8k TVs, companion and laundry folding robots, 5G smartphones, voice assistant for cars, foldable phones... This is CES 2019 — the world's largest electronics show taking place these days in Las Vegas — in just a few words...
Or, simply put:
A sneak peek into the future.
And there are more than 4000 CES 2019 exhibitors there, each one competing for its own sphere of influence over the future. For its right to set the new tech trends.
So, you can just imagine that:
sorting through all the announcements that companies leading the change will make about their future product releases
staying on top of all those critical “teasers” regarding the innovative technologies and exciting features that their devices will feature
“playing with” all the gadgets sprawled over the +2 million square feet exhibition hall
… can get overwhelming.
And finding a straight answer to your legitimate question:
What is the hottest consumer technology device for 2019?
… turns into a “mission impossible” sort of challenge.
Not to worry, though.
We've done our homework, scored the heavy-weighing offer and put together a selection of the most influential tech trends and the gadgets at CES 2019.
Of those gadgets with the highest potential to grow from far-out concepts to production-ready devices.
1. AR-VR-MR: The “Sideshow” Performers
AR/VR-enabled devices are present at the show, but they're far from taking center stage...
Especially as VR technology is concerned, CES 2019 doesn't seem to be that long-time awaited chance for it to “incarnate” into a truly remarkable consumer product.
Or at least into an extravagant, daring concept.
But let's not get too frustrated (again) and, instead, let's analyze 2 contestants for the title of “the best VR/AR-fueled device” at the 2019 international CES:
1.1. HTC Vive Pro
More of an upgraded version of the Vive VR headset, HTC's Vivre Pro comes with some significant features geared to provide a more realistic VR experience:
improved 3D audio
a separate wireless transmitter
78% increase in screen resolution
noise-canceling microphones
improved design to make them sit more comfortably
1.2. Deepframe AR Window
Augmented reality at scale.
Just imagine this technology brought to a 65-inch 4k OLED! That's Deepframe.
The not-yet-for-consumers kind of display uses unique opticals reflecting life-sized digital elements over a physical space. With no VR eyewear on, the user emerges into a mixed reality world.
2. 5G-Enabled Phones: From Hype to Reality
Have you been starting to lose your patience on the 5G networks “issue”?
For, let's face it:
It's been a while since all this 5G hype turned into... hope... next into even higher hopes, then... nothing.
We had already started fantasizing about:
the extreme speed at which we would download the latest episodes of our top favorite TV series on our phones
this networking technology turbocharging all our future VR experiences
being free to go see a particular doctor... anywhere on the globe basically
5G enabling our cars to interact with our PCs, with our smart homes, with...
Luckily, at CES 2019 there's been clear evidence that companies are (finally) ready to take the charge and implement 5G into their devices.
2.1. Samsung's 5G Smartphone: Samsung Galaxy 10
The big absent from CES 2019 Las Vegas has been Samsung Galaxy 10.
Yet, from the company's CEO's press release we now know that:
it will be released this year “equipped with” 5G technology
… and 7nm chipsets, among other features
Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T will be its US carriers running 5G programs
FCC approved Samsung's intention to roll out 5G network this year
Note: another great news is that Motorola and OnePlus, too, are some 2 other giants planning to release 5G-enabled phones this year. We'll see which South Korean company will first reach the “finish line” with its own 5G-powered device.
3. Voice-Controlled Technology... for Cars
3.1. Speak's Music Muse: Alexa-Powered Voice Assistant for Cars
How about that! Bringing voice-controlled technology to your car...
And here's what this Oreo-sized device would enable you to do once you plug it into your car's USD port and connect it to your smartphone:
you get to use voice commands and ask for a weather report, play music
... control your Alexa-powered devices at home (e.g. you could close your garage doors or turn off your front door light)
... add items to your to-do list
And, most of all:
It comes with hands-free calling functionality.
4. AI Technology Is... Everywhere at CES 2019
Artificial intelligence steals the spotlight at the annual consumer electronics show in Las Vegas. Here are just 2 of the AI marvels that stole our attention:
4.1. IBM 50-Qubit Quantum Computer
No other machine at the show 2019 International CES could rival this “beast” when it comes to calculations.
The uses that IBM had in mind for it? All those AI and machine learning-powered scenarios where huge volumes of data need to be crunched at super speed.
4.2. “Nervana Neural Network Processor for Inference” (NNP-I)
Intel and Facebook joined their forces to create a more affordable AI chip addressing companies with high workload demands.
When will it go from concept to product?
Sometime this year those “target” companies will be able to use NNP-I to accelerate inference and thus better cope with their workload challenge.
The END!
Back to you now:
What do you think about the tech trends and devices highlighted here? Do you predict that they'll turn into actual products this year? What have been your expectations from CES 2019?
And, most importantly: how does your wishlist of next-generation gadgets look like?
Photo by Owen Beard on Unsplash
Adriana Cacoveanu / Jan 09'2019
What's the future of cloud computing? What are the enterprise cloud computing trends for 2019 to expect, prepare for and leverage to your advantage?
For, whether you:
are just planning to move your workloads from a data center to a cloud-native architecture
or you're already “reaping” the benefits of a multi-cloud architecture
… the question remains the same:
“From Kubernetes to serverless computing, to multi-cloud strategies, to containers, to... which will be the top influential cloud trends and patterns in 2019?”
