- March 1, 2019
- by Christopher
- Drupal Development, Web Development
Drupal 8 has just released its latest version (8.7.0) and this new version provides new improvements and functionality without breaking backward compatibility (BC) for public APIs. The new functionalities are discussed below:
Layout Builder is stable
The Layout Builder module was originally introduced as an experimental module in Drupal 8.5.0. As of Drupal 8.7.0, Layout Builder is now stable and ready for production use. It provides a powerful, accessible, mobile-friendly page building tool that is fully compatible with revisions, workflows, and in-context previews.
The Layout Builder enables site builders to rapidly create layout templates for content that speed up the development process. It also permits content authors to easily customize individual pages with unique layouts.
The interface allows drag-and-drop management of your content blocks. It additionally supports keyboard controls and toggling the content preview on and off to give the content editor complete control of their experience while building their layouts.
New stable JSON:API support
JSON:API support is now included as a stable core feature. The JSON:API specification is an easy and fast way to build decoupled applications. Drupal core’s JSON:API module is feature-complete and easy to use with robust out-of-the-box support and simple setup. JSON:API makes it simpler than ever to build ambitious projects.
In the new release, the JSON:API module was added as a stable module to Drupal 8.7 core — skipping any experimental phases! JSON:API immediately exposes entities as a standards-compliant web API, so the data can be pulled by third-party applications.
Improvements Media Library
The Media Library has numerous significant improvements in this release. It is built on top of the stable Media module, which allows reuse of images, documents, and even embedded remote media like YouTube videos. Items in the Media Library can be managed with drag-and-drop. This release improves the design and accessibility of the user interface, allows inline media creation in the library, and provides more flexible grid and table views.
Umami demo now has more features.
Umami demo has become more accessible and demonstrates more features out of the box, including a new welcome tour, Layout Builder integration for recipes, and multilingual features. Umami food magazine has been translated into Spanish, and more languages are coming up soon.
Revisionable menus and taxonomy terms
Custom menu links and taxonomy terms are now revisionable, which allows them to be used in editorial workflows (similarly to nodes, media, and custom blocks). The Entity system now also provides a new Update API to support conversion of further entity types.
It no longer supports Php 5.5 and 5.6
As of December 2018, PHP 5.6 no longer receives security support from the maintainers of PHP. Anyone running Drupal 8 on PHP 5.5 or 5.6 should upgrade their PHP version to at least 7.1. Read more in the change in PHP requirements
No more automatic entity updates
Starting with 8.7.0, Drupal core no longer provides support for automatic entity updates as these have resulted in conflicts with regular database updates and data integrity issues. Changes to entities will now be performed using standard update procedures.
Third party Library Updates.
The following third-party libraries are updated in this release:
- Guzzle has been updated from 6.3.0 to 6.3.3.
- CKEditor has been updated to 4.11.3.
- Stylelint has been updated from 9.1.1 to 9.10.1.
- Twig has been updated to 1.38.4.
A number of other PHP dependencies have also been updated, including:
- Most symfony/* components to v3.4.26
- symfony/polyfill-* to v1.11.0
- typo3/phar-stream-wrapper to v2.1.0
- composer/installers to 1.6.0
- composer/semver to 1.5.0
- egulias/email-validator to 2.1.7
- paragonie/random_compat to v2.0.18
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR ME?
Drupal 8 site owners
Update to 8.7.0 to continue receiving bug fixes. The next bugfix release (8.7.1) is scheduled for June 5, 2019. As of this release, sites on Drupal 8.5 will no longer receive security coverage. (Drupal 8.6 will continue receiving security fixes until December 4, 2019.)
Drupal 6 and 7 site owners
Drupal 7 is fully supported by the community until November 2021, and will continue to receive bug and security fixes throughout this time. From November 2021 until at least November 2024, the Drupal 7 Vendor Extended Support program will be offered by vendors.
Bottom line
Are you planning on updating your drupal site to 8.7.0? Contact us today for a free quotation.
