UI Suite Monthly #31 - Display Builder Beta Approaches as We Race Toward Drupal 11.3

Overall Summary

Our October monthly meeting showcased the incredible momentum building across the UI Suite ecosystem as we approach critical deadlines and milestones. With Drupal 11.3's feature freeze just two weeks away, we're pushing hard to land several major APIs in core while simultaneously advancing our contrib modules. The meeting highlighted our growing community engagement, reaching 380 members on Slack and over 1,100 installs across our key modules. We also celebrated Florent's official addition as a Drupal core maintainer and explored exciting new collaboration opportunities with the German government's Kern UX design system initiative.

Key Topics Discussed

Drupal 11.3 Core Contributions: We're in the final sprint with four major issues targeting the October 26th feature freeze. The Style API implementation is progressing well, moving beyond UI Styles' CSS-only approach to handle template modifications, attributes, and library dependencies. Flora has been leading this effort with the core issue already containing style definitions, plugin managers, and form elements. We're also working on design tokens via API for runtime tokens, an icon form element by David, and the strategic schema references in SDC to ensure compatibility between Canvas and UI Patterns.

Display Builder Progress: While we optimistically hoped for beta 1 in September, we've added important features that pushed the timeline into October. Our focus remains on being feature-complete and production-ready rather than rushing to release. We've implemented comprehensive end-to-end testing with Playwright, strengthened our API security to prepare for Drupal's security advisory program, and made significant progress on Layout Builder migration. The real-time collaboration feature using Server-Sent Events (SSE) is working well thanks to Flora's efforts, though we experienced some demo difficulties during the meeting. We're intentionally holding off on navigation toolbar styling until that module stabilizes and plays nicely with admin toolbar.

UI Patterns Advances: Our regular release cadence continues with versions 2.0.9 and 2.0.10 addressing bugs and adding features. The most significant addition is comprehensive token support throughout the system, initiated by Rajab's work on attributes and expanded to work with integer props and various sources. We've also improved Views integration to handle component slots expecting arrays of items more naturally. Translation configuration is ready for review and nearly ready to merge, which will be transformative for our multilingual users. The upgrade path from UI Patterns 1 to 2 is also progressing well, with automated tests planned for next week to ensure comprehensive coverage.

Canvas Compatibility Challenges: While we congratulated the Canvas team on reaching beta 1 and beta 2, we've identified significant compatibility issues that need resolution. Canvas currently breaks UI Patterns when both are installed side-by-side, primarily due to improper handling of JSON schema references. We've created issues on their side to help resolve these problems. Beyond fixing breaking changes, we're working on proper decorator pattern implementation for the SDC plugin manager on both sides, which will enable true chainability between our systems. We're also introducing image and textarea prop types to improve API compatibility, even though we're not entirely enthusiastic about these additions.

Kern UX Design System Opportunity: Lukas presented an exciting collaboration opportunity with Kern UX, a German government-backed design system focused on accessibility and user-centered design for the public sector. The system provides comprehensive Figma designs, HTML/CSS components, and detailed accessibility documentation. Several German states are contributing, with React, Vue.js, and Angular support already available. While currently German-only, there are discussions about internationalization. Multiple community members expressed interest in creating Drupal integration, similar to the Typo3 effort already underway. This represents a strategic opportunity for Drupal in the European public sector market.

Key Action Points

For Contributors: We need help landing our Drupal 11.3 issues before the October 26th feature freeze. You can join us on the four major issues or tackle smaller ones - every contribution helps during this critical two-week window. If you're interested in the Kern UX integration effort, reach out to Lukas, as several community members are already coordinating to bring this design system to Drupal. Testing the UI Patterns upgrade path from version 1 to 2 would also be valuable, as we want to ensure we've covered all migration scenarios before merging.

For Module Maintainers: Review the Style API merge request and provide feedback on whether we've missed anything before we finalize test implementation. Consider how your modules might leverage the new core APIs we're introducing. If you maintain themes or components, start planning how you'll adapt to the upcoming UI Styles 2 and UI Skins 2 releases, which will shift scope as template modifications move into core.

For Early Adopters: While Display Builder beta 1 wasn't released in September as hoped, it's coming soon in October with important security and stability improvements. Once released, you can test the Layout Builder migration feature, which allows iterative switching between builders. The beta will be feature-complete enough to consider for production use, though we'll continue polishing the JavaScript interface. If you're currently using UI Patterns 1, now is the time to start planning your migration to version 2, especially with the automated upgrade path nearly ready.

For the Broader Community: Join us at DrupalCon Vienna next week for two talks: one about design systems in Drupal and another about core mixing, both on Thursday. If you're attending, reach out for private Display Builder demos (with working collaboration features this time!) and to pick up commemorative contributor cards. We're also considering attendance at DrupalCamp Rome and will have representation at Drupalcon Asia with a talk about our initiative.

Upcoming Deadlines / Releases

Our next monthly meeting is scheduled for November 13th, where we'll reveal an exciting new project and hopefully celebrate successful Drupal 11.3 integrations. Until then, we're heads-down finishing our core contributions and preparing for DrupalCon Vienna. The momentum is incredible, and we're grateful for everyone's continued support and contributions to making Drupal a design-system-first platform.