To be honest with you, we, too, as a Drupal firm, have asked ourselves the same question...
Once you've got the answer, you can:
(properly) prepare for the challenges to come
turn them into... excellent new opportunities
Now, without any further ado, here are the 5 trends that will dominate the cloud computing industry in 2019:
1. Serverless Computing: More and More Companies “Flock” to Serverless
Serverless technology goes hand in hand with cloud-native architectures...
And the fact that its enterprise adoption will just... explode in 2019 is no news at all, right? Just think of the key features and benefits that serverless “lures” even companies like NetFlix, New York Times or Mapbox with:
high speed
reduced costs
the convenience to port their serverless apps between multiple cloud providers
the opportunity to run serverless apps both on public clouds and on private data centers
Not only that companies leveraging serverless get to “reap” all the benefits of enterprise cloud computing. But, since they get to run their apps on existing infrastructures, as well, they can modernize their legacy apps, too.
All that in addition to the benefit of streamlining the development cycles of their cloud-native apps.
What makes serverless computing “outshine” standard provisioning servers?
it's a technology that uses “functions” as a measuring unit (instead of “instances” or VM)
these pieces of code (“functions”) run automatically
… and they take over any data format and turn it into a target legacy system “in charge” with processing the response; they can also interpret those messages sent back to consuming apps through the API gateway
the burden of scaling and managing resources gets passed on to serverless providers (Google Cloud Functions, AWS Lambda, Microsoft Azure, Apache Whisk, OpenFaas)
To sum up: serverless is going to be one of the leading enterprise cloud computing trends for 2019.
accelerating the development process of cloud-native apps
“revamping” legacy apps
cutting down costs
the convenience of going serverless all while leveraging one's existing infrastructure
… are this technology's top “luring” features.
2. The Enterprise Adoption of Kubernetes Grows at Neck-Breaking Pace
The solid arguments behind this prediction?
Kubernetes is highly portable
it's highly available
it provides unmatched, granular scalability: the go-to choice for scaling containerized applications
it automates deployment
Whether they're planning to streamline their app development cycles or to rearchitect their existing IT infrastructures, large organizations are “flocking” to this open-source container orchestration system.
The interoperable, composable architecture that it provides, along with its “extreme” availability — it runs on laptops, public//hybrid private cloud, VM — and the increased use of containers turns Kubernets into one of the highly influential enterprise cloud computing trends for 2019.
One powering hybrid-cloud and multi-cloud deployments...
And speaking of containers, Kubernete's simply: convenience at its best (convenience at scale):
You're free to put together clusters of hosts running containers and then just use Kubernetes to easily manage them all. To easily “orchestrate” all your containers.
3. Cloud Data Management: One of the Influential Enterprise Cloud Computing Trends for 2019
With the trend of enterprise cloud computing architecture going up in 2019, it's only but predictable for cloud data management to become one of the hottest topics.
An efficient cloud environment (whether a multi-cloud or a hybrid cloud infrastructure) calls for:
serious planning
constant optimization
data aggregation
analyzing the stored data
In other words: with data being the key “nucleus” of any enterprise cloud computing architecture, properly managing and improving the quality of all those massive amounts of data becomes critical.
4. The Multi-Cloud Strategy: An Increasingly Compelling Pattern for Companies
Companies will “dread” getting themselves locked-in to a unique cloud service provider.
And so, the multi-cloud strategy is sure to rival the conventional “partnering with a single public cloud” approach.
Why? Hmmm, let's see... getting cloud locked-in means:
being constrained to integrate that specific public cloud environment's tools, services, APIs
getting its dependencies “injected” into your application code
being unable to future-proof your app, to update it to any new technologies that might emerge; you'd automatically “inherit” a technical debt when locked-in to a specific cloud service provider
Whereas having a robust multi-cloud architecture allows large enterprises to:
“juggle with” multiple dedicated clouds, each one with its specific functionalities and services
be cloud provider agnostic; and that can only mean more flexibility: companies are free to port their cloud architectures between different environments
leverage on interoperability; companies will be able to do application>APIs (or on-premise infrastructure ) decoupling
And “flexibility” is the key term here:
the one that's definitory for modern application development
the reason why multi-cloud is going to be one of the powerful enterprise cloud computing trends for 2019
The END!
Now, if we are to do a quick recap:
more and more companies will migrate their workloads to cloud environments; they will be refactoring their legacy apps
also, we'll be witnessing a massive migration to multi-cloud and hybrid cloud environments
technical skills required for cloud computing will be in even higher demand in 2019
RADU SIMILEANU / Dec 19'2018
A few more weeks and... “Chin-Chin: Happy New Year!”. Meanwhile, while you were making your final edits to your wish list for Santa and adding a few more lines to your New Year's resolutions list, we've been doing our homework, too. We've run our investigations and come up with our own list: one including the most influential mobile UI design trends in 2019.
Both those trends:
that have timidly stepped on the mobile app design scene this year and will just grow more powerful next year
and those that will emerge in 2019 and quickly take over the “scene”
So, here they are: the 4 major trends to look into and rush to capitalize on next year.
1. Buttonless Screens: From Niche to Norm
Mobile UI designs without buttons have been around for some time, but we somehow didn't consider this would become... mainstream, right?
