Drupal Planet

Today we are talking about DrupalCon, Wordpress, and what a wordpress guy can learn at a Drupal Event with guest Chris Reynolds. We’ll also cover Shortcode as our module of the week.

For show notes visit: https://www.talkingDrupal.com/509

• The Pros and Cons of Short Codes
• Chris Reynolds' Journey to DrupalCon
• Comparing DrupalCon and WordCamp
• Funding and Organization of WordPress Events
• The Collaborative Spirit of the Drupal Community
• Wishlist for WordPress Features
• Composer Support in WordPress and Drupal
• Backward Compatibility in WordPress
• Challenges with Composer in Drupal
• Config Management in WordPress vs. Drupal
• Responsive Image Management
• User Experience in Drupal
• Community Collaboration Between WordPress and Drupal

• A Wordpresser Goes To DrupalCon Atlanta 2025
• wpcfm
• Longhorn PHP Conference Oct 23-25 in Austin, TX
  • Call for proposals through July 18
  • Join #texas-camp in Drupal Slack if you’re interested in organizing a mini Texas Camp to pair with Longhorn PHP
• WP community collective

Chris Reynolds - jazzsequence.com jazzsequence

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi JD Leonard - jdleonard

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted your Drupal site to support WordPress-style shortcodes, macros to be used within content? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • Shortcode
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Sep 2010 by Dénes Szabó (denes.szabo) of Tag1
  • Versions available: 2.0.3, which supports ^9.3 ^10 ^11
• Maintainership
  • Security coverage
  • Test coverage
  • Number of open issues: 30 open issues, 3 of which are bugs against the current branch
• Usage stats:
  • 13,260 sites (almost 70% are D7 however)
• Module features and usage
  • For anyone not familiar with WordPress short codes, the documentation describes them as macros, and most often they are used for inserting elements into content such as image galleries, videos, playlists, and more. Shortcodes can also wrap content, however, and it’s possible to nest shortcodes as well.
  • Drupal typically solves the problems addressed by shortcodes using custom HTML elements, as implemented in the media ecosystem, or with the Entity Embed module. I think that shortcodes may also be useful in places where Drupal might also rely on tokens, albeit with an additional module like Token Filter.
  • Gutenberg includes a Shortcode block that can be used as a flexible way to add a variety of elements into a post’s content.
  • I think Shortcodes are an interesting paradigm because they’re really a tool for power users. Instead of providing a UI to browse and choose elements for something like an image gallery, they allow a savvy editor to quickly write a tag that will construct a gallery using numerical ID values.
  • I don’t think this is a tool that most Drupal sites will need, but it could be a really good way for experienced WordPress teams to feel more at home when starting to work with Drupal.

The Trump administration and its supporters are attacking dissenting views on a terrifying scale. Here are steps to protect your website from censorship.

Dear Readers,

Drupal’s strength rests on more than code quality or feature sets. The project’s true resilience comes from the choices it makes about who belongs. As Pride Month closes, the maxim “what you permit, you promote” takes on new urgency. By embedding inclusion into every pull request review, event guideline and policy decision, Drupal lays the groundwork for a community where diverse voices shape its future.

Concrete steps turn that principle into reality. Fei Lauren recalls that “seeing people like me and feeling seen felt so transformative,” a shift driven by initiatives such as hidden-disability sunflower lanyards, family-friendly meet-ups and dedicated channels for neurodivergent contributors. These grassroots practices have sparked regional working groups in Latin America and Africa and transformed the Drupal Diversity and Inclusion Slack space into a hub of shared resources and real-time support.

Sustaining momentum beyond a single month requires ongoing action. Community members can audit site accessibility, propose new support channels and volunteer to host meet-ups that center diverse needs. As Fei urges, “find your people,” because every inclusive choice today becomes the culture Drupal promotes tomorrow.

