Ottawa Drupalcamp 2024 Keynote: Chart Your Drupal Journey

In this talk, I explore the current state of Drupal. On the cusp of the stable release of Drupal 11, we discuss the work underway for the Starshot initiative, and the opportunities it has created for contribution

1. Chart Your
Drupal
Journey

2. Martin
Anderson-Clutz
@mandclu
@[email protected]

3. Let’s Talk
About Drupal

In 2024


5. Drupal 11!
…so what’s new?


6. ●Site owners and builders
○Announcements Feed
○Access Policy API
○Field UI Updates
●Developers
○DeprecationHelper Class
○PHP Attributes > doctrine
○Single Directory Components
○Smaller core:
■Actions UI, Book, and Statistics
now contrib
…and lots more!
Drupal 11.0 vs. Drupal 10.0
●Visitors
○Performance Improvements
○PHP 8.3 Support
●Content Editors
○Workspaces (stable)
○Bulk Operations UI
○Taxonomy Revisions UI
○Block Revisions UI
○CKEditor Autoformat
○Navigation (experimental)

7. …and a new system
for “recipes”



(more on that later)





Recipes


16. What Brought You
to Drupal?

17. First Drupal
website was for
a local nonprofit 


18. Come for the code,
stay for the community

19. Today, people want
a website platform
that is…

●Easy to try out

●Robust out-of-the-box

●Easy to maintain


22. https://dri.es/state-of-drupal-presentation-october-2019 


23. What's
preventing us
from getting
there?

Significant
experience
required to

pick and
configure
extensions

Drupal core is
slow to change

Drupal core is
targeted at
developers

Most sites need to
use 20-30-50-100
extensions


24. What if
there was
something
in the
middle? 

Live
Drupal
site

Drupal
core

only

●Product for
ambitious site
builders

●Additional default
features

●Easier to add
more features


25. Drupal Starshot
Vision

Site builders without Drupal
experience can easily build and
launch Open Source Drupal sites.


27. Focus areas

1.Installation. Improve discovery and
installation experience of Drupal Starshot.

2.Configuration. Make building easier by
guiding site builders to success with
common best practices and state-of-art
innovations.

3.Launch. Launch the website with ease.


29. May 6
 Dec 31

239 Days


30. Drupal Starshot Mission Statement

Drupal Starshot is a fast-moving open source product that enables
site builders without Drupal experience to easily build and
launch a new Drupal site and extend it with pre-packaged
recipes, all using only their browser.

Unlike Drupal Core, it will guide site builders to install recipes for
common best practices and state-of-the-art innovations that are
fast and easy to set up thanks to smart defaults and minimal steps.

Drupal CMS will focus on getting people from install to launch 

really fast and bringing new people and contributors into Drupal 

and the Open Web.




31. Photo: https://www.pexels.com/@junior-teixeira-1064069
What is in
Drupal
Starshot?


32. Project
Browser 

Automatic
Updates 

Recipes
 Drupal Core 

=
Experience
Builder


33. Better name would be Drupal Package UI.
The Package Manager component is key in
installing composer packages on the UI.



Creates a "Staging" copy of the site where
composer changes are performed and only
applied to live, if all went well.



Automatic Updates itself are also key to lower
the maintenance cost of sites. APIs allow to
integrate with git / staging workflows or
backups.

Automatic
Updates 


34. Progress:



●Phase 1: Stable contrib module ✔

●Phase 2: Move into core

○Security Advisories display ✔

○Package Manager

○Automatic Updates (core)

Automatic
Updates 


35. Makes it easy to find projects that you may
need by providing a UI. Installs projects on
the UI with Package Manager.



May introduce new quality metrics to help
identify good projects. Contributes to making
project information cleaner.



Does not help in configuring modules or
finding the right project for your use case.

Project
Browser 


36. Progress:



●Revamp project categories ✔

●Logos and metadata for top projects ✔

●Drupal.org endpoint ✔✔✔

●Functional contrib module ✔

●Works with recipes ✔

●Project detail view

●Make stable

●Get into core



Project
Browser 


37. Automated site building steps that are
applied to a site. New in Drupal 10.3!



Can install modules, themes, import
configuration and perform configuration
actions. Does not have its own code or its
own upgrades.





Recipes



Install profiles /
distributions

Recipes

Lock-in
 ⚠ *
 ?????? 

Inheritance
 ❌ 
 ?????? 

Composability
 ❌
 ??????


