Guest Ricardo Marcelino discusses the challenges and future of Drupal, including declining popularity, hiring challenges, and acquiring clients. They analyze the unique selling proposition of Drupal and explore strategies for attracting more users. The podcast also covers building React-based frontend with Drupal backend using the Next JS module and the advantages of open source compared to proprietary software.
Improving user experience and accessibility, highlighting flexibility and customization options to address perception challenges.
Expanding Drupal's relevance through integration with popular technologies like React and Next.js, and focusing on user-friendly features.
Continuously improving Drupal's product, enhancing the user experience, and leveraging modern frameworks like React for seamless integration.
Deep dives
The Challenges of Drupal
One of the main challenges for Drupal is the perception that it is outdated and difficult to use. There is a need to improve the user experience and make Drupal more accessible to a wider audience. The perception issue can be addressed by highlighting Drupal's flexibility, customization options, and robustness as a back-end solution. Additionally, efforts should be made to attract more people to the Drupal community and encourage contributions to the project.
Expanding Drupal's Relevance
Drupal's relevance can be expanded by integrating with popular technologies like React and Next.js. This would make it more attractive to developers and organizations who are already familiar with these technologies. Improving the out-of-the-box experience and focusing on user-friendly features like AI-powered search and content modeling can also help in expanding Drupal's relevance.
The Future of Drupal
The future of Drupal lies in continuously improving the product and building a better user experience for developers and site builders. It should aim to provide a seamless integration of back-end and front-end technologies, with a focus on using modern frameworks like React. Constant innovation, community coordination, and strategic decision-making will play a vital role in shaping the future success of Drupal.
Addressing the Downturn in Drupal Adoption
While there has been a downturn in Drupal adoption, it is more of a perception issue rather than a reflection of Drupal's capabilities. To combat this, efforts should be made to raise awareness about the strengths and advantages of Drupal, such as its open source nature, flexibility, and extensibility. Improving the accessibility and ease of use through better user experience and developer tools will also help in attracting more users and organizations to Drupal.
The Importance of Community Contribution
The future of Drupal depends on each individual's contribution to the project. Every member of the community has a role to play in shaping the platform's success. Code contributions, bug fixes, documentation, and active participation in community initiatives are essential to keep Drupal growing and evolving. It is through collective efforts that Drupal can continue to thrive and remain a relevant and powerful CMS.
Today we are talking about The Future of Drupal article, What Challenges Drupal may have, and How we can overcome them together! with guest Ricardo Marcelino.
Have you ever wanted to build a website with a React-based front end, but with lots of the robust and mature CMS capabilities that Drupal provides? There’s a module for that.
Brief history
How old: created in Jan 2021 by shadcn, who continues to support it, including in the #nextjs channel in Drupal slack
Versions available:
1.6.3 for Drupal 9 & 10
Maintainership
Actively maintained, though it uses a Github repo as its place for collaboration, including issues
Number of open issues:
135 open, 12 of them bugs
Test coverage? Y
Usage stats:
1,249 sites
Maintainer(s):
shadcdn, who continues to support it, including in the #nextjs channel in Drupal slack
Module features and usage:
For anyone not familiar with Next.js, it’s a React framework for building front-end applications that gives developers a number a number of useful capabilities, such as dynamic routing, performance optimizations, integrations, and more
The Next.js module for Drupal optimizes your Drupal backend for use as the content repository for a Next.js front end
It add functionality like headless preview of unpublished content, even across multiple front end apps
It also supports Incremental Site Regeneration, a best practice to ensure your front end site can serve static pages for the fastest possible delivery, but without the risk of serving stale content
Works with the JSON:API Menu Items and JSON:API Views Drupal modules to allow even more of your front end site to be managed within your Drupal backend
There’s even a Next.js Webform module that allows your Drupal site builder to create webforms, and have the React forms automatically created
There is also a specialized version of Next.js, a “next-drupal-basic-starter”, also maintained by shadcn, that helps to get your Next.js front end working with Drupal more quickly
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