UI Suite Monthly #30 - Display Builder "Star of the Show" with live demo (starting at 3:13)

Overall Summary

Our September monthly meeting marked a pivotal moment for the UI Suite Initiative, with Display Builder reaching its final alpha release (Alpha 5) and preparing to transition into the beta phase. The community-driven project, now supported by 11+ contributors from different agencies, showcased significant progress toward making Drupal the first design system native CMS.

We demonstrated Display Builder's capabilities across three key areas: page layouts with conditional rendering, entity view displays with override functionality, and seamless migration from Layout Builder. The project has achieved feature freeze, meaning we've locked down the scope for version 1.0.0 with only nine small issues remaining. Our broader UI Suite ecosystem also celebrated major milestones, including UI Patterns 2.0 surpassing 1,000 installations and several modules reaching new adoption records.

The meeting highlighted our commitment to replacing traditional Drupal templating with a unified, design system-native approach that eliminates "magic" wrapper templates and provides complete visual control through the builder interface.

Key Topics Discussed

Display Builder Alpha 5 Achievements and Roadmap 

• We reached our final alpha milestone with Alpha 5, implementing feature freeze while maintaining momentum toward beta 1.
• The project has grown to include 11+ contributors from various agencies, reinforcing its community-driven nature
• Our code architecture remains lean at 10,000 lines (18,000 including UI Patterns main module), providing more functionality than comparable Drupal core features with better maintainability.

The technical foundation centers on replacing traditional Drupal templates (node.html.twig, user.html.twig, etc.) with unified entity.html.twig templates that activate only when Display Builder is in use. This approach ensures existing project templates remain untouched while enabling complete visual control for builder-managed displays.

Live Demonstrations and New Capabilities 

• Our demo sessions (starting at 6:28) revealed breakthrough functionality that distinguishes Display Builder from existing solutions.
• Page layouts now support sophisticated conditional logic through native Drupal condition plugins, allowing different layouts based on user roles, page types, or custom criteria
• Entity view display overrides work seamlessly across any view mode (default, teaser, etc.) using standard field API rather than hardcoded solutions
• The migration tool automatically converts Layout Builder configurations to Display Builder format, preserving existing styling and UI Styles integration.

We showcased real-time collaboration features, comprehensive logging with undo/redo functionality, and smooth AJAX interactions powered by HTMX technology. The interface provides live preview capabilities and maintains state consistency across multiple editing sessions.

UI Suite Ecosystem Growth and Module Updates 

• Our broader ecosystem demonstrated strong growth momentum with UI Patterns 2.0 crossing the 1,000 installation threshold.
• UI Types reached 1,100 installations while UI Styles hit 800 and UI Components achieved 400
• We're implementing rapid release cycles with bug fixes every 2-3 weeks to support Display Builder development and other ecosystem builders.

Module-specific updates included UI Skins gaining theme disable functionality, UI Suite modules Code maintenance releases with new logos and code quality improvements, and UI Suite Bootstrap 5 theme preparing for RC status. The DaisyUI 5 implementation progressed through its alpha cycle with plans for Storybook integration via SDC addon.

Core Integration Strategy and Future Planning 

• We outlined our approach for proposing design system APIs to Drupal core while maintaining flexibility in implementation.
• Five priority issues target Drupal 11.3 for design system native CMS capabilities, focusing on GMA references and design tokens/CSS variables
• Our core team maintains SDC (Jean), Icon API, and Asset Library modules while proposing new YAML definitions for design system components.

The strategy emphasizes proposing features and implementations to core while accepting that final implementations may differ from our current approach, prioritizing the best possible APIs for the Drupal ecosystem.

Key Action Points

Beta Phase Preparation and Timeline 

• We're targeting Beta 1 release within 10 days, focusing on full test coverage and storage stability to eliminate the need for reinstallation between releases.
• Beta 2 will achieve API stability with finalized PHP interfaces and code quality improvements
• Beta 3 targets UI/UX refinements and performance optimizations, making it the ideal time for community feedback on user experience.

The beta phase represents our most critical development period, with 50 beta tickets available for community contribution ranging from easy to complex issues. We're actively seeking contributors through our Slack channel #display-builder.

Community Engagement and Event Participation 

• Our upcoming event schedule includes presentations across major Drupal conferences to showcase our progress.
• Yannick will present at Drupal Spain, followed by appearances at Drupite where Matthew (SDC creator) will discuss Storybook integration
• Vienna conference will feature our design systems presentation, with Rome sessions under discussion.

We're expanding our online presence through our new website powered by DUI theme, published on GitHub Pages with Drupal Planet integration for broader article distribution beyond monthly updates.

Core Contribution Focus Areas 

• Specific areas requiring community assistance include GMA references implementation and design tokens/CSS variables development for Drupal 11.3.
• We need contributors familiar with these technical areas to help achieve our goal of making Drupal the first design system native CMS
• Core team members are available to collaborate and provide guidance for interested contributors.

The emphasis remains on proposing robust, well-tested features to core while maintaining our ecosystem's forward momentum through continued module development and community building.

Upcoming Deadlines / Releases