We love discussing the new features of the amazing Drupal 8 — so we are back at it again. In Drupal 8 improvements - Part 1, we talked about the WYSIWYG editor out-of-the-box, excellent inline editing opportunities, the ease of adding and displaying inline images, better previews, and mobile responsive interfaces.
Now here is the promised Part 2 of this overview, with more great Drupal 8 improvements that deserve to be mentioned.
Awesome multilingual opportunities
With Drupal 8, it’s much easier to create a multilingual site with no need to install extra modules, unlike in Drupal 7. The modules responsible for language and translation support are already built into the Drupal 8 core.
Drupal 8 offers you about 100 languages to choose from. Everything from interfaces to content pieces on your website is easily translated into the necessary languages. Moreover, better language detection, support for transliteration and right-to-left writing (RTL) makes the multilingual user experience much better.
Easy interaction with external applications
‘The future is a world where content management systems need to output data to many more devices and integrate with more and more systems and services.’ So says Dries Buytaert, Drupal founder, and this philosophy is implemented in Drupal 8.
There are 4 special web services modules in Drupal 8 core designed for perfect interaction with external applications your project may need. Posting to social media, conducting email campaigns from your Drupal website, and much more is easy now and does not require additional module installation.
Improved theming with Twig
In Drupal 8, the Twig markup language is used instead of the PHPTemplate engine, which was not suitable for non-technical users. Twig brings with it a brand-new approach to theming.
Now, users with no PHP skills can understand and manage themes rather well. Twig’s tag-based syntax is easy to understand. Drupal 8 offers more flexibility in theme customization. Moreover, your themes will be more secure.
Better markup with HTML5
HTML5 in Drupal 8 is the latest version of the HyperText Markup Language which offers a world of new opportunities.
Web developers, users, and search engines will appreciate the beautiful simplicity and cleanness of code. HTML 5 has a simplified syntax, as well as a much cleaner code which is easier to read for search engines, thus improving your SEO rankings.
You can make your site more interactive since HTML5 supports geolocation, video and audio, as well as allows users to load some website elements without an Internet connection by means of offline caching.
HTML5 also allows cross-browser compatibility with major browsers and great opportunities in creating mobile responsive themes.
The Views module in the core!
One of the most popular and powerful Drupal modules used to be a contributed one, but it has finally been fully integrated into Drupal 8! No need to install it anymore.
The Views module enables users to easily customize pages, create lists, tables, maps, menu items, blocks and much more.
Do you feel this ‘fresh breeze’ Drupal 8 is bringing? If you want a cutting-edge website built for you with Drupal 8, our Drupal development company, InternetDevels, are the people to call — so just tell us about your ideas.
If you are a developer and this review is not enough for you, welcome to check out our developers’ blog posts about configuration in Drupal 8, tips on Drupal 8 development, Twig in Drupal 8 and, the latest one, about theming in Drupal 8.