Just think:
Instagram and its buttonless design that kind of forces you to rely on gestures for swiping through different stories on the page, for moving backward and/or forward
Apple, Samsung, and Google, that are advocating for edgeless, clean screens; they implicitly “force us”, mobile app designers, to drastically trim down our in-app button collections. To remove buttons completely...
all those e-commerce apps that have simplified their checkout processes by... removing the cart button; customers can just drag and drop items into their shopping carts.
Conveniently intuitive, right?
The “buttonless UI” will be one of most prominent mobile UX trends in 2019:
After the “power button & volume button & homepage single button" trio, we'll be witnessing the growth of the “buttonless screen” trend in 2019.
In other words: it's time to rethink your mobile UI/UX designs; to make them more gestures-focused. Which might be as simple as... adding animations to show the gestures that end users need to perform for carrying out specific tasks.
2. Visual and Voice Interfaces Will Work Together
“Will graphical user interfaces ever be taken over by voice user interfaces?” “ is a question on Quora.
On the contrary:
Not only that voice-assisted interfaces (VUI) won't “annihilate” the visual ones, but the 2 of them will... happily coexist starting next year.
Get ready to witness a seamless integration of the two types of UI in 2019's mobile apps!
Or, even better:
Instead of being one of the passive witnesses, how about leveraging this trend, one of the most influential mobile UI design trends in 2019?
How would these apps, supporting a cohabitation of voice and visual interfaces, look like from a user's perspective?
the mic button will become... optional; mobile app users can just utter their questions/commands and the apps will interpret them.
he/she (the user) will be able to speak commands like “Show me the cheapest option and book me...” or “Pick it up!” or “Narrate these 3 chapters to me!” and have the app read a book, book a flight or answer a call
3. Bottom Navigation: One of the Dominant Mobile UI Design Trends in 2019
Which side are you on?
Are you a top navigation or a bottom navigation “fan”?
Well, you can call yourself a “visionary” if the bottom navigation has been your top choice for some time now. It looks like it's going to be one of the prominent mobile app UX design trends in 2019.
Why? Because:
devices will have even larger screens
the single homepage button “rocks supreme” and app users got so used to the swiping gesture
“extreme” convenience is key: all the major buttons should be displayed within reach on the app's screen
And this type of navigation comes down to:
bottom sheets
swipe-up gestures
3.1. Bottom Sheets
Why will bottom sheets become app developers' top choice when it comes to displaying sub-flows?
Because they're highly flexible!
Users get to scroll both vertically, for unlocking more content, and horizontally (carousel), for swiping through similar content with no need to skip screens.
Pop-up dialogues, overflow drop-downs, hamburger side-drawers will start to fade compared to bottom sheets' “all within a swipe's reach” type of convenience.
3.2. Swipe Up Gestures
You'd swipe up to open an app drawer, then swipe up again to go back or to close the app... It's been a while since in-app swipe up gestures have started to “outshine” buttons/bottom tabs.
And they're perfectly fit for bottom navigation.
They enable you, the mobile app developer, to... keep everything“minimalistic” in your app:
the top area (content)
the bottom area (navigation)
Simple, intuitive, convenient. No wonder that this will be one of the most influential mobile UI design trends in 2019.
4. Mobile App Design for Larger Screens
You'll need to swiftly adapt your mobile UI designs to devices with increasingly large screens. They'll be the ones “dictating” how you'll design your mobile apps' interfaces in 2019.
And there are few challenges to expect, consider, and properly prepare yourself for before this trend becomes... a norm:
How will you seamlessly integrate in-app gestures into your mobile apps? “Fully” integrate them, I mean...
Losing buttons/bottom tabs will automatically enlarge the screens and leave you with more screen real estate; how will you fully leverage those enlarged screens?
How will you optimize your apps' UX and UI so that the user can rely on his/her thumb and thumb only to navigate through and perform actions within the app?
The END!
Let's recap, now! Here's your New Year's resolutions list:
"I'll design buttonless user interfaces in all my mobile apps in 2019"
"I'll somehow make voice and visual interfaces work together"
"I'll design “bottom navigation” and swipe-up gestures navigation in my next year's apps"
"I'll adjust and properly adapt my mobile app designs to fit devices with larger screens"
Photo by Gilles Lambert on Unsplash
Adriana Cacoveanu / Dec 13'2018
Just imagine... automatic updates in Drupal core.
Such a feature would put an end to all those never-ending debates and ongoing discussions taking place in the Drupal community about the expectations and concerns with implementing such an auto-update system.
Moreover, it would be a much-awaited upgrade for all those users who've been looking for (not to say “longing for") ways to automate Drupal core and modules for... years now. Who've been legitimately asking themselves:
“Why doesn't Drupal offer an auto-update feature like WordPress?”
And how did we get this far? From idea to a steady-growing initiative?
first, it was the need to automate Drupal module and security updates
then, the issues queues filled with opinions grounded in skepticism, valid concerns, and high hopes started to “pile up” on Drupal.org,
then, there was Dries' keynote presentation at Drupalcon Vienna in 2017, raising awareness around the need to re-structure Drupal core in order to support a secure auto-update system
… which grew into the current Auto Update Initiative
that echoed, recently, at Drupal Europe 2018, during the “Hackers Automate, but the Drupal Community still Downloads Modules from Drupal.org” session
Many concerns and issues have been pointed out. Many questions have been added to the long list.
Yet, one thing's for sure:
There still is a pressing, ever-growing need for an auto-update feature in Drupal...
