Q1 Tutorial Updates for Drupal 8.8.x

We’ve made a number of updates to both tutorials and topic pages this past quarter. The updates we made related to Drupal’s 8.8.x minor release update (which introduced some big changes) and to our content archiving project, which we wrote about previously.

Here’s what we updated for Drupal 8.8.x.

Drupal 8.8.x introduced native support for using Composer to install and update Drupal. We updated several tutorials and created a new one as a result:

• Update Drupal’s Minor Version (rewrote instructions to use Composer)
• New! Update Drupal from Versions Prior to 8.8.x using Composer

We made major revisions to this Drupal and Composer tutorial:

• Composer Configuration for Drupal

There were a number changes related to JSON:API, so we updated tutorials in our Web Services in Drupal 8 series (and wrote a new tutorial):

• New! JSON:API Security Considerations
• JSON:API Sparse Fieldsets
• JSON:API: Error Handling

Changes related to automated testing were already mostly accounted for (with disclaimers and warnings about SimpleTest being deprecated). But there remained some updates to make related to default theme in tests:

• Implement Drupal Functional Test Dependencies
• Implement a Functional Test
• Set up a Functional Test

We also decided to separate our running SimpleTests tutorial into 2 parts, one about run-tests.sh and the other using SimpleTest UI. (SimpleTest UI, while deprecated, is still useful because it’s currently the only way to run tests with a UI.)

• Run Drupal Tests with the run-tests.sh Script
• Run Drupal Tests with Simpletest UI

For themers and front-end devs, changes related to the new deprecated key for libraries and jQuery UI being end-of-life were added to our tutorials:

• Define an Asset Library
• Load JavaScript in Drupal with Drupal.behaviors
• JavaScript in Drupal
• What Are Libraries?

Also, the base theme key is now required in Drupal 9 and the base theme key’s fallback to Stable is deprecated in 8.8.x. We updated:

• Describe Your Theme with an Info File
• Drupal Base Themes: Stable and Classy
• Theme Inheritance with Base Themes
• Use a Base Theme

For both module and theme developers, callback properties are more restrictive now in what they’ll accept as “callable”. We updated several Render API tutorials accordingly:

• Render API Callback Properties
• Use Lazy Builders and Placeholders
• What Are Render Arrays?

We reviewed our Migrate tutorials for links to Drupal.org issues that are now resolved.

• Common Issues with Migrations
• Drupal-to-Drupal Migration with Drush

Did you know that $config_directories['sync'] has been deprecated and replaced with $settings['config_sync_directory']? We updated these tutorials:

• Configuration Sync Directory Setup
• Set up and Use Configuration Split Module
• Inspect Configuration with Drush

And we updated the following topic pages with 8.8.0 changes, adding a quick reference for using command-line tools to make a backup of your site.

• Back up Your Drupal Site

We've also been working on updates in the Drupal 8 User Guide and Official Docs:

• Update user guide to reflect 8.8.x changes to Composer workflow
• Use official composer drupal/recommended-project template

Coming up next: major updates to our React and Drupal tutorials. They've undergone a huge rewrite and are now being copy edited. We'll be publishing those updates soon!