Here's part two of our Drupal 9 FAQs blog series. Find out the answers to some more technical questions commonly asked about switching to Drupal 9.
Drupal 9 FAQs
How can I upgrade Drupal 7 to Drupal 9 in the most efficient manner?
Although not as drastic as moving to a new platform, upgrading from Drupal 7 to Drupal 9 is referred to as migration or re-platforming. Despite some significant differences under the hood, the general approach to dealing with structured data is very similar. During the Drupal 8 life cycle, the Migration APIs got a lot of coverage, making the upgrade to Drupal 9 much easier than it was before.
How about Drupal 8 to Drupal 9?
Consider upgrading from Drupal 8 to Drupal 9 as a maintenance process as opposed to completing the migration. If you've kept your Drupal 8 site up to date and have experience upgrading your site to the most recent minor edition, you'll have everything you need to upgrade to Drupal 9. (8.9.0).
Contributed modules and themes will also need to be updated, as obsolete APIs have been removed.
Using the following methods to determine if your site is ready for Drupal 9: - Deprecation identification and correction programme for Drupal 9 - Drupal Rector Upgrade Status
What is the difference between Drupal 8 and Drupal 9 in terms of theming?
The Twig templating engine was upgraded from version 1 to version 2 in Drupal 9. This means that you can reuse a lot of the Twig theming work you've already completed. See our documentation for more information on using Twig 2 with Drupal.
Is there going to be any significant security improvements in Drupal 9?
Without a doubt. The upgrade of system requirements and third-party libraries to compatible versions is the most notable security update in Drupal 9. If you use Drupal 8 with older application requirements or libraries, you risk using an unsupported version of PHP or MySQL, which is unsafe. Here's a link to the documentation guide for the Drupal framework requirements.
What support is there in Drupal 9 for API-first, headless, and decoupled deployments?
Building on Drupal 8's API-first architecture, Drupal 9 continues to conquer the CMS market in headless and decoupled solutions.
The front-end technologies used in headless/decoupled solutions can make a significant difference.
Is Drupal about to implement a microservices architecture?
Drupal currently lacks a well-defined roadmap for transitioning to a microservices architecture. Drupal, on the other hand, is committed to an API-first architecture, which aligns with many of the underlying principles that appeal to the microservices model.
Will content developers be able to use the new Layout Builder features due to the headless architecture?
The Layout Builder functionality is currently oriented toward providing layout tools for non-decoupled Drupal installations. In most cases, a decoupled front-end installation would access the presentation layer entirely via the front-end system.
There has been talk about exposing Layout Builder components through Drupal's API so that decoupled implementations can use a hybrid approach (see #2942975: REST and JSON:API can be used to access data from the Layout Builder.
REST and JSON:API can be used to access data from the Layout Builder.
What options do you have for managing content delivery?
The Workflows Module in Drupal core is an excellent way to manage content deployment and editorial workflows in Drupal, and it is used by many of the world's largest media companies. This functionality is expanded by Data Moderation and Workspaces, which allow you to define content publishing states at various stages of content in different workspaces.
Is it possible that COVID-19 will expand Drupal 7 community support beyond November 2021?
COVID-19's end of life will be extended until November 28, 2022, due to the effect on budgets and industries. From November 2022 to November 2025, extended assistance will be eligible.
In comparison to Drupal 7 and 8, how does Drupal 9 fix security issues?
The Drupal Security Team is tackling security issues in Drupal 9 in the same manner as they have in previous major versions of Drupal, with some procedural changes based on lessons learned.
What role will new technologies such as speech, visual search, and virtual reality/augmented reality (VR/AR) play in Drupal 9 and beyond?
All of these current interactions and presentation models for dealing with existing data, such as voice and visual scan, AR and VR displays, and so on, are basically new interaction and presentation models for dealing with existing data. The basic content modelling capabilities of Drupal, combined with its API-first architecture, make it ideal for prototyping and developing these new interactions.