• “What You Permit, You Promote” - Fei Lauren on Drupal Inclusion
• GitLab Co-Create Program Decoded by Nick Veenhof

• Why Use Automated Testing Kit? - Part 1
• Want to try out the new Agentic structure inside Drupal?
• Drupal CMS Launches SaaS Site Template for B2B Expense Management
• DrupalX Now Powered by Drupal 11: Major Upgrade for Standard and Decoupled Versions
• James Williams Releases Autocreate Access: A Drupal Module for Smarter Tagging Permissions

• Promet Source Opens Registration for Live Drupal Training Courses
• Adaptive Launches AX+ Toolkit to Streamline Drupal Admin Experience
• Developer Portal of the Dutch Gov Launches Rest-Only, OpenAPI-First API Registry
• CampusDrop Enters Prototype Testing as Open-Source Backdrop CMS Platform for Higher Education

• InfoBeans Hosts Drupal Pune Meetup to Support Open Source
• DrupalCon Chicago 2026 Introduces Lower Ticket Prices, New Policies, and Stronger Community Focus
• Apply for Sponsorship at DrupalCon Vienna 2025
   

We acknowledge that there are more stories to share. However, due to selection constraints, we must pause further exploration for now.

To get timely updates, follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. You can also join us on Drupal Slack at #thedroptimes.

Thank you, 
Sincerely 
Alka Elizabeth 
Sub-editor, The DropTimes.

This guest post is by DDEV community member and Drupal contributor Bill Seremetis and sponsored by Annertech.

DDEV comes bundled with a predefined set of tools, Pantheon's terminus being one of them. The latest releases of terminus are not compatible with older PHP versions like PHP 8.1, though, so we needed to downgrade it inside DDEV's ddev-webserver Docker image.

This guide covers how to downgrade terminus and will also explain how to use the same technique to install additional custom tools.

Please note there are many ways to install packages in a container. We will cover extra Dockerfiles here, but also check webimage_extra_packages and dbimage_extra_packages in your config.yamlfor more details).

Terminus dropped support for PHP 8.1 in recent versions, but some of our projects still use PHP 8.1. We had to downgrade the DDEV-bundled version of terminus for those projects by using a custom Dockerfile:

terminus is just an example here, it could be any command you wish, either because you are running an older PHP version or the bundled version has a bug that ruins things for you.

You can obviously use the same techniques to install a variety of custom tools:

• DDEV Pantheon integration documentation
• Adding extra Dockerfiles for webimage and dbimage
• Adding extra Debian packages in DDEV
• Customizing DDEV images with a custom Dockerfile

If you like DDEV then you are welcome to contribute! You can join the Discord channel, create a new DDEV Add-on, or blog about how you use DDEV in your daily workflow. We’re always happy to hear from you on any of our support channels.

The Drupal Site Template Marketplace MVP proposal is now live for community review through 13 July 2025 in the Innovation Issue Queue.

After hundreds of community voices contributed through surveys, Slack, and Real-Time Collaboration sessions, this MVP reflects what we’ve heard: a trusted, flexible, and contributor-friendly ecosystem is possible—if we design it thoughtfully.

This Minimum Valuable Product (MVP) is a structured experiment targeted for launch at DrupalCon Chicago 2026. Key features include:

• Up to 15 curated DrupalCMS Site Templates (free and paid), listed on Drupal.org
• Initial participation limited to Drupal Certified Partners (DCPs) to streamline quality and feedback (expansion beyond DCPs may occur post-MVP)
• Makers set their own prices and sell directly to users (off-platform)
• A 10% revenue share from paid template sales and upsell services is directed to the Drupal Association
• Submission fee: $395 per new listing, with a $250 annual review fee
• Baseline standards for all templates include:
  • Accessibility (WCAG 2.2 AA)
  • Security and licensing compliance
  • Self-certified GDPR readiness (if applicable)
  • Documentation, maintenance commitments, and user support expectations
  • Regular feedback collection
  • Discoverability features including tags, badges, and demo previews
• Templates must be built for DrupalCMS, using the Recipes schema, demo content, and XB-compatible themes
• Templates will undergo automated and manual reviews, conducted by DA Staff (or contractors), with badges and trust indicators displayed where applicable
• Governance and policy oversight by Drupal Association staff during the MVP; future transitions to community-hybrid models are planned

This isn’t just a launch—it’s a test-and-learn cycle designed to validate whether a Site Template Marketplace is desirable, feasible, and sustainable. The MVP will help us understand:

• What types of templates people adopt—and what makes them valuable
• Whether direct sales by makers are viable, and what pricing models emerge
• What kinds of support, trust signals, and governance policies matter most
• Whether the DA can sustainably operate and review templates at scale
• How to balance monetization with fairness, contributor credit, and open source values

We’ll use this data to decide whether to expand, adapt, or stop the Marketplace after a 3-6 month MVP.