So, let me try to answer my best to some of your questions regarding this much-awaited addition to Drupal core:
What's in it for you precisely? How will an auto-update pre-built feature benefit you?
Does the user persona profile suit you, too? Is it exclusively low-end websites that such a feature would benefit? Or are enterprise-level, company websites targeted, as well?
What are the main concerns about this implementation?
1. The Automatic Updates Initiative: Goal & Main Challenges
Let's shift focus instead and pass in review the inconveniences of manually installing updates in Drupal:
it's time-consuming
it's can get risky if you don't know what you're doing
it can be an intimidatingly complex process if you have no dedicated Drupal support & maintenance team to rely on
it can get quite expensive, especially for a small site or blog owner
See where I'm heading at?
This initiative's main objective is to spare Drupal users of all these... inconveniences when it comes to updating and maintaining their websites. Inconveniences that can easily grow into reasons why some might get too discouraged to adopt Drupal in the first place.
The goal is to develop an auto-update mechanism for Drupal core conceptually similar to those already implemented on other platforms (e.g. WordPress).
And now, let's dig up and expose the key challenges in meeting this goal:
enabling update automation in Drupal core demands a complete re-engineering of the codebase; it calls for a reconstructing of its architecture and code layout in order to support a perfectly secure auto-update system
such an implementation will have a major impact on the development cycle itself, causing unwanted disruption
such a built-in auto-update feature could get exploited for distributing and injecting malware into a whole mass of Drupal websites
2. Automatic Updates in Drupal: Basic Implementation Requirements
What would be the ideal context for implementing such a perfectly secure auto-update system?
Well, its implementation would call for:
multiple (up to date) environments
released updates to be detected automatically and instantly
an update pipeline for quality assurance
existing automate tests with full coverage
a development team to review any changes applied during the update process
3. How Would These Auto-Updates Benefit You, the Drupal User?
Let's see, maybe answering these key questions would help you identify the benefits that you'd reap (if any):
do you outsource your Drupal Maintenance tasks to a professional team?
has it been a... breeze for you so far to cope with Drupal 8's release cycle (one new patch each month and a new minor release every 6 months sure claim for a lot of your time)?
have you ever got tangled up in Composer's complexities and a whole load of third-party libraries when trying to update your Drupal 8 website?
did you run the Drupalgeddon update fast enough?
have you been secretly “fancying” about a functionality that would just update Drupal core and modules, by default, right on the live server?
To sum up: having automatic updates in Drupal core would keep your website secured and properly maintained without you having to invest time or money for this.
4. Drupal Updating Itself: Main Concerns
And concerns increase exponentially as the need for an update automation in Drupal rises (along with the expectations).
Now, let's outline some of the most frequently expressed ones:
there is no control over the update process, no quality assurance pipeline; basically, there's no time schedule system enabling you to test any given update, in a development environment, before pushing it live
there's no clearly defined policy on what updates (security updates only, all updates, highly critical updates etc.) should be pushed
with Drupal updating itself, rolling back changes wouldn't be possible anymore (or discouragingly difficult) with no GIT for version control
again: automatic updates in Drupal could turn into a vulnerability for hackers to exploit for a mass malware attack
there's no clear policy regarding NodeJS, PHP and all the JS libraries in Drupal 8, all carrying their own vulnerabilities, too
it's too risky with all those core and module conflicts and bugs that could break through
such a feature should be disabled by default; thus, it would be every site owner's decision whether to turn it on or not
could this auto-update system cater to all the possible update workflows and specific behaviors out there? Could it meet all the different security requirements?
So, you get the point: no control over the update pipeline and no policy for handling updates are the aspects that concern developers the most.
6. Does It Cater for Both Small & Enterprise-Level Websites' Needs?
There is this shared consensus that implementing automatic updates in Drupal core would:
not meet large company websites' security requirements; that it would not fit their specific update workflows
benefit exclusively small, low-end websites that don't benefit from professional maintenance services
Even the team behind the automatic updates initiative have prioritized low-end websites in their roadmap.
But, is that really the case?
Should this initiative target small websites, with simple needs and writable systems, that rarely update and to overlook enterprise-level websites by default?
Or should this much-wanted functionality be adjusted so that it meets the latter's needs, as well?
In this case, the first step would be building an update pipeline that would ensure quality.
What do you think?
7. How About Now?"What Are My Options for Automating Updates in Drupal?"
In other words: what are the currently available solutions if you want to automate the Drupal module and security updates?
7.1. You Can Use Custom Scripts to Automate Updates
… one that's executed by Jerkins or another CI platform.
Note: do bear in mind that properly maintaining a heavy load of scrips and keeping up with all the new libraries, tools, and DevOp changes won't be precisely a “child's play”. Also, with no workflow and no integrated tools, ensuring quality's going to be a challenge to consider.
7.2. You Can Opt for a Drupal Hosting Provider's Built-In Solution
“Teaming up” with a Drupal hosting provider that offers you automated updates services, too, is another option at hand.
In this respect, solutions for auto-updating, such as those provided by Pantheon or Acquia, could fit your specific requirements.
Note: again, you'll need to consider that these built-in solutions do not integrate with your specific DevOps workflows and tools.
And my monologue on automatic updates in Drupal ends here, but I do hope that it will grow into a discussion/debate in the comments here below:
Would you turn it on, if such a feature already existed in Drupal core?
Definitely yes
No way
It depends on whether...
