What’s new in Drupal 8.8.0?
The last normal feature release of Drupal 8 includes a stable Media Library as well as several improvements to workspaces and migrations. The new experimental Claro administration theme brings a fresh look to site management. This is also the first release to come with native Composer support.
Stable Media Library
The Media Library module allows easy reuse of images, documents, videos, and other assets across the site. It is integrated into content forms and seamlessly fits into CKEditor. You can upload media right from the library and even reuse a combination of uploaded and existing media. Media Library was previously included with Drupal core as a beta experimental module.
New experimental administration theme
The Claro administration theme was added to Drupal core with beta experimental stability. The new theme is clean, accessible, and powerful. Administration pages are more touch-friendly, and color combinations and contrasts are more accessible.
Significant improvements to Workspaces
It is now possible to define hierarchical workspaces (such as preparing a "New Year's" issue for a magazine under the "winter issue", while both receive changes to be deployed). Workspaces can now work with Content Moderation, and path alias changes can also be staged.
Native Composer support included
Drupal 8.8.0 is the first release to include native Composer support without reliance on third-party projects to set up Drupal with its dependencies. New sites can be created using a one-line command.
Migration improvements
The multilingual migration path is still experimental, but has received various updates. This includes handling of vocabulary language settings, term language information, and localization. Modules can now specify whether migrations provided by them are finished or not finished to help audit completeness of available migrations.
New experimental Help Topics module
The existing help system is module based, whereas users intend to complete tasks, not use modules. A new task-based Help Topics beta experimental module has been added to bring in-Drupal help to the next level.
The way to Drupal 9
Drupal 8.8 is the last minor release of Drupal 8 to include significant new features or deprecations prior to 9.0.0. The next (and final) minor release, 8.9, is planned to be a long-term support release that will include all the same changes as Drupal 9.0. It will not contain significant new features compared to 8.8.0, although existing experimental modules may become stable, and small API and UX improvements can still be added.
Drupal 8.9.0's planned release date is June 3, 2020, and our target release date for Drupal 9.0.0 is the same day. Most Drupal 9 preparation steps can be done on your Drupal 8 site, custom code and contributed modules now.
What does this mean for me?
Drupal 8 site owners
Update to 8.8.0 to continue receiving bug fixes and prepare for 9.0.0 (or 8.9.0). The next bug-fix release (8.8.1) is scheduled for January 8, 2020. (See the release schedule overview for more information.) As of this release, sites on Drupal 8.6 will no longer receive security coverage. (Drupal 8.7 will continue receiving security fixes until June 3, 2020.)
Note that all Drupal 8.8.0 sites (new installs and updates) now require at least PHP 7.0.8.
Updating your site from 8.7.10 to 8.8.0 with update.php is exactly the same as updating from 8.7.8 to 8.7.9. Drupal 8.8.0 also has updates to several dependencies. Modules, themes, and translations may need updates for these and other changes in this minor release, so test the update carefully before updating your production site. Read the 8.8.0 release notes for a full list of changes that may affect your site.
Drupal 7 site owners
Drupal 7 is fully supported by the community until November 2021, and will continue to receive bug and security fixes throughout this time. From November 2021 until at least November 2024, the Drupal 7 Vendor Extended Support program will be offered by vendors.
The migration path for monolingual Drupal 7 sites is stable, as is the built-in migrationuser interface. For multilingual sites, most outstanding issues have been resolved. Please keep testing and reporting any issues you may find.
Translation, module, and theme contributors
Minor releases like Drupal 8.8.0 include backwards-compatible API additions for developers as well as new features.
Since minor releases are backwards-compatible, modules, themes, and translations that supported Drupal 8.7.x and earlier will be compatible with 8.8.x as well. However, the new version does include some changes to strings, user interfaces, internal APIs and API deprecations. This means that some small updates may be required for your translations, modules, and themes. Read the 8.8.0 release notes for a full list of changes that may affect your modules and themes.
This release has advanced the Drupal project significantly and represents the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and contributors from various organizations, as well as testers from the Minor release beta testing program. Thank you to everyone who contributed to Drupal 8.8.0!