To help fund reviews and platform operations, the MVP includes:

• $395 USD per new site template listing
• $250 USD for annual review and revalidation

Site Template Makers:

• Set their own pricing for paid templates
• Transact directly with users (outside of Drupal.org infrastructure)
• Report anonymized data quarterly (downloads, revenue, support volumes)
• Keep 90% of revenue, while contributing 10% to the Drupal Association based on completed transactions quarterly

We’ve heard the same call again and again: make it easier to get started with Drupal—without compromising quality or community values. This MVP is a first attempt to meet that need, grounded in clear standards, shared incentives, and real-world feedback.

Let’s test it together—with care, clarity, and Drupal’s best interests at heart.

• Public comment period is open through 13 July 2025
• Marketplace Working Group meets 15 July 2025 to review input and finalize its recommendation
• The Drupal Association Board will vote 24 July on whether to move forward with implementation

Your voice is essential to shaping a Marketplace that works for the community. Here’s how to get involved:

• Read the full MVP proposal
• Give feedback in #drupal-cms-marketplace on Slack, anonymously through the Feedback Form or via the public issue queue
• Share this with your team or clients—especially those who create or use starter templates

Let’s build something that’s good for contributors, great for users, and unmistakably Drupal.

We’re excited to announce that a draft Drupal Site Template MVP Marketplace proposal will be released next week for public comment. This version outlines a clear Minimum Valuable Product (MVP) focused on early value, sustainability, and trust.

But first — here’s a look at what’s been shaping the direction of this proposal.

To help align on strategy and priorities for the Site Template Marketplace, the Working Group created a Business Model Canvas—a simple tool that breaks down the core elements of how the Marketplace can deliver value and remain sustainable. The Working Group landed on an MVP  model that centers:

• Primary Users: Low-code/no-code marketers and freelancer agencies
• Key Value: Trusted, flexible site templates that reduce time-to-launch and lower adoption barriers
• Revenue Stream: application and referral fees on sales and upsell opportunities to support Drupal Association infrastructure
• Cost Structure: Low-overhead pilot with both automated and staff-supported review

More than 500 people have shared their perspectives across four surveys—and others have weighed in through Slack discussions, real-time collaboration, and open conversations.

This community and end-user input has been honest, nuanced, and incredibly generous. It has revealed clear patterns, thoughtful tensions, and strong signals of where the community wants to go. So as in advance of the MVP proposal’s release, let’s reflect back what we’ve heard so far.

Both in survey responses and in Slack, the message was the same: don’t launch unless people can trust what they’re getting.

Top trust signals:

• A live demo or preview (most consistently requested signal across all channels)
• Clear documentation of dependencies and limitations
• Visible signals of quality (badges, reviews, contributor reputation)

In Slack, people emphasized that even a great theme becomes untrustworthy if it’s hardcoded, inaccessible, or unclear about what it installs.

Show me a demo. Let me see the code. If it’s a mystery box, I won’t touch it.”

From contributors and module maintainers to end users and evaluators, we heard a common theme: this effort should feel like Drupal.

• Governance should be fair, transparent, and enforceable—not performative.
• Monetization is okay—but must support the whole ecosystem, not just those selling templates.
• Attribution matters. Contributors want to be credited, not cloned.

If someone else is profiting off my work, I need to at least be recognized.”

Slack also raised the importance of review pathways that aren’t vulnerable to sabotage or bias—suggesting a need for a mix of automation and paid staff to ensure fairness.

End users want this. Freelancers want this. Agencies want this.

• 85% of end-user survey respondents said vetted templates would increase their likelihood of recommending Drupal.
• Agencies see templates as a powerful tool for demos, pre-sales, and fast-start projects.
• Contributors are eager to participate—if it’s worth their time.

• Users: Many want free or low-cost templates, especially smaller orgs and nonprofits.
• Contributors: Cite $300–$1,000 as reasonable price points for a complete, maintained, accessible, and documented product.

