Last month, the Drupal team unveiled major upgrades to Drupal 8 with the release of Drupal 8.6.0. This improved version of Drupal offers significant changes for content editors, site builders, and developers.
The latest update offers a better user experience, easier installation, and new content editor features. According to Drupal founder, Dries Buytaert, this is one of the most significant upgrades to date and a lot of progress has been made toward achieving all twelve of Drupal 8 core’s strategic initiatives.
Let’s take a look at Drupal 8.6.0 and some of its most notable features.
Media support
One of the biggest features addressed in the Drupal 8.6.0 update is the media support provided by Drupal. Previously, Drupal could only handle basic image and file support, but now a rich media support system has been put in place.
This new rich media system allows content editors to have more control over meta information of the site media and enables them to reuse existing media.
Additionally, content editors are now able to add remote media types to their site.
The feature, oEmbed, provides an easy way of embedding YouTube, Vimeo, and other third-party multimedia content to your site with a URL.
Workspaces module
The Workspaces module will give content authors a way to edit and preview site changes before actually publishing them. This is an especially helpful module for those who review large amounts of content at once.
The way the Workspaces module works is by creating staging and production environments. A green “Live” button appears at the top right corner of your site allowing you to edit and manage your workspaces.
The module will then let you switch to the “Stage” workspace where you can moderate individual pieces of content and push changes live at your discretion.
So whether you manage individual or multiple pieces of content, the Workspaces module eases the content management workflow by allowing you to review changes prior to deploying them to your live site.
Demo environment
Previously, anyone who downloaded and installed Drupal was presented with a bare website that included little to no information about how to navigate the CMS and its features. This proved to be very frustrating for evaluators since the installation process for Drupal was already very time-consuming.
Drupal 8.6.0 acknowledged these frustrations and created the Unami demo environment.
Upon installation, users will be prompted to select the “Unami Food Magazine” installation profile. Users will then be able to demo a site that is already filled with content.
The Unami demo profile provides an intuitive out-of-the-box experience that demonstrates many of Drupal’s capabilities. For example, users can view modes, menus, image styles, and more all within the demo site.
Not only does the addition of the Unami demo site help explain Drupal capabilities to new users, but it can also be used to show potential customers how Drupal is used.
Regardless of your role in the Drupal community, the upgrades available with Drupal 8.6.0 should make your experience with the system a more positive one.
For a more in-depth description of these Drupal upgrades, you can check out this article.
And don’t forget, you can come back to our blog for the latest Drupal news, upgrade information, and tutorials.