RADU SIMILEANU / Sep 28'2018
The media management experience had been one of the well-known sources of frustration for Drupal content editors for a long time. For, let's face it: Drupal's out-of-the-box media support was just... basic. But not anymore: there are new exciting features for media handling in Drupal 8.6.0 that will dramatically change the way you manage your media assets on your Drupal website!
Now, let's take a sneak peek at these most-anticipated media handling features that Drupal 8.6.0 comes equipped with:
adding media from a remote source
adding various types of media
embedding Youtube and Vimeo videos in the content (via URL)
easily accessing and reusing the existing media
uploading new media types right out of the box
And this is almost... overwhelming:
From almost no built-in media support in Drupal, for so many years, to a whole set of modern, powerful media management options now in Drupal 8.6.0.
But let's not ramble about this topic anymore and dive right in! Into the pile of new features meant to enhance the whole media management experience in Drupal:
But First: An Update on The Progress of the Media in Drupal 8 Initiative
The main goal of this media initiative was to:
Add a rich media support to Drupal 8.
One that would empower the content editors to easily reuse existing media assets, add new media entities and to overall gain more control (and meta information) over their media.
And there are 3 core milestones that we can trace while tracking the progress of this initiative for Drupal 8:
adding the experimental Media module to Drupal 8.4 in late 2017
leveling up this module from experimental to stable phase in Drupal 8.5.0
turning it into the standard way of storing media in Drupal
Moreover, starting with Drupal 8.6.0 a new key module for handling media has been added to core — Media Library — along with a few more exciting options:
quick access to the existing media assets
oEmbed support
a new media type: remote video content
Quite a “leap” forward, to a great media management experience in Drupal, I would say...
2. Welcome a New Media Type in Drupal 8: Remote Video
Let us list the 4 media types that you could add to your site's content up to Drupal 8.6.0:
file
image
video
audio
OK, now it's time you welcomed a new media type to the group: remote video!
Basically, as a content editor you're now able to add videos from remote sources, as well — Vimeo and Youtube — via their URLs.
In short: you're no longer constrained to settle for the default media types in Drupal 8. No sir, now you get to create new custom ones mentioning their media sources.
Summing up: embedding new media to your website content is nothing but a two-step process: Content-Add Media.
3. Reusing Media Is Now Possible: Media Library
One of the much-awaited features for media handling in Drupal 8.6.0 had been reusable media.
Well, here it is now: Media Library! It's where you can save and store all your media assets to be further reused whenever needed.
Note: do keep in mind that this an experimental module and that you'll also need to enable the Media module first things first.
“And how does it work more precisely?”
while in your content edit screen
just browse through all the media assets stored in your Media Library
select the one you need
and simply “inject” it into your page
Note: it's the “Media library” widget, added to the Media field, that enables you to scan through all your media entities straight from the content edit screen.
4. The New “Media” Field: A Quick Way to Embed Media in Your Content
Handling media in Drupal 8.6.0 is as simple as... adding a new field — “Media” — to the content type in question (be it news, blog post, article and so on).
Once the new field is added on, just go through the 5 media types available in Drupal 8.6.0 and select the one you need to embed.
Next, you can simply integrate it into your content, while in your edit screen, positioning it to your liking.
5. New Media Handling in Drupal 8.6.0: Youtube & Vimeo Embeds
A new media management tool that significantly improves the whole content editing experience in Drupal.
You're able to embed remote videos from Youtube and Vimeo via URL, thanks to the now added oEmbed media support.
“How precisely?” Basically, you simply:
add that new “Media” field to your content type, as previously stated
select the “Remote Video” option from the “Media Type” drop-down menu
enter your video's URL in the “Video URL” field, while in your “Add Remote Video” screen
and click “Save”
And voila: you'll have your remote video integrated into your content!
The END!
As Steve Burge from OSTraining would say:
“Finally we're getting somewhere with media in Drupal!”
What do you think about the new features for media handling in Drupal 8.6.0? What other options and tools are there on your wishlist?
To be able to embed remote videos right from the node create page, maybe? Or to have other video platforms, as well, supported in Drupal?
Silviu Serdaru / Sep 21'2018
It's a robust, flexible and admin feature-packed CMS, there's no point in denying it. And yet: Drupal (still) lacks a modern UI that would make building rich web content — such as landing pages — a breeze. But there is hope: the Gutenberg editor has been ported over, promising a better editing experience in Drupal 8.
The team behind this daring project? Frontkom, a Norwegian digital services agency that:
refused to just sit and wait (for a year or two) for the in-progress initiative of modernizing Drupal's admin UI to grow into a core solution
decided to capitalize on their experience in working with the Gutenberg page builder
… and on this content editor's open source nature, too
… to bring it over to Drupal 8
Now, if you're determined to improve the editorial UX on your Drupal site, to “spoil” your editors with a modern, intuitive and flexible admin UI, keep on reading...
1. The Drupal Gutenberg Project: Aiming for a Modern Admin UI in Drupal 8
And by “modern” I do mean the opposite of the Panels & Paragraphs & Layout combo solutions currently available for editing text in Drupal.
Solutions that only manage to make the entire workflow... discouragingly complex.
Especially if it's rich web content that editors need to create via the Drupal admin UI.
And this is precisely the context where the Drupal Gutenberg project was born: Drupal desperately needed/needs a modern, JavaScript-based admin UI.
