Blogs

Preston So

March 18, 2020

Claro at center stage:

What's ahead on Claro's roadmap and how you can get involved - part 4

Drupal has seen a range of administrative experiences over its history, starting with early Drupal mainstays like the Garland theme and Seven, perhaps the most recognizable iteration of Drupal's editorial experience in its history. Recently, another administration theme joined the pantheon of administration themes in Drupal core that have had an outsized influence on how users interact with Drupal not only for the first time but for countless times afterwards. The Claro administration theme is...

Preston So

March 17, 2020

Collaborative editing in Gutenberg: The unique challenges of implementing shared editing - part 3

One of the seemingly intractable difficulties in content management systems is the notion of supporting collaborative editing in a peer-to-peer fashion. Indeed, from an infrastructural standpoint, enabling shared editing in a context where server-side CMSs rule the day can be particularly challenging. All of this may soon change, however, with the combination of Yjs, an open-source real-time collaboration framework, and Gutenberg, the new editor for WordPress. With the potential future outlined by Yjs and collaborative...

Preston So

March 17, 2020

Decentralized collaboration with Yjs and WebRTC: Introducing signaling servers and y-webrtc - part 2

When it comes to the most exciting new developments in the field of web applications, perhaps no other phenomenon is gaining as much momentum as the prospect of true peer-to-peer collaborative editing. With its considerable obstacles and difficulties, collaborative editing has long been one of the less-explored realms of editorial workflows. Fortunately, thanks to new solutions like Yjs and better browser support for the WebRTC protocol, real-time collaboration is not only possible but also accessible...

Preston So

March 11, 2020

Claro at center stage:

How Claro became more accessible and stayed innovative - part 3

Throughout Drupal's existence, no other changes have made as much an impression on users as refreshes of the administrative interface in Drupal. Content editors and site builders have a long list of expectations when it comes to the editorial experience they wish to use, and surveys and tests had shown that Seven was showing its age. Now, thanks to Claro, the new administration theme for Drupal 8, user interfaces for all editors in Drupal are...

Preston So

March 10, 2020

Collaborative editing in Gutenberg:

Challenges of building collaborative editing in Gutenberg - part 2

How realistic is collaborative editing in content management systems? Many ecosystems have tried to enable shared editing through plugins and add-ons, but WordPress is the first to bring support for collaborative editing to content management systems with the goal of offering it out of the box. With the advent of Yjs, an open-source framework for real-time collaboration, the Gutenberg team is working with the help of Tag1 Consulting to enable shared editing natively on WordPress...

Preston So

March 05, 2020

Decentralized collaboration with Yjs and WebRTC: How to get started with peer-to-peer editing - part 1

Peer-to-peer collaborative editing is one of the most fascinating frontiers of editorial collaboration in our industry. As a longstanding requirement with formidable technical challenges, enabling collaborative editing in a decentralized fashion has been a dream for many years. However, with the advent of emerging technologies in the real-time collaboration space, most notably Yjs and WebRTC, the possibilities for peer-to-peer editing are not only realistic but compelling for a wide range of ecosystems. With the help...

Preston So

March 04, 2020

Claro at center stage:

How Claro found inspiration in modern design patterns - part 2

Across Drupal's storied history, perhaps the most noticeable — and visible — changes in the CMS's evolution have come from the redesigns of the administrative interface that underpin every user's interaction with the Drupal editorial experience. Now, with the release of the Claro administration theme, which replaces the Seven theme and focuses on content author and site builder use cases, Drupal has reached another important inflection point in the history of its user experience. Claro...

Preston So

March 03, 2020

Collaborative editing in Gutenberg: Motivating real-time shared editing in WordPress - part 1

Collaboration is key to content management workflows, whether from the editor, marketer, or developer perspective. Nonetheless, one of the remaining unexplored areas for effective content collaboration on the web are content management systems (CMS). Because of technical limitations, CMSs have long been hamstrung in their ability to provide the sort of rich collaboration workflows other applications like Google Docs enable out of the box. Fortunately, collaborative editing in storied CMSs like WordPress and Drupal may...

Preston So

February 27, 2020

Insider insights on rendering and security features: What the future holds for decoupled Drupal - part 2

As another decade comes to a close in Drupal’s long and storied history, one important trend has the potential to present amazing — or unsettling, depending on how you look at it — opportunities and shifts in the Drupal ecosystem. That trend is decoupled Drupal.

Preston So

February 26, 2020

Introducing the new administration theme for Drupal 8

Claro at center stage - part 1

Drupal has been around for a long time, and its content editing interface has undergone several refreshes over the years, most notably during the Drupal 7 development cycle with the Seven theme. Another administration theme is rapidly changing the game for Drupal site builders and content editors, and it's part of a Drupal core strategic initiative—one of the Drupal community's utmost priorities and innovation streams—to modernize the front end of Drupal for a variety of...