At SeeD we have done web development with Drupal since its version 5, in the process we have seen the evolution of the platform and the successes it has had in its evolution as well as the improvements that the community has heard from those who use it on a daily basis. , it has been a long and pleasant path in which we have grown together with the community.
An editor is perhaps the most frequent user of a platform, in many cases more than the end consumer, he is the one who interacts with it on a daily basis, he is the frequent visitor. Since version 8, when Drupal underwent a major paradigm shift, the community has embraced several initiatives to meet the needs of end users, developers and of course editors.
Today we are at version 9 of Drupal, this version is the consolidation of all the work that has been done, a work that continues and that with greater consistency brings us surprises for the editor experience, today I want to tell you about some of them.
Mobile Edition
The mobile phone has long been a fundamental part of our daily lives, this has greatly facilitated mobility in positions, which is why ease is required for members of the editorial team to review, edit and approve content from mobile devices. , such as iPhone, iPad and Android devices. This way content and campaigns flow, regardless of where they are and what device they are on.
Since version 8, Drupal has an interface completely oriented towards the mobile experience.
Effortless content creation
Creating content should not be a task of much effort, the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor functionality makes editing content easy and Drupal has taken it very seriously to have a very well integrated one, that's why has implemented in the core the complete support for the most recognized editor in the ecosystem, I mean CKEditor.
Thanks to this level of integration, it is even possible to edit content without having to use the full editing form but rather enabling editing from the content view itself as you can see in the following image:
Accessibility
Accessibility is inclusion and this has been understood very well by the community. Since version 7 of Drupal, a series of initiatives arose to ensure that the platform complied with the guidelines of the W3C, WCAG 2.0 AA and ATAG 2.1 AA, as well as Rich application support by adding support for WAI-ARIA.
The new default theme Olivero created for Drupal 9 and which will be formally available in version 9.1, is an example of accessibility in every sense, such as colors, contrasts, buttons and much more. It was a theme created under the accompaniment of accessibility experts and through an arduous process of testing and feedback with users.
Image fields ensure that they always have an alternative text, something that an editor might forget, and this, combined with accessible error messages in the forms, greatly helps with inclusion for editors with limitations.
It is also possible to have features such as:
- Integration with third-party image recognition systems such as Microsoft Azure to suggest alternative texts to images.
- Integration with third-party systems to improve accessibility analysis such as Siteimprove.
- Contrast management with the module https://www.drupal.org/project/high_contrast
Multi-language capabilities
The Internet has given us the opportunity to reach the entire planet with a single click, which is why many brands want to break language barriers by offering digital experiences in different languages.
With Drupal, the editor has a set of tools that facilitate the management of content, fields, categories and visualizations in various languages.
In case you want to integrate automatic translation services you could also do so, you can achieve integration with services such as Lingotek or Google translation services.
Drag & Drop Page Builder
Highly versatile systems like Drupal allow for a very broad degree of extensibility. Today, this must increasingly be accompanied by functionalities that reduce the need to code to create page structures. You may know this trend as “low code” or “no code.”
Layout Builder
This is a module included in the core that allows content creators to decide what layout they want to use for their landing pages and drag and drop content from one section to another.
With layout builder you can configure default layouts, for example, all case study pages can have the same look and feel, but if you want to have a variation for a specific case, you can do so.
Project Gutenberg
The Gutenberg project was born in the Wordpress community but has achieved a very good integration into the Drupal project. Its objective as a project is to provide a very intuitive and advanced interface for building pages aimed at site builders. It is very useful for building landing pages that do not require high integration with Drupal components.
Media Library Management
By managing multimedia from a single point, you can have a unified tool that also allows you to reuse the material you have uploaded.
The media library allows you to add images, videos or audio from the local machine, a remote hosting service such as Youtube or Vimeo or even be able to reuse elements previously uploaded to the library, all from a very simple interface.
Commerce Module
The Drupal commerce module allows the editor to manage orders, products and customers, with the use of an intuitive interface that can be customized to the needs of each brand and its workflows.
Drupal Commerce allows publishers to link descriptive content, digital marketing, and shopping carts. This makes it much easier to drive online sales, influence sales through great user experience (UX), optimized marketing tools and totally friendly SEO functionalities.
Conclusion
The commitment to experience for the editor is a task that the community has taken very seriously and is improving every day, the path of Drupal 9 is just beginning and there are several initiatives that promise to continue improving in this aspect, always with flexibility, versatility and security that characterize Drupal.