Slack conversations added nuance: Some contributors are fine with lower prices if the marketplace generates leads or recognition. Others say without fair compensation, they simply won’t participate.

• Users want badges that help them sort and trust.
• Contributors fear certification could slow things down or create an unfair playing field.

Slack participants suggested offering optional badges or tiers, not mandatory certification at launch. A common theme: start lightweight, evolve with real usage.

There’s broad support for monetization—but only if it’s done with intention.

• Contributors want clear, fair revenue splits—and protection against cloned or stripped-down copies.
• Users don’t want to encounter bait-and-switch upsells or gated features.
• Slack conversations reinforced a desire to avoid WordPress-style chaos, emphasizing community moderation, ranking hygiene, and a meaningful DA role.

This has to feel like Drupal, not like a spammy plugin store.”

The Community public comment period will be open from 27 June 2025 through 13 July 2025. The Marketplace Working Group will meet on 15 July 2025 to review feedback and draft its final recommendation to the board for their go/no-go decision on 24 July 2025.

You will be able to share your thoughts by:

• Anonymous feedback form
• Issue queue
• In Drupal Slack in #drupal-cms-marketplace

Thank you to everyone who contributed through surveys, Slack, working sessions, and feedback. Your ideas, critiques, hopes, and flags are shaping this from the inside out. All of this feedback has resulted in a proposal that’s practical, community-aligned, and intentionally minimal.

This Marketplace effort is grounded in community—not just as a value, but as a working method. We’re exploring the Marketplace potential together — ideally, to create something not just to reduce friction for new users, but to grow a stronger, more sustainable Drupal ecosystem for all.

Stay tuned.

Filmed at the AI Summit at London Tech Week 2025, this two-minute video captures the passion and purpose behind the newly-launched Drupal AI Strategic Initiative.

Join Baddý and Jamie as they explain why this work is important and why we need the Drupal community to rally behind it.

“In order to get fast innovation in Drupal AI, we need people to work on the project—and we’re doing that by getting funding and full-time contributors from participating companies.”

— Baddý Sonja Breidert

“I’ve never seen something quite like this in the Drupal community… It’s coordinated innovation not for one company, but for the whole open source community.”

— Jamie Abrahams

We led a rebuild and redesign of Free Press’ Drupal website to modernize its codebase, expand its storytelling features, and refresh its design system.

The Web Chefs

January 1, 1970

• Consolidated nearly 300 legacy websites into a single, cohesive Drupal-powered platform.
• Achieved outstanding performance scores, including Lighthouse scores as high as 99 and an exceptionally fast homepage (FCP of 0.5 seconds).
• Implemented sophisticated, easy-to-use authoring tools, empowering 130+ content creators.
• Enhanced accessibility and SEO to ensure NDSU’s content reaches and resonates with more students.

We’re thrilled to announce that North Dakota State University has officially launched the new NDSU.edu — a dynamic platform designed to attract, engage, and inspire prospective students.

Facing a rapidly changing digital landscape, North Dakota State University took a bold step to revolutionize its online presence. By investing in a transformative digital platform, NDSU has solidified itself as a forward-thinking leader committed to delivering an outstanding, cohesive experience for prospective students.

North Dakota State University

We now have an amazing authoring experience and an engaging web presence that reflects the vibrancy of the NDSU community.

—Lindsay Condry, Web Manager

The editing experience developed for NDSU is among the most sophisticated and user-friendly we’ve ever created. Using Drupal’s Layout Paragraphs module, editors can effortlessly design dynamic content layouts using intuitive drag-and-drop tools, enjoying real-time visual previews and hundreds of flexible layout combinations — giving them unprecedented control, speed, and confidence in content management.

At the heart of NDSU’s digital transformation was the innovative “Web Principals” initiative. These campus-wide champions didn’t just adopt new technology — they actively shaped its success by facilitating collaboration, peer-to-peer support, and fostering a genuine sense of community ownership. We also provided extensive training on a variety of topics — everything from page layout to writing effective copy for the web  — during live office hours and in a publicly available knowledge base. This unique approach not only smoothed the transition but ensured long-term success and sustainability by “training the trainers,” ultimately building a team of more than 130 content creators across campus.