42. Lets talk about the unicorn
config
content
composer.json


recipes
install
config:import
config:actions



Anatomy of a recipe
recipe.yml
●recipes
●install
●config:import
●config:actions
{…}

43. Progress:



●Recipes support in core ✔

●Install profiles now recipes ✔

●Drush support for recipes ✔

●Documentation ✔

●Make API stable

●Build Starshot recipes

○Blog

○Events

○Contact form

○Data privacy

○SEO

○Multilingual

Recipes


44. Easy page and theme building!



Drupal’s new experience builder will enable
site builders without Drupal experience to
easily theme and build their entire website
using their browser.



It will enable content creators to compose
content on any part of the page without
relying on developers.

Experience
Builder


46. +Best of Layout Builder

+Best of Paragraphs

+In-browser theming

+Single Directory Components



= Experience Builder


47. Progress:



●New page builder

○Create new component entity ✔

○Integrated with SDC ✔

○Working POC of front end

⇔ back end ✔

○Some interface elements built ✔

●Theme builder

○Defining vision

Experience
Builder

Twig AND
JSX!


49. We need to make a lot of decisions in the following 6 months.

How do we organize the team
and the work to succeed?


50. Guiding
principles

Decisions are
openly
communicated
and published

Fast and efficient
decision making

Prioritize the
goals and target
persona when
making decisions


51. Lets talk about the unicorn
Drupal Starshot Leadership
Product Lead:

Dries Buytaert

Tech Lead:

Tim Plunkett

(Acquia)

UX Lead:

Cristina Chumillas

(Lullabot)

Product Owner:

Pamela Barone
(Technocrat)

Community
Coordinator:

Gábor Hojtsy
(Acquia)


52. Monthly
Starshot
Council


53. Council Members

●3 site builders

●2 Drupal Certified Partners

●2 Drupal core committers

●3 Drupal Association Board members
(Innovation, Marketing, Fundraising

●2 Drupal Association Staff members


54. A CMS starting point



Faster innovation cycles



Better demos for all



Easier to contribute to

Clearer target personas



More complete product will
improve the experience for all



Focus on Starshot
modules + funding



Consolidation of
organization CMS

Consolidation of
contrib ecosystem

Ambitious site builder focus



Faster recipe adoption



Easier hosting?



What's in it for me?


55. the best of
each of us
Realizing the vision for
Starshot will require

56. How to get
involved
today?
Starshot initiative page:
www.drupal.org/starshot
–Sessions
–Issues
–Slack

57. 1.Update Drupal.org for Drupal Starshot

2.Starshot product marketing section

3.Drupal Starshot documentation

4.Recommend official recipes in the installation process

5.Create "Contact form" recipe

6.Create "Blog" recipe

7.Create "Events" recipe

8.Create "Data privacy / compliance (GDPR, CCPA, 

cookie consent)" recipe

9.Trial experience for Starshot

10.Create 'base' recipe with contrib modules and 

basic features

Starshot
Work
Tracks

58. 11.Dashboard page for post installation and login

12.Proposal for Sitewide SEO recipe

13.Proposal for content publishing workflows

14.Proposal for advanced search

15.Proposal for media management

16.Proposal for accessibility tools

17.Proposal for multilingual content recipe

18.Proposal for analytics

19.Proposal for concurrent editing

Starshot
Work
Tracks

59. Photo: https://www.pexels.com/@junior-teixeira-1064069
How can
you help?

●Code

●Testing patches

●Issue summaries

●UX feedback

●Competitive intel

●Documentation

●Module logos

●Project management


60. My Drupal Journey

63. My own evolution…

●Newbie

●Vocal in the forums

●Posting fixes

●Posting patches

●Maintaining modules

●Creating modules

●Occasional core contributor

●Starshot track lead


65. But also…

●Neophyte

●Advocate

●Mentor

●Speaker

●Event organizer

●Blogger

●Podcaster


66. Topics of interest

●Admin UX

●SEO and Performance

●Location and mapping

●Search (esp. Solr)

●Events (dates and times)

●Accelerated Site Building

●Artificial Intelligence


67. Starshot
Needs You!

68. Follow Your Joy

●Work on things that interest you

○It’s OK to change course

●Try out different ways of contributing

○Do more of what you enjoy

○It will likely change over time

○Core vs Contrib

■Core - more impact

■Contrib - faster innovation

●Be respectful

●Assume good intent


69. Help is Here!

●Drupal slack

○#contribute

○#maintainers

○#contribution-events

○#starshot

●Issue queues

○Core

○Contrib modules

●More resources

○Podcasts

○Newsletters

○Video training

○Q&A sites


71. 99% of
users

Almost
no one

Core + many
modules
(DIY)

More risk

Mixed quality

Higher TCO

Low risk

High quality

Low TCO

Core only


72. Photo: https://www.pexels.com/@junior-teixeira-1064069
An amazing
opportunity
to make a
difference


73. Thank you!

74. @[email protected]
Questions?
@mandclu