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UT Drupal Kit

UT Drupal Kit 3 – Beta 9/9.1 Release

ITS has posted the ninth beta release of UT Drupal Kit 3.0 (UTDK 3).

UT Drupal Kit 3.0.0-beta.9 delivers new layout controls for controlling the display of components with multiple items, the addition of sharable social media links as a placeable block, and Composer 2 compatibility. It also includes an update from Drupal 8.9.8 to Drupal 8.9.12 and a number of contributed module updates. Read on for more details.

Same day patch-level update

On the same day that the 3.0.0-beta.9 release was made available as a Composer package, a second patch-level release (3.0.0-beta.9.1) was posted to address a bug identified in the process of updating existing sites. New sites created with the 3.0.0-beta.9 release would NOT be impacted by this bug.

Site owners who may have updated an existing pre-beta.9 site in the brief window between the 3.0.0-beta.9 and 3.0.0-beta.9.1 releases on Tuesday, January 12 should update to the most current release. The timeframe between the two releases was approximately 9:45am-5:45pm CST. If you are concerned about an update problem, please email drupal-kit-support@utlists.utexas.edu with details about your site.

Release summary

  • Content editors can now display components with multiple items in 1, 2, 3, or 4 items per row. This includes listings for news, events and profile add-ons. See documentation: Control items per row (multi-item components).
  • Content editors can add social media sharing links to pages. See documentation: Social media share links.
  • Prior to this release, Quick Links headlines displayed with a border that replicated that field’s display in version 2 of the UT Drupal Kit. As of beta.9, headlines now have a simpler display that evokes section headers. Border styling may still be applied to Quick Links by setting the block title to display and selecting the “Border with background” style option.
  • The UT Drupal Kit is now compatible with Composer 2. Developers who encounter problems using Composer 2 should review Package incompatibility with Composer 2.
  • Significant progress was made to the programmatic migration path from version 2 to version 3.

Contributed module updates

The following contributed modules are updated in this release.

Updating an existing codebase

Please visit the UT Drupal Kit 3 documentation for complete release notes and instructions for updating an existing beta codebase using Composer. Always be sure to check for available database updates after updating the codebase.

A note about beta releases

This is a beta release for the next major version of the UT Drupal Kit. Betas are good testing targets for developers and site builders who are comfortable reporting (and where possible, fixing) their own bugs. Beta releases are not recommended for non-technical users, nor for production websites.

How do I get started with UTDK 3?

The first thing anyone interested in starting with UTDK 3 should do is to head over to the documentation site:

https://drupalkit.its.utexas.edu/docs/

The “What is the UT Drupal Kit?” chapter contains detailed explanations of what the Kit contains, as well as a list of differences between versions 2 and 3.

The “Getting Started” chapter includes technical requirements for running version 3, as well as detailed instructions for setting up an environment on your own local workstation, a LAMP server, or Pantheon.

If you run into problems or have questions, please check the “Support” page for available support options.

Next releases

The 3.x (Drupal 8) branch of the UT Drupal Kit is updated on a bi-monthly maintenance release schedule, with releases targeted for the second Tuesday of odd-numbered months. The next planned release is UT Drupal Kit 3.0.0-beta.10, due on March 9, 2021. Please see Release Schedule for UT Drupal Kit for more details.

By Paul Grotevant

Paul Grotevant is the Senior IT Manager of Web Content Management Solutions for Information Technology Services at the University of Texas at Austin.