Driesnote highlights from DrupalCon Barcelona 2024 | Vision for a smarter, more accessible CMS
Driesnote at DrupalCon Barcelona 2024 brought a clear, focused update on the Stashot project, building on the momentum from earlier announcements made at DrupalCon Portland.
The key update introduced the Starshot project as 'Drupal CMS.
This reflects a commitment to making Drupal more accessible to non-devs, designers, content creators and marketers while retaining the modern features and flexibility of a content management system needed by enterprises and other users.
Dries assured the community that investments in Drupal core will continue, strengthening the foundation toward a strong and sustainable future for development.
The Drupal CMS demo highlighted important features like the new installer and trial experience, making it easier for users to get started with the platform. These changes address long-standing issues with complex setup processes, providing a smoother entry point for those unfamiliar with Drupal.
Recipes are being introduced as game-changers, simplifying site-building that bundles—content, modules, and configurations into simple, shareable solutions.?
This feature will allow even those without a technical background to build websites quickly and effectively. It was also shown that Project Browser now supports browsing and applying recipes directly from the UI.
A significant part of the keynote focused on AI integration within Drupal CMS. The AI-powered tools are designed to simplify everyday tasks, including renaming content types or configuring fields, reducing the need for manual intervention. These features will operate on four guiding principles:
These AI tools, particularly in content migration and site-building, will provide real value by speeding up processes that typically require developer input.
With the release of Drupal CMS 1.0 in January 2025, content creators and marketers can expect next-level SEO features!?
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The Project Browser will make it easy to install advanced SEO tools, simplifying setup. Managing features like XML sitemaps and robots.txt configurations will become more straightforward, enabling better control over how search engines index and crawl a site. Real-time suggestions will also help optimize keywords, titles, and URLs, improving search performance without a lot of technical expertise.
As we were all anticipating, the keynote focused on the Experience Builder—built with React, it will give users real-time previews and the ability to modify components including, buttons and text alignment directly within the interface.?
This functionality streamlines page creation. Single Directory Components (SDC) make managing elements straightforward and intuitive. The tool modernizes the Drupal interface, enabling users to work faster and with greater adaptability, without relying heavily on technical expertise.
The updates shared during Driesnote signal a future where Drupal CMS expands in both accessibility and functionality, addressing the needs of users at all levels while the focus remains on creating a simpler, more intuitive, and powerful platform.
This year’s keynote also introduced the Adopt-a-Document program, where organizations can sponsor documentation pages to help improve and maintain the quality of Drupal’s documentation. He encouraged the community to help with ongoing development and documentation efforts.
The keynote kept our interest throughout, featuring Sarah, a marketing professional, and Tom, who guided her through using Drupal CMS. Together, they explored features like Project Browser, SEO tools, and AI-assisted content creation, showing how easy Drupal CMS will be for non-devs to use.
At QED42, our contributions reflect the collective efforts of the team, including innovations like the codegen Twig to SDC converter. We remain committed to supporting Drupal’s development and collaborating with the community to strengthen and evolve the platform.