With WordPress 5 users already enjoying this fancy content editor and the Frontkom team's having gained experience in using it, the idea of porting it to Drupal started to form:
"Why wouldn't we make it possible for Drupal users, too, to benefit from this content editor?"
And here are some of the original Gutenberg project's features that lead them into thinking that, once ported, the editor would significantly improve the editing experience in Drupal 8:
it's (highly) decoupled
it's open-source
it's React.js-based
it provides a simplified, smooth and cool functionality-packed admin UI
it's Medium and Squarespace's inspired
it turns the creation of complex landing pages into a breeze
Page editing in Drupal 8 wasn't going to be the same again!
Their initiative turned into a Drupal 8 module — Gutenberg Editor — currently still an experimental one.
Curious enough?
The first step to satisfy your curiosity is to take a look at their live demo: an interactive glimpse into the Gutenberg text editor implemented in Drupal 8.
2. The New Gutenberg for Drupal: Top Features Improving the Editing Experience in Drupal 8
2.1. All the Page Elements Are... Content Blocks
That's right, the team behind this project capitalized on the “everything is a block” Drupal 8 concept when adapting the Gutenberg UI to Drupal.
The result?
Both the Drupal core blocks and 20+ Gutenberg blocks are available in the resulting admin UI.
Basically, a Drupal 8 editor can insert into the web page that he/she's creating any of the core Drupal blocks and of the Gutenberg blocks of choice.
Speaking of which, let me point out just a few:
Heading
Image gallery
Auto embedded social posts
Buttons
Custom Drupal blocks
Layout blocks
Needless to add that you're free to enrich this list with your own custom blocks, too.
2.2. Easy Switch from Visual to Code Editor
That's right, the Gutenberg UI enables you/your editors to quickly switch to code editor — opening up a neat markup — and to apply any needed tweaks on the output.
2.3. Positioning Content Is Straightforwardly Intuitive
Editors get to select precisely where they want to position different types of content on a page.
And the very same results that they generate while in the Gutenberg admin UI get instantly reflected on the live web page, as well.
And there's more! More great admin features improving editing experience in Drupal. For instance:
Full control over font sizes and colors; tweaking them becomes a breeze with the new editor.
2.4. There's a Blocks Search Box
And not only that:
using this search box you can track down precisely those content blocks that you need to add to your page
but you can access them inline, as well, using “/”.
2.5. Full Control of the Layout
Another great thing about the content blocks available in the Gutenberg UI is that: they can have child blocks, too!
This way, it'll get unexpectedly easy for your editors to split their used blocks into columns on a grid.
2.6. Auto Embedded Social Posts/Videos
And all it takes is pasting their URL.
The Story of a Real Challenge: Making Gutenberg CMS-Agnostic
Open source, but not fully CMS-agnostic...
The team behind the Drupal Gutenberg project had to come up with a suitable solution for this challenge. And they did come up with a multi-step solution to make the fancy text editor work in Drupal 8, as well:
first, they created a fork and removed the WordPress specific features
they used the Gutenberg editor as a dependency
next, they set up a standalone NPM package
then they built the Gutenberg Editor module
In short: a fork of the initial Gutenberg project is still maintained while being used as a dependency of the new Drupal 8 module. Therefore, each time Gutenberg gets an update, the corresponding Drupal module, too, gets a new release.
Now, digging deeper into the project's architectural design, we discover 2 elements that the team had to re-write for Drupal:
the URL defining the editor routes (edit page route, new page route, preview page route)
the API-request, now configured to “talk to” Drupal (instead of the WordPress API)
How does the new module work?
as a text editor, which can be easily enabled for each content type
all it takes is a long text field for it to work: it replaces the node edit UI for that specific content type
Note: the Frontkom team also “promises” us to re-use many of the Drupal-specific stylings for the editor's UI elements in order to add a familiar Drupal feeling to it.
What Next? What's The Project Roadmap
Ok, so what we know for sure now, regarding this ambitious initiative turned into a Drupal module is that:
the Drupal Gutenberg module is downloadable, yet still experimental (for developer use only)
the team's still working on the project, implementing new features and functionalities aimed at making it feel more... Drupal native
the final version will be presented to the eager/intrigued/curious/skeptical Drupal users and developers in the coming months
The END! Can't hide that I'm more than curious what you think about this contrib solution for improving the editing experience in Drupal 8:
Are you looking forward to using it, hoping that this editor would make up for the inconvenience of working with Drupal's current admin UI?
Are you skeptical about the perspective of being tied up to a WordPress page builder?
Adriana Cacoveanu / Aug 17'2018
Save the date(s): 10-12 August! And join us for a 3-day conference on building with Drupal, driving this open-source technology forward and strengthening & growing the community behind it: Drupal North Regional Summit 2018.
You'll find us in our booth at the Toronto Reference Library's exhibit hall, to be more specific, since this year OPTASY's a proud gold sponsor of the fourth edition of this event:
The biggest annual summit in Canada focused on promoting Drupal.
Why Would You Attend Drupal North Regional Summit 2018?
That's right: why would you pack your bags and get en route for Toronto's Reference Library when summer is at its peak and everyone's looking for a place in the sun?
