UI Suite Monthly #04 - Bridging Core Integration and Drupal 10 Compatibility

Overall Summary

We held our fourth monthly meeting to discuss progress on our ecosystem of Drupal UI modules, including UI Patterns, UI Styles, UI Skins, and related components. Our meeting covered significant developments in Drupal 10 compatibility, major architectural discussions with Drupal core maintainers, and our community coordination efforts.

Key highlights include our productive meeting with core maintainers about the Single Directory Component (SDC) project and UI component initiatives, our successful releases achieving Drupal 10 compatibility across the ecosystem, and ongoing discussions about our module consolidation and community governance.

Key Topics Discussed

Core Integration Discussions

We had a significant meeting with core maintainers on December 23rd about the SDC (Single Directory Component) project and UI component in core initiative. Core maintainers proposed that our UI Patterns could become a wrapper around SDC, with UI Patterns serving as a model to expose the component API. This would require substantial architectural changes and potentially breaking changes for our UI Patterns module.

Drupal 10 Compatibility Progress

Our ecosystem has made substantial progress on Drupal 10 compatibility. Most of our important modules are now compatible, with approximately half of our UI Patterns ecosystem successfully converted. Some modules still require our attention, including components maintained by Alex and Christian that need our community outreach.

Module Ecosystem Management

We discussed the management of related modules like Display Suite and UI Patterns Display Suite. Our team debated whether to maintain separate modules or consolidate functionality directly into our UI Patterns core, considering both maintenance burden and community needs.

UI Styles and UI Skins Consistency

We had major discussions focused on achieving consistency across our UI ecosystem, particularly regarding:

• Grouping and sorting mechanisms for our styles and patterns
• Form configuration consistency between our UI Styles and UI Skins
• Implementation of alphabetical sorting with optional weighting systems
• Plugin definition class improvements and breaking changes

CKEditor 5 Integration

We reported progress on CKEditor 5 integration for our UI Styles, with PHP implementation completed and JavaScript development planned as our next phase.

Community Initiative Status

We discussed promoting our UI Suite as an official Drupal community initiative, recognizing our need for better organization and formal recognition within the broader Drupal community.

Key Action Points

Immediate Actions

• Contact Antonio and maintainers: We need to reach out to module maintainers for Drupal 10 compatibility assistance
• Open GitHub issues: We must create issues for patent consolidation discussions
• Display Suite evaluation: We need to assess whether our Display Suite modules should be integrated into UI Patterns or maintained separately
• Module maintainer outreach: We must contact Christian and Alex regarding module maintenance and compatibility

Development Tasks

• UI Styles 1.4 release: We need to complete views integration and CKEditor 5 compatibility
• Grouping implementation: We must add consistent grouping and sorting mechanisms across our UI Styles, UI Skins, and UI Patterns
• Plugin definition updates: We need to implement breaking changes for improved API consistency
• Layout Builder regression: We must address ongoing issues with our Layout Builder compatibility

Documentation and Community

• Change records: We need to create documentation for breaking changes in our plugin definitions
• Issue queue management: We must ensure our issues don't stagnate and maintain active development momentum
• Community initiative application: We should explore registering our UI Suite as an official Drupal community initiative

Upcoming Deadlines / Releases

Critical Dependencies

• Drupal 10.1 release: Our UI component integration timeline depends on core release schedule
• SDC project timeline: Our UI Patterns architectural changes tied to Single Directory Component availability
• Community maintainer availability: Several of our updates dependent on volunteer maintainer capacity

Next Meeting

Date: February 14, 2023 (rescheduled from February 7th) Focus: Follow-up on our SDC discussions, development progress review, and our community initiative planning

Our UI Suite Initiative continues to be a vital community-driven effort to improve Drupal's component ecosystem. Community members interested in contributing can join our dedicated Slack channel and participate in our monthly meetings.