Backdrop 1.17 is here, and contains a handful of new features. Below you'll find a few that we are most excited about sharing with you.
Performance improvements
- Did you know that you can improve your site's performance by adding an attribute to
imgtags? Lazy-loading is now natively supported by most browsers, and as of Backdrop version 1.17 it's also available as a setting for your image fields.
Security enhancements
- Since security is a priority for the Backdrop community, we've included a new option for websites to reject new passwords that Backdrop considers weak.
- The directories where Backdrop stores it's configuration files are now also automatically protected by
.htaccessfiles on Apache servers.
Improvements to Layouts
- As of Backdrop 1.17 you'll now have the ability to customize the block title and description that's shown when configuring your layout. This will give you the power to label everything, so that you can easily tell similar blocks apart.
- Layouts is one major feature that sets Backdrop apart from Drupal. As a rewrite of the Panels module form Drupal 7, the Backdrop layout has many powerful tools for advanced users. In Backdrop 1.17, we've re-introduced the ability to add custom contexts!
Bug-Fixes and other improvements
As usual, this minor release also includes all the bug-fixes, usability improvements, and developer-experience improvements that were included in the most recent bug-fix release. To see all the great changes included, please have a look at the release notes for 1.16.3.
Feedback Welcome
If you'd like to share your feedback on Backdrop 1.17, we'd love to hear from you in our forum.