Drupal has always been a powerful platform — but Drupal 8 took things to a whole new level. Released in November 2015, it brought a lighter and faster core, a brand new theme engine, mobile-first design, and a range of features that made it easier than ever to build and manage websites. Whether you’re a developer looking to get more out of the platform or a business owner exploring your options, working with a web app development company that knows Drupal inside out can help you make the most of everything it has to offer. Here’s a full breakdown of the top Drupal 8 features you should know about.
Key Takeaways:
Drupal 8.0.0 was published in November 2015; the sighs of relief turned into odd murmurs — what is this all about?? There are many Drupal features that you should not ignore!
Nowadays, developers are focusing on how to make the management system user-friendly, how to make new ways to create high data structures, build efficient APIs, how to make it multilingual capable and mobile accessible out of the box? Don’t worry at all!! Drupal 8 brings all of them under one umbrella!
The Drupal 8 backend, which is powered by Symfony 2, the lighter and faster core, offers us many more capabilities for modules and themes. Including these, the Drupal 8 migration curve got reduced as well. All these huge changes provoke one to switch to Drupal 8 because of the top Drupal 8 key features that you should not ignore:
Twig- the brand new theme engine that Drupal 8 has included. This new theme engine is PHP-based, flexible enough, fast, and last but not least, fully secure. It’s good news for the developers. Now they can develop more beautiful and more functional Drupal sites just because of Twig. Its templates are written in a less complex syntax as compared to PHP templates, while they are more secure than others.
This is one of the best Drupal features and benefits that will help you know why to choose Drupal.
All Drupal themes are mobile-friendly, which means they can fit on the mobile screen without any hitch. There is a ‘Back to Side’ button to go back to the front page. This new admin toolbar works well on all types of mobile devices. The second best reason to choose Drupal.
Whenever it comes to writing web markup, it’s better to keep it up with HTML5. Drupal 8 also uses this de facto standard, which gives you access to input fields from e-mail to phone no., etc. One of Drupal’s best features that you should not ignore. Also, it enables the website to be more functional and compatible with mobile and handheld devices.
Drupal has some features that are out of the box, like Multilingual ready, making it the first choice of developers. The admin interface has built-in translation. The community automatically facilitates the translation updates.
It is another top Drupal feature that you should not ignore. Drupal allows you to change something you need to – directly and quickly. This feature is a backport of Drupal 8 in-place editing for Fields. You can edit the text directly for quick fixes and additions from end to end after logging in to Drupal. How cool!
Now you can use Drupal 8 as a data source itself, and output content as JSON or XML. Also, there is a step that you can take by posting data back to Drupal 8 from the front end. Drupal 8 has now come up with Hypertext Application Language (HAL) that makes exploitation of web services less painful.
Drupal 8 now uses a cache that stores all of the entities and only loads JavaScript whenever needed. Therefore, whenever you view the page, Drupal does not reload again and again. The previously viewed content is quickly loaded from the cache, thus increasing the speed of the Drupal website. Once configured and enabled, Cache is entirely automatic.
Drupal 8.1 now provides JavaScript automated testing, a cool new Drupal feature. Now, software testers have the ability to test JS frontend automatically. This automated testing saves time for many of us, making continuous integration much easier.
Whether it’s the faster loading speed, quick edit functionality, or out-of-the-box multilingual support, Drupal 8 has something for everyone. It’s a platform that makes life easier for developers while delivering a better experience for end users. If you haven’t made the move to Drupal 8 yet, now is a great time to start.
Looking to build a powerful Drupal website? Reach out to Arpatech today, and Let’s get started!
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