For a bunch of strong reasons, actually:
first of all, if you're already living in Canada, why would you want to miss the biggest annual event in North America promoting Drupal?
no less than 300+ individuals and organizations will be attending it
if you're a Drupal developer, this is a once-in-a-year opportunity to grow and to... outgrow yourself; the event's schedule is “overcrowded” with sessions covering a variety of Drupal-related topics, with “can't miss” keynote sessions and networking opportunities
… grow your profile by sharing your knowledge and expertise all while enriching it as you learn from other Drupalists attending the event
as a Drupal-powered organization, Drupal North Regional Summit 2018 is a great chance to recruit new talent (and this is the event's key “mandate”: to showcase Canadian Drupal talent), to make connections with other Drupal-fueled businesses...
Whether you're:
in the government, nonprofit, education, business field
a freelancing Drupal enthusiast looking to keep his/her knowledge up to date
… don't miss the largest summit in Canada promoting Drupal!
It'll be a win-win-win type of situation:
you (the Drupal developer) get to keep your knowledge up to date
you (the organization) get to dig through a pool of Drupal talent and also to network with other key decision-makers from some of the most notorious companies in Canada running their businesses on Drupal
and it's a winning situation for Drupal itself: all the individuals and companies attending the summit will help to extend its reach to more people and more businesses
OPTASY Proudly Supports Drupal and the Drupal North Regional Summit 2018
Why? What's in it for us? Why are we so proud to be one of the gold sponsors of this Drupal summit in Canada?
Because we like to practice what we preach:
To give back to the (Drupal) community, what the community gave to us for free. And along these +15 years years since we've been developing in Drupal there's been plenty of work done by all those developers contributing to Drupal and moving this open-source technology forward that we leveraged in our own projects. It's only but common sense to give something back now and to contribute ourselves, too.
And sponsoring Drupal events is one way that we can do that.
But there are other reasons, too, why we decided to support the Drupal North Regional Summit 2018 as a gold sponsor. All of them deriving from the above-presented reasoning:
the 3-day conference makes the perfect “lab” where brilliant solutions to well-known issues in Drupal get identified and shared with the community, new Drupal modules get put into the spotlight, new ways of innovating this technology get presented
in other words: investing in this Drupal summit we invest in us, as a team and as a company, and implicitly in our own clients, as well
... all the knowledge and “steamy-fresh information” that we get from this conference will then be put to use when working on our clients' future projects
it's also a great place to network with existing and potentially new Drupal-using companies
and an opportunity for us to “expose” the key advantages that set OPTASY apart as a Drupal agency: +15 years hands-on experience, proven Drupal expertise, pure passion for what we do, a strong work ethic and stellar communication skills confirmed by our clients
So, are you curious about Drupal's main strengths as a technology of the future? Interested to discover what precisely helps it stand out?
Are you looking for a Drupal partner with both the proven experience and the proper “weakness” for innovation to turn your ideas into digital reality? Stop by our booth then, in August, and let's talk Drupal, growth opportunities and everything in between!
Adriana Cacoveanu / Jul 02'2018
Have no fear... Node.js 10 is here (since April 24, actually)! And, as expected, this version is planned to grow into the platform's official Long Term Support version (in October 2018); to be supported for 3 years after that date.
So? What's in it for you, the back-end web developer?
Are there any new features and improvements worth getting really excited about? Which are they and how precisely will they improve the overall developer experience.
Now before we take a deep dive into the “steamy fresh load” of new features, I feel like pointing out that:
it's mostly incremental improvements, applied throughout the entire codebase of the platform, that Node.js 10 ships with
… performance, reliability and stability-centered improvements, bubbling up to the back-end developer's experience
But let's name these improvements that ship with the new version of Node.js. Let's talk specific incremental changes, shall we?
10 of the “really worth getting excited about” ones:
1. Error-Handling Improvements
And error messages/error-handling improvements do make the majority of semver-major commits (approx. 300) that Node.js ships with.
It's a “pledge” made since Node.js 8.0.0 to assign static error codes to all Error objects:
“Error messages should be useful, more consistent and predictable”, this has been the “pledge” driving all the sustained efforts geared at improving error-handling.
Note: error codes have been included in Node.js 10, making constant error-checking conveniently easier!
2. Enhanced JavaScript Language Capabilities
There's an entire list of Node.js 10 language improvements (you can find them all here) worth exploring and... exploiting, I'll outline the highlights only:
you now get to use line and paragraph separator symbols (U+2028 and U+2029) in string literals, that match JSON
V8 “introduces”: String.prototype.trimEnd(), String.prototype.trim(), String.prototype.trimStart()
prototype.toString() returns the exact “pieces” of the source code text (comments and whitespace here included!)
the catch clause of the try statements no longer calls for a parameter
3. The Node.js fs (file system) Has Been Significantly Overhauled
And here are the most “dramatic” improvements made during this overhaul:
the type checking and error handling have been improved
the code got restructured, for easier maintainability
a new experimental fs/promises API got implemented, featuring first-class Promise-based API
Speaking of this new API, its “role” is that of generating a warning at runtime, the very first time that it gets used. Hopefully, things will turn out “bugs-free” so that it can grow from experimental to stable.
4. Node.js 10 Ships with Full Support for N-API
N-API — the ABI stable (Node.js) API for native modules — has leveled up to a stable version in Node.js 10.
What does this mean?
it provides a stable module API, one that is not influenced by the changes in Node.js's V8 JavaScript engine
the API layer makes upgrading a whole lot easier, streamlining production deployments and... easing module maintainers' lives
… and it goes without saying that this bubbles up to native modules' maintenance costs, as well
In short: say goodbye to module breakage!
