Webdrips.com: Your Higher �Education Technology Partner�for Drupal

Dan Harris, Webdrips CTO

What's New in Drupal 8.7 and other Drupal 8 Awesomeness

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About Dan Harris & Webdrips

I’ve been working with Drupal for almost 12 years, and loving every minute.

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We’re a full stack end-to-end design and development service agency that provides consulting resources to help guide, plan, and execute business ideas.

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We have extensive experience working with higher education and businesses from small to Fortune 100 in size.

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We’re a minority female owned company.

Overview & Agenda

• Layout Builder is Improved and Stable (Video and Demo)
• Improved Media Library User Interface (Video)
• JSON:API is now in Core & Stable (Video & Demo?)
• Built in Umami Demo Now Multilingual & Accessible
• End of PHP 5 Support; PHP 7.3 now Supported
• Automatic Entity Updates has been Removed :(
• Revisionable Custom Menu Links & Taxonomy Terms
• Internet Explorer 9/10 Workarounds no Longer Supported :)
• Demo of Drupal 8.7 Including Many Core Authoring Features

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Layout Builder is Improved & Stable

• Page Layout tool is Ready for Production use
• Powerful
• Mobile-friendly
• Accessible
• Revisionable
• Works with Workflows
• Provides Context-based Previews (Toggle on/off)
• Rapidly Create Layouts without Hiring an Agency
• Usable by Content Authors
• Drag & Drop Content Blocks
• Game Changer

Improved Media Library User Interface

• The (still Experimental) Media Library has
• A Stylish new Look
• An Improved User Interface that supports drag-and-drop
• Improved Accessibility
• Support for Inline Media Creation
• A flexible Grid/Table view
• Will be Stable in 8.8 (to be released late this year)

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JSON:API is now in Core & Stable

• What is JSON:API?
• A Specification for how
• Clients that Request Resources Be Fetched or Modified
• A Server Should Respond to those Requests
• It’s Designed to Minimise both
• # of Requests
• Amount of Data Transmitted between Clients and Servers
• The Efficiency is Achieved without Compromising
• Readability
• Flexibility
• Discoverability
• This is the Fifth Module in D8’s “Web Services” package

JSON:API - What can it do?

• Provide Fast/Easy Method to build “Decoupled” Applications
• Expose Entity Information to be Referenced By 3^rd Party Applications
• The “Payload” Delivered by Drupal Modified Using only Parameters
• Simply Access the Desired info using
• URLs with UUIDs
• Standard HTTP GET/POST Methods
• Create Content Models (Architecture) in Drupal’s UI (Like Normal)
• Without Writing any Code
• Output after JSON:API is Added is a Standards-compliant API
• Content can be Pulled into JS Apps, Digital Kiosks, Chatbots, etc.

JSON:API Enables Access to all Drupal Entities

• Using the Module, ALL Existing Website Entities can be Accessed
• Blog Posts
• Users
• Tags
• Comments
• Access API Provides Standardized Method for
• Reading/Modifying Entities
• Fetching Entity References
• Fetching only Desired Data (e.g. Title)
• Querying Entities is Possible without any Config (e.g. a View)
• Front End Developers can Start Immediately

JSON:API Example

• Setup:
• Enable Module & Configure Permissions
• Navigate to https://example.com/jsonapi/…
• Suppose you’ve created a Sports Stats Site
• A Decoupled app (Android/iPhone etc) can be created to consume the site’s data
• The App Controls the Formatting/Theme
• The App can provide filters to send params to refine results
• Example: only show pitching stats from SF Giants
• Watch Video… (Tool used in Video is called Postman)

Built in Umami Demo Now Multilingual & Accessible

• What you’ve been Seeing in the Dries Videos is the Umami Demo
• Includes more Features out-of-box
• Welcome “Tour” (Clickthrough Tutorial using the Tour module)
• Layout Builder Integration
• Multilingual Support includes Spanish Translations
• What’s Even Better than Umami?
• https://demo.webdrips.com (Covered Later)
• Features ALL the Main Authoring Features except Workspaces
• Includes Multiple Tours
• Is Free and only takes a Moment to Sign up for
• Try Drupal 8 Before you Upgrade or Select it

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End of PHP 5 Support; PHP 7.3 now Supported

• Existing sites will still function on PHP 5.5.9 for now
• You will see warnings if logged in
• Drupal Security Updates will require PHP 7 as of Drupal 8.8.0
• You have about 6 months to upgrade PHP from today
• Minimum PHP version is 7.0.8
• Upgrade Dev now and Start Testing
• Usually Hosting Provider can
• Help Upgrade PHP
• Provide Different PHP Versions per Directory on the Server

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Automatic Entity Updates has been Removed :(

• Before 8.7.x, Entity Updates could by Synced via the Command Line
• drush entity:updates (or drush entup) will no longer function
• You must now use the UI to Manage Updates
• Why was it Removed?
• It Sometimes Resulted in Conflicts with Regular dB Updates & Caused Data Integrity Issues
• There’s hope: https://www.drupal.org/project/devel_entity_updates
• Module depends on Devel
• Not meant for Production
• Restores the drush command
• drush updb --entity-updates not supported

Revisionable Custom Menu Links & Taxonomy Terms

• Allows use in Editorial Workflows (Covered in Demo)
• The Entity system now Provides a new Update API
• Supports Conversion of more Entity Types
• The schema of any Content Entity Type Between
• Non-revisionable or
• Non-translatable and
• Revisionable or
• Translatable
• The Changes Improve Core Support for the Workspaces module

Internet Explorer 9/10 Workarounds no Longer Supported :)

• Drupal Dropped Support for IE 9/10 in 8.4.0
• But 8.5 & 8.6 Retained Workarounds to Allow 32+ CSS files
• Workaround Removed as of 8.7
• If IE 9 is Required, CSS Aggregation is Required OR use the IE9 Module

Drupal 8.7.1 Demo Time

Q & A Time

• dan@webdrips.com
• 800-930-2701 x 802
• @webdrips
• https://webdrips.com
• https://demo.webdrips.com
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