drupal_cms_helper 2.0.0

Drupal CMS 2 is a new version that includes Drupal Canvas, the first site template, and a number of other enhancements.

Key features

Drupal Canvas integration

Drupal CMS introduces Canvas as the default editing experience, providing true drag-and-drop with live preview and real-time editing. The custom built Mercury component library provides common building blocks like cards, testimonials, heroes, menus and accordions.

Site templates

Drupal CMS 2 includes the first site template, which provides a near-feature-complete starting point for a specific use case. Byte is preconfigured as a marketing site for a SaaS-based product, with an elegant dark design, along with a blog, newsletter signup, pricing pages and a contact form.

For a less opinionated starting point, Starter gives you Canvas integration via Mercury, to build a site for any use case and apply your branding.

To create a site template of your own, use the Drupal CMS Site Template Starter Kit.

AI features

AI features are optional and can be easily configured via the AI assistant add-on. AI features include:

• Generate complete landing pages from text prompts with Canvas AI
• Admin chatbot to help with site-building tasks like creating content types, defining taxonomy terms, and adding fields
• Alt text generation for images
• Try AI for free with amazee.ai, or set up with OpenAI and Anthropic API keys
• AI Dashboard provides central visibility into available AI features and configured providers

How to install

To give Drupal CMS 2 a quick try, we recommend the Drupal CMS launcher app.

For a more permanent installation, we recommend using DDEV (version 1.24.0 or later). Follow the instructions to install it, then run these commands in an empty directory:

ddev config --project-type=drupal11 --docroot=web
ddev composer create-project drupal/cms
ddev composer drupal:recipe-unpack
ddev launch

If you have your own local web server and database set up, you can use composer create-project drupal/cms to install Drupal CMS 2.

Already have a Drupal site?

If you already have a Drupal site that you're happy with, that was built with a previous version of Drupal CMS, you don't have to do anything!

Drupal CMS is a starting point for new sites. Once installed, it's a standard Drupal installation that you update in exactly the same way as any other Drupal site. You can add (or remove) modules and themes as you choose.

To use Drupal Canvas on an existing site, you can go right ahead and install it! Just be aware that not all themes are Canvas-ready so you will need a component-based theme to use Canvas effectively. If you want a Canvas-ready theme to try out, Mercury is an open-source theme that is compatible with Canvas and included with Drupal CMS 2. It can be installed on existing site (on Drupal 11+) and adapted for your branding. Canvas is planning migration paths from Layout Builder and Paragraphs, but these are not ready yet.

If you want to take advantage of any recipes that Drupal CMS 2 provides, you can install them individually via Composer and apply them like any other recipe. That said, recipes do not have update paths, so applying a recipe to an existing site will not necessarily do everything it would do to a new site. (This is true of all recipes, not just those provided by Drupal CMS.)