Backdrop 1.25 Released!

The Backdrop community is proud to announce version 1.25 of Backdrop CMS, which was released as scheduled on May 15, 2023. As part of our commitment to deliver the most usable product, "minor" releases come out three times a year, on a regular schedule. This allows site maintainers to know when to expect updates, and they can plan accordingly. (See https://backdropcms.org/releases for more information on this)

Version 1.25 includes a number of enhancements which improve the usability of Backdrop CMS, including these new features:

• Admin bar language switcher
• Option to limit text formats for each field instance
• Context from Layouts into Views blocks
• Search results mini pager
• Improved formatting for taxonomy checkboxes/radios
• Editor permissions for new content types

User Experience Improvements

Admin bar language switcher

Multilingual sites need to have a way from users to switch languages.  Backdrop has always provided a block of enabled languages, but to use this you had to place the block in your layouts and theme them to your liking.  Now, enabling languages will place a convenient menu in the admin bar.  Like the other features of the admin bar, the language switcher can be easily disabled in the toolbar's options panel.

Option to limit text formats for each field instance

Historically, site builders have been able to choose to either limit a field to text-only input, or to offer content creators the option to choose any enabled text format.  With this change, site builders can now select one or more text formats that can be selected for each field, allowing them to simplify the interface that content editors see.

Context from Layouts into Views blocks

Previously, clever site builders have been able to pass parameters from a layout into a view that it contains by referencing context from the URL based on position. This meant the block could only be used at a specific path.  Backdrop 1.25 adds context support to views blocks associated with layouts, making the process more straightforward.

Search results mini pager

Previously, searches that produced a large number of results could produce a pager at the bottom with a confusingly large number of page links.  With this change, sitebuilders now have an option to use a "mini" pager like Views module has, for a cleaner look.

Improved formatting for taxonomy checkboxes/radios

We've made some improvements in the way multi-level taxonomies appear in the user interface.

Now, instead of this:

...it looks like this:

Isn't that nicer?  

Editor permissions for new content types

Backdrop includes a role called "Editor" that has more privileges than a typical user, but without access to some of the potentially risky options the "Administrator" role has.  These privileges were previously available on the three content types that Backdrop includes by default, but had to be set manually for newly-created content types.

With this change, the Editor role will also receive the same privileges on newly-created content types.

Accessibility Improvements

• Sitebuilder can now make "Alt" tags required
• Responsive dropdown menus parent link behavior

Miscellaneous changes/Bug fixes

• Don't empty node cache when creating a new node. # - user requested, performance improvement
• WebP support to all image and file fields (now includes hero block). .
• Add more words to the CSpell dictionary to avoid false positives. 
• Allow theme JavaScript to specify header/footer scope.  -- can increase performance for certain kinds of javascript
• Add a changed (last updated/last modified) property to the User object. #5944 - user requested
• Add #indentation property to FAPI elements. - code improvement that allowed 
  • Cleanup & optimization of the #indentation FAPI property.
  • Fixed indentation issues appearing on some forms.
• backward-compatible fallback for image_TOOLKIT_supported_extensions()

Notes:

Several of these changes were implemented based on the suggestions and experiences of new Backdrop developers.  It pays to speak up!

Want more in-depth technical information about these changes?  Check the Release Notes on Github.

 

We would love to get your feedback on version 1.25.0.