Earlier this week we updated the administrative theme in Drupal, the software that runs our site. This "admin theme" is a collective term for the colors, fonts, buttons, and overall layout of controls and menus that you see when you're logged in and building or editing web content. You may also think of this as the "back-end" view of the website, as opposed to the "front-end" view that the public sees.
It's important to note that these changes only affect the look and layout of this editor interface. This will not change anything about your content, what the content elements are named or selected, or how any of this functions. You can still build and edit pages the same way, but the menus and buttons you use to do that will look different than before.
Upgrading the Web Editor View
Why Now?
The core Drupal software recently released this new default admin theme as part of recent usability update. We found it to be a much cleaner interface than our current theme, plus it meets multiple accessibility concerns and is more responsive and simpler to use regardless of your screen size or device.
Here's a sample of the new theme and the old theme side-by-side to illustrate the difference:
The new web editor theme (L) is much more accessible and user friendly than the previous design (R).
The new web editor theme (L) is much more accessible and user friendly than the previous design (R).
What Does This Mean For You?
Actually, this should not affect your work as a content creator much at all. Once you log in for the first time after the new theme is in place, it should only take you a few quick scrolls to recognize everything you need to edit your webpage. In fact, we're confident this update will only make it easier for you to focus on building great content.
The release of this new theme is just one of a series of new releases and improvements we’ve made over the past few months as we continue to build out a better website experience for all our users. You can read details about each release at any time on our website on our Release Notes page.
We hope you'll be pleased with the improvements, but as always: if you have questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us. We're a small team, but we're here for you.