Project present and future

Key features in version 1.14

Release date: September 15th, 2019

Backdrop 1.14 (announcement and release notes); focused on file entities in core, and on introducing a way to create layout templates via the admin interface.

  1. Flexible layout templates (layout template builder via the admin UI)
  2. Fieldable files (i.e. File Entity in core)
  3. Include an 'Editor' role in the standard profile
  4. Opt-in support for trusted_host_patterns in settings.php.
  5. See the GitHub issue tracker for all 1.14 issues.

Features planned for version 1.15

Scheduled release date: January 15th, 2020

  1. Digitally signed core and contrib packages (modules, themes, layouts)
  2. Allow image fields to select existing images from a library
  3. Allow content to automatically be placed into the menu
  4. Improved performance by caching whole entities
  5. Improvements to text formats
  6. More TBD!
  7. See the GitHub issue tracker for 1.15 issues.

Goals for 1.x

All Backdrop 1.x releases will include new features that do not require API breaks. A subset of proposed topics are listed below. Please note: our priorities may change based on the most urgent needs of the Backdrop community.

General Goals

  1. A more intuitive administrative User Interface with each release.
  2. Improving the out-of-the-box User Experience with each release.
  3. Improve the admin interface for people on RTL languages.
  4. Ensure that a transition from Drupal 7 is as smooth as possible.
  5. More TBD!

Specific Goals

  1. Automatic core updates (manual core self-updates have been available since 1.11).
  2. A flexible reference field for content, user accounts, etc.
  3. Improve and expand multi-lingual support
  4. More TBD!

Goals for 2.0

Backdrop 2.0 will NOT be released before January 15th, 2024.

Backdrop Version 1 will continue to be the active branch of development until at least 2024. Development will continue on version 1 for at least 2 years after Drupal 7's end-of-life in November 2021. Backdrop version 1 will continue to be supported until Backdrop version 3 is released.

Backdrop 2.0 will include the removal of deprecated functions, and will most likely include changes in HTML markup.

The upgrade from Backdrop 1 to Backdrop 2 will be easier than the upgrade from Drupal 7 to Backdrop CMS, which is already easier than the upgrade from Drupal 7 to Drupal 8.

See the GitHub issue tracker for more 2.x issues for a set of proposed changes that cannot happen during the 1.x cycle.