Released only 11 months ago, Drupal 8 introduced semantic versioning for Drupal, with the promise of new, experimental features included with each minor Drupal version every 6 months.
So, what noteworthy improvements were added in 8.2?
Control block layouts with Place Block. With Place Block, site administrators are now able to setup and control block placement from any page with an intuitive overlay.
Manage blocks with the Settings Tray
The Settings Tray module allows for block management using an outside-in sidebar. Whatever the block context, the interface will allow you to modify basic and advanced block configuration quickly and easily without needing to navigate to the Drupal backend.
Improve content workflow with Content Moderation
Beyond the default published/unpublished options for content, the Content Moderation module introduces the ability to create granular workflows not previously available. This allows for site administrators to define custom content states (e.g Draft, Archive, Needs Legal Review) as well as the ability to assign roles to assist moving content between states.
Date ranges now supported
An important addition to the Date module, this allows for the definition of end dates, a requirement for many contributed projects, such as the Calendar module.
Other improvements
- The experimental Migration modules introduced in version 8.1 received some additional feature support as well as new migration path from Drupal 6 to Drupal 8. However, Migration still has a way to go before it's considered stable and will remain in an alpha state.
- The Big Pipe caching module, which aims to improve perceived page performance using an innovative rendering engine is almost at beta stability.
- Inline Form Errors is the only proof-of-concept module included in this version of Drupal. It improves accessibility by showing form errors inline but will need serious improvement in future versions.
- Drupal’s support for REST services has expanded to include improved responses and new features that will build upon the rapidly adopted and popular decoupled Drupal methodology for web application development.
You can view the release blog as well as the entire changelog on Drupal.org.
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