration capabilities, with other systems) capabilities, agile Drupal design and development methodology, and promotes a collaborative, transparent and communicative approach.

Our Drupal 8 Team is up to speed, ready to roll and already involved in large scale Projects, all of which showcase the elements, features and capabilities of Drupal 8. With our award winning team of in-house, front-end experts, business analysts and UX/UI specialists, we are ready to help you.

Whether you’re migrating from an earlier version of Drupal, are Drupal 8 is your first Drupal site, Appnovation has you covered.

For a free consultation, or to discuss migration, integration, managed services or how Drupal 8 could work for you, contact Appnovation:

Download: drupal.org/download Learn: drupal.org/documentation Connect: drupal.org/community

Conclusion7Visit California

osCaddie ManagementPfizer

E-Sampling AustraliaThe Economist Group Site Redesign and Build

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Proudly delivering quality projects to companies, organizations and government entities around the world. Here are just a few of the names you might recognize:

Thank you again for downloading this E-Book. If you’re looking for help with Drupal 8 development, design, migration and upgrades, support and maintenance, or anything else Drupal, contact us today at [email protected]. We look forward to hearing from you soon!

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