If complex and robust CMS is what a business requires, it need not look beyond Drupal as the technology of choice. The CMS has long been the preferred option for many complex or advanced sites and hence has remain unrivalled for long. Let’s look at some ways in which Drupal adds immense value proposition to your CMS and digital business.
Why Drupal is Beneficial?
- It is an Open Source software comprising large number of free modules, core software and themes that could be used for budget friendly web development for companies.
- With its comprehensive API support system, Drupal can be readily connected to social platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google Apps and Google Analytics to name a few.
- Drupal has SEO supporting framework that helps companies in presenting web content in search engine friendly format. This ensures better visibility of your website in organic search results and paves way for influential marketing.
These benefits are the reason why developers and business owners look forward to updates and upgrades from Drupal from time to time. The latest (and some believe the greatest!) release happened on Feb 3 this year and promises some amazing feature sets that will substantially enhance developer efficiency and RoI enjoyed by businesses that opt for this CMS. Check out what’s new with Drupal 8 and why it is a must-have in your development arsenal -
Suitable For Mobile Presence
Businesses today can ignore the growing significance of mobile users in the online market to their own peril. By upgrading to Drupal 8, you will ensure a responsive web design that works for you and changes according to the user’s screen size and specifications.
HTML5 Proficiency
The increased clarity and simplicity of HTML5 coding in Drupal 8 makes it easier to write web markup. It also gives direct access to fields like email, date, time and phone etc. This coding increases the resulting functional excellence and device compatibility. There are theme based templates for writing HTML5 coding that could help even amateur web designers.
Powerful Authoring
Drupal 8 brings powerful authoring tools like WYSIWYG Editor and CKEditor for content editors alongside draft creation. The most significant improvement is the in place editing that comes bundled with the core module. Under this type of editing, content editing could be done through a simple editing window on the same page without having to open the complete editing form.
View As A Core Module
As we know, web building involves use of ‘views’ frequently. To overcome the delay in getting things done, views is now a part of the core module in upgraded Drupal 8. You can view galleries, photos, posts, labels, graphs, maps, blocks, menus and reports etc. The view section also comprises selected front pages and administrative pages.
Language No Barrier Anymore
The web developers could use inbuilt multilingual features inside the admin interface. Creating web pages that offer language based viewing, filter options and blocked visibility option is now convenient. The automatic updating of translated updates from the user community is accepted readily. This feature makes Drupal 8 a must have web platform for multilingual businesses.
Powerful Configuration Management
At file level, there is configuration system in built inside Drupal 8. This makes it flexible enough to carry elements like views, type of content and fields etc. The website can easily be developed from a local folder in your desktop to a high end cloud based server. The version control system makes it mandatory to have a record of the changes and thus allow better control and responsibility sharing.
Smoother Accessibility
When you upgrade your website to Drupal 8, the accessibility and support for techniques like WAI- ARIA, Aria Live Announcements, API and TabManager will elevate tremendously. This will enhance the internet supporting applications. Features like color contrasting, font size, tweaking in the pictures, autocomplete options and al dialogs ensure an appealing website. Accessibility improvement gives Drupal 8 an edge over other open source CMS.
Built in Web Services
You may use Drupal 8 as an open data source and come with output content in other formats like JSON, or XML. Posting data from the front end to Drupal is also allowed. You can use Hypertext Application Language (HAL) in the modified version of Drupal. Versatile web services could be explored through this feature.
Downloads Easily
Drupal 8 based websites cache every entity and download Javascript only when required. Once a page has been viewed, there is no further requirement to download it again. The content seen previously will be quickly presented through the cache memory. This process remains automatic once it is configured perfectly and runs smoothly.
Enter the ‘Twig’
A theme based engine called Twig is now an integral part of Drupal 8. With it, you will be able to create your websites with its easy to comprehend themes and templates that are less complex than the php templates of the previous version. Being a handy tool for web development, Twig makes your website strong on the security front and improves the development process.
Interested in upgrading to Drupal 8? Get to know more about our Drupal expertise and connect with us here.