Four Kitchens

The Web Principals became our change leaders. They’re the power users and the first line of support, making sure knowledge spreads across campus.

—Megan Bygness Bradley, Technical Project Manager

Prospective students now engage with academic offerings in an entirely new way through NDSU’s visually immersive, Netflix-style program finder. Organized by compelling themes such as ‘Pursue a Career with Purpose,’ this innovative approach makes program discovery intuitive and enjoyable, directly supporting students in finding their ideal academic path.

We engineered a custom migration strategy that consolidated nearly 300 TYPO3 sites — plus a couple of legacy Drupal sites — into a single, flexible Drupal platform. To modernize the frontend, we used AI-enhanced coding tools to convert two outdated Angular applications into lean, vanilla JavaScript, saving considerable time and complexity and reducing long-term technical debt.

Four Kitchens

AI helped us unravel messy Angular apps, turning them into clear, documented code that saved hours of guesswork.

—Jim Vomero, Senior Engineer

• Unified brand identity: Transitioned nearly 300 disparate sites into a unified brand experience — “One NDSU, One Voice” — strengthening NDSU’s identity and clarity of messaging across all digital touchpoints.
• Editor empowerment and efficiency: Implemented advanced, user-friendly authoring tools, dramatically reducing content publishing time, minimizing training, and increasing editor confidence.
• Community engagement and ownership: Successfully trained more than 130 content editors campus-wide through a unique “Web Principals” initiative, creating an active community of empowered, knowledgeable users committed to continuous improvement.
• Speed and performance: With Lighthouse scores as high as 99 on internal pages and a homepage loading in half a second, visitors experience incredibly smooth, fast interactions — improving engagement and reducing bounce rates.
• Significant accessibility and SEO improvements: Achieved near-perfect accessibility and SEO scores, ensuring inclusivity, compliance, and maximized online visibility to attract more prospective students.

This launch isn’t the end — it’s just the beginning! As NDSU’s digital partner, our Continuous Care support program will constantly improve their platform, ensuring it remains flexible, secure, and ready to adapt to future needs.

Congratulations to the entire NDSU team! Explore their impressive new site at NDSU.edu.

Is your school’s web platform ready for an overhaul? Let’s talk!

The post Launch announcement: North Dakota State University’s new digital platform appeared first on Four Kitchens.

One of the many benefits of the Tag1 D7ES service is that we notify you of any updates and provide security patches for all contrib and core modules you use - including free compatibility updates for Apache Solr! Apache Solr is a widely-used, open-source search platform that provides indexing, faceted search, and other features above and beyond plain-text string matching. Only version 9.x is currently supported by the community, with previous versions declared end-of-life (EOL) and no longer receiving security support. Two Solr integration modules for Drupal 7 (D7) saw wide usage, Apache Solr Search and Search API Solr. As of Drupal 7 EOL, these modules only supported Solr through version 7.x, meaning the D7 sites that wanted to continue using Solr were forced to use these older, unsupported versions. Hosting providers for D7 sites also needed to maintain outdated infrastructure for their customers. ## Tag1 D7ES updates Solr support Tag1 recently released updates to the Apache Solr Search and Search API Solr modules for all Tag1 D7ES customers, with support for Apache Solr versions 8.x and 9.x. This allows D7 sites to utilize Solr’s major improvements, including * Improved security * Improved stability * Improved scalability * Improved logging...

Join Mike Miles and Aubrey Sambor as they discuss their experiences with public speaking at tech conferences, including the challenges and joys of presenting technical and big-picture talks. Dive into their personal summer plans, ranging from trips to Cape Cod and Asheville to beer festivals and camping adventures. The conversation also explores recent technology updates, such as Figma's site builder and Apple's new 'Liquid Glass' design, emphasizing the importance of accessibility. Tune in for a casual, insightful chat about professional growth, summer fun, and the ever-evolving tech landscape.

For show notes visit: https://www.talkingDrupal.com/cafe005

Mike is passionate about development and working with the latest open source technologies. He has been working in web engineering since 2003, utilizing a number of different technologies, languages and frameworks. He has been working with Drupal since 2008 and is a regular contributor to the community and project. From 2015 to 2024 he was the lead organizer of the Boston Drupal Meetup Group. Since 2017 has been one of the organizers of New England Drupal Camp.