5. The Assert Module: Explore Some Crucial Improvements
All efforts targetting the assert module have been aimed at easing the internal implementation and improving the developer experience.
But let me point out some of these improvements that eventually fleshed out and landed in Node.js 10:
a new “diff” view got implemented, for whenever assertion errors get generated
overall the output becomes more descriptive, more... “verbose” (and implicitly more useful)
better object comparisons
promises support
detailed error messages
6. Node.js 10 Ships With V8 6.6: Expect a Major Performance Boost
Get ready to “exploit” V8 6.6's range of performance improvements to their full potential! Along with its new set of JavaScript language features!
From them all, I can't but mention:
the async functions
the async generators
the promise execution
7. Cryptographic Support
Node.js 10 is the first version of the platform to include OpenSSL 1.x! And this can only translate into:
Enhanced protection for your priceless data!
Now, if I am to outline just 2 of the OpenSSL features to look forward tapping into, I should definitely mention:
the Polu1305 authenticator
the ChaCha 20 cipher
8. The Trace Events Mechanism: Monitoring Your Code's Performance Just Got Easier
That's right! Keeping a close eye on how your code's performing and being able to quickly diagnose any emerging issues is easier than ever with Node.js 10!
Basically, what these trace events do is enabling that all the diagnostic information output gets collected to a file accessible to the Chrome browsers DevTools utility.
No need to use a command-line flag anymore to trigger this whole trace events mechanism underlying Node.js.
And since we're here, let me point out to you 2 trace events-related improvements worth getting (really) excited about:
the node.perf.usertiming category got added — its role is that of capturing, in the trace events timelines, all the Performance API user timer marks and measures.
the JavaScript API got implemented, as well; enabling/disabling trace events dynamically is now possible in Node.js:
const trace_events = require('trace_events')
const tracing = trace_events.createTracing({
categories: ['node.async_hooks', 'v8']
})
tracing.enable()
// do stuff
tracing.disable()
9. HTTP and HTTP/2 Improvements
Another thing to get excited about, when it comes to Node.js 10's release, is given by all the incremental improvements made to HTTP and HTTP/2.
Let me detail a bit:
when it comes to HTTP, the changes applied range from improved Streams API compatibility to stricter standards support, to improve header and error handling
now when it comes to HTTP/2, significant progress has been made for getting it the closest to “stable mode” as possible before Node.js 10 reaches its Long Terms Support cycle. And I'm talking here about improvements made to the way trailing headers requests and responses get implemented and about overall improvements of the internal implementation and the public API
10. Node.js Ships With The Experimental Node-ChakraCore
And how does this impact the developer experience? Your experience?
using the JavaScript engine to its full potential
tapping into the Time Travel debugging
… gets a whole lot easier for you. You're practically enabled to detect errors way before they even get to “infest” your code.
The END! This is how our list of 10 Node.js 10 features worth getting (really) excited about looks like! Do explore them and start your preparations for moving over to this new version of Node.js before October!
RADU SIMILEANU / May 02'2018
Oops!...We did it again! We've got awarded 4 spots in Clutch's latest research highlighting the top-performing development companies in New York. It's in 4 of the industries included there that OPTASY's got recognized as one of the top developers in New York: Drupal development, PHP development, e-commerce, Shopify and web development.
Moreover — as if just being listed there, among all those leading development firms in New York, hadn't been enough — we got ranked #2 as Drupal developers, respectively #3 as PHP developers.
And, ranked top 15 in three other industries, as well!
Now with the risk of showing lack of modesty, we have to admit that we had been starting to feel quite “at home” on Clutch's matrices. Those highlighting the leading web development companies in Canada, in various industries.
But to be recognized as one of the top developers in New York is simply an... overwhelming surprise!
And it's almost an organic process if we come to think of it: it's our clients' encouraging feedback that made us open an office in New York, too (besides the one in Oakville, Canada). And it's their feedback, again, that reassures us now that we've made the best decision.
We help our clients grow — powering their own ideas with our expertise and experience — and, in return, they fuel our own growth plans.
As natural as that.
And this is precisely why we're particularly honored not just to be recognized as one of the top developers in New York, but to get ranked as a leader by Clutch itself.To get listed as a leader on any of their researches is already an honor for us.
This because the Clutch team doesn't apply “just” the conventional evaluative metrics when analyzing the “candidates”. Metrics such as industry experience or market presence.
And it's not just data-driven content that they support their selections and hierarchies on, either. Instead, they actually interview both past and current clients of the given companies in order to identify both their strengths and weaknesses.
In other words:
First it was our clients that named us one of the top leaders in New York, then the Clutch team came to pinpoint their recognition.
See why we're overly honored whenever we get listed on Clutch? Why we can't thank our clients enough for sparing some of their time to answer Clutch's questions; to put their experience with our team and their opinion on our work into words?
Having our passion for what we do reflected in our clients' feedback is such a confidence-booster for us!
And receiving, once again, a Clutch recognition can only confirm to us that:
our client-centered approach and commitment to excellence make the best long-term strategy.
And that we should stick to it.
A big “Thank you!” to all our clients for their recognition and a big “Thank you!” to the CLUTCH team for the dedicated efforts put into each one of their famous researches.
Adriana Cacoveanu / Mar 07'2018