Project present and future
- Version 1.18 current release (released January 15, 2021)
- Goals for Version 1.19 (release scheduled for May 15, 2021)
- Goals for future 1.x releases
- Version 2.0 (not before Jan 2024)
Key features in version 1.18
Release date: January 15th, 2020
Backdrop 1.18 (announcement and release notes); focused on providing WebP support, improving token support, and providing options for various features.
- Support for WebP image format (if the installed PHP version supports it)
- Menu blocks: allow defining custom breakpoints
- Provide a :link sub-token for user tokens
- Provide option to skip deleting config staging files after a config sync
- Provide a phone field for contact forms (optional)
- Add the option to show/hide the links to translations in content body and teasers
Features planned for version 1.19
Scheduled release date: May 15th, 2021
- Advanced Caching (a.k.a. cache tags and cache max-age)
- Add support for "Relationships" to Layout Contexts
- Add a filename filter to the media selection tool
- Reorganize the "Updates" pages
- Upgrade UI module (similar to Migrate UI in D8)
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
- A more intuitive administrative User Interface with each release.
- Improving the out-of-the-box User Experience with each release.
- Improve the admin interface for people on RTL languages.
- Ensure that a transition from Drupal 7 is as smooth as possible.
- More TBD!
Specific Goals
- Automatic core updates (manual core self-updates have been available since 1.11).
- A flexible reference field for content, user accounts, etc.
- Improve and expand multi-lingual support
- 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 2022. 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.