Keeping your website modern and up-to-date can present a challenge, particularly in today’s fast-paced, constantly evolving digital world. One way that you can simplify this process is by hiring a web development company to use a CMS platform, such as Drupal.
The biggest CMS providers release major updates every year or two, providing developers with a range of new tools and resources to ensure their websites are kept state of the art and secure. Drupal’s last significant update was Drupal 9 in mid 2020. Drupal 10 is set to be unveiled in July 2022.
Downloading these updates is necessary for several reasons. Not only will it allow you to make the most of Drupal’s latest innovative research and developments, but there comes a point at which support is ‘turned-off’ for older iterations of the software. Should you encounter a bug or security issue, you won’t be able to access support from the official Drupal team. This is known as ‘end of life’ or EOL.
Drupal 8 reached EOL in November 2021, at which point all Drupal developers in Melbourne were advised to upgrade to Drupal 9.2. While Drupal 9 is not scheduled to reach EOL until November 2023, the software company is already advising users to prepare their websites for an upgrade in mid to late next year.
When will Drupal 10 be released?
Providing that everything runs smoothly, the team at Drupal are hoping to have the update ready mid 2022. This timeline was announced in 2020, so there is a chance that a few things have changed since then.
Drupal expects that the latest date that Drupal 10 will be available is December 2022.
This means that Drupal 9 will have the shortest lifespan of all Drupal iterations. To put this into context, Drupal 7 was released in 2011. Drupal 8 took 4 years, with a release date of 2015. Another 5 years passed before Drupal 9 was made available.
The two year lifespan of Drupal 9 does seem very short by comparison. Drupal themselves have advised that Drupal 10 is a “refined version of Drupal 9”. While there will be changes and improvements, web development companies believe they may not be as significant as previous upgrades.
What does Drupal 10 include?
As is the case with all CMS platforms, Drupal uses a range of third-party libraries and plugins. These are known as ‘third-party dependencies’. The first major change in the Drupal 10 upgrade will see the following updates to these dependencies:
In addition, Drupal have announced improvements over a number of main areas:
‘Out of the box’
The main advantage to using a CMS is user-friendliness. The software dramatically reduces the amount of time and effort you need to put into building a new website. Drupal 10 is going to take this a step further with improvements to the Layout Builder and Media functionalities.
Automated updates
Drupal has long been working on its automatic update feature, knowing that implementing manual updates is one of the most time consuming aspects of web development. Drupal 10 will see further improvements to automatic updates, including making it available for Composer-based websites.
Decoupled menus
Headless CMS platforms are becoming increasingly popular. Drupal’s Decoupled Menu Initiative is a step in the direction of making Drupal the world’s leading decoupled platform. It aims to provide developers with an improved site building experience, particularly for menu and URL handling.
New front-end theme
Bartik has been the default front-end theme for many years now but is set to be replaced by Olivero. Olivero is sleek, modern, and accessible, particularly for those with a visual disability.
Preparing for Drupal 10
How you prepare for Drupal 10 will really depend on what version of Drupal your website is currently running on. Drupal 10 has been built with backward compatibility to Drupal 9, meaning that the upgrade will not be too significant.
However, if you are using an older version of Drupal — Drupal 7 or 8 — the changes will be more substantial and may take more time to implement.
Drupal provides a tool called ‘Upgrade Status’ that can help identify the changes you need to make to your website to prepare for the next software iteration. Of course, this kind of work is best undertaken by an expert. If you believe your site needs upgrading in preparation for Drupal 10 but are not sure what steps are required, speak to a Drupal developer in Melbourne today.
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