Webform 8.x-5.x stable release plan

Three years ago on Christmas day, I tagged the first alpha of the YAML Form module, which became