In his day-to-day role as Director of Web Development at MIT Sloan, Mike leads the development, maintenance and growth of the digital properties for the school, as well as, the development team that supports them. He is a public speaker and regularly presents at technical conferences around the world. Since 2013 Mike has presented dozens of talks at many different conferences/camps across the globe.

Aubrey is a lead front end developer and accessibility advocate with over 19 years of experience in software development and leadership. She specializes in writing modern CSS, semantic HTML, and performant JavaScript and brings almost two decades of experience in web development across higher education, non-profits, and public sector projects.

Aubrey is an active member of the Drupal community, contributing to open source initiatives and speaking at regional and national conferences. She champions accessibility best practices and writes about front end development, music reviews, and knitting projects on her blog, aubreysambor.com.

When she's not coding, Aubrey enjoys running, spinning her own yarn, fountain pens, and exploring local coffee shops and breweries.

• Casual Conversation and Weather
• Fitness Routines and Treadmills
• Podcast Preferences
• Remote Work and Buffer Time
• Job Search and Conference Experience
• Travel Stories and Conference Talks
• Halloween and Conference Talks
• Evolving as a Speaker
• Technical vs. Idea-Driven Talks
• Managing Bugs and Building Trust
• Balancing Multiple Talks
• Figma Sites and Accessibility Concerns
• Apple's Liquid Glass Design
• Nostalgia for Old Tech
• Summer Plans and Conferences

Mike Miles - mike-miles.com mikemiles86 Aubrey Sambor - aubreysambor.com starshaped

Digitizing a print format usually brings new opportunities and challenges. The biggest advantage is greater flexibility. Thanks to digitization, facts & figures can now be continuously updated and distributed more easily. In collaboration with the design agency Usable Brands, we reinterpreted existing visualizations from the print medium for the digital, responsive format. A key challenge here was to generalize possible exceptions and find reusable components that could cover as many cases as possible.

In iterative steps, we supplemented the design process with a digital prototype in order to test and improve the real experience in the digital world.

One challenge was that the final data was not yet available during development. We were able to test the visualizations with test data from previous years, but clarity about the requirements only developed in the course of the project, as the data was delivered and processed.

We paid particular attention to ensuring that the solution could be scaled as data changed and that editors could customize the display of data within the CI/CD framework.

Since both data and the size of users' devices can vary, we developed solutions that optimize the charts for smartphones first, but also for desktop devices. For very small datasets, we do not use labels and only display them when interacted with. Labels for rows appear above the row on mobile devices, while on desktop devices we use the available space and display the row labels directly at the beginning of the row. Particularly long line charts are made accessible on mobile devices by horizontal scrolling, while on desktop devices the chart can be displayed in its entirety. The donut charts benefit from the fact that we scale the labels according to the size of the pie slice – small values are displayed with smaller labels and larger values with larger labels.

You can visit Fakten und Zahlen at the pharmaSuisse website.

Below are some examples of how the facts and figures were visualized:

To support design and preparation as efficiently as possible, we have expanded the blökkli editor to include chart functions. First, the data is uploaded in a structured form, e.g. as a CSV file.

In a second step, the editorial team can interactively prepare the structured data in blökkli. The selection of predefined color palettes and sliders for settings help to optimally adjust the positioning and display.

Charts can also be exported as PDF files. Editors can manually set line breaks to optimize the layout of the chart pages.

The interactive charts for pharmaSuisse have been successfully released and are continuously updated. pharmaSuisse benefits in that facts can be sent directly via digital channels and updated regularly. We are currently planning the second iteration: the presentation of facts will be optimized, with a focus on interactions and readability.

Many thanks to pharmaSuisse for their trust and cooperation. Thank you Usable Brands as well as Jan Hug and Jens Vranckz from our team for the implementation! We are delighted to be able to create and further develop an appealing visualization for facts and figures.

Among the latest Drupal innovations, one stands out as especially bold, ambitious, and full of promise: a new version of Drupal designed to bring the power of the platform to non-developers. Known as Drupal CMS — and previously codenamed “Starshot” — it’s earning plenty of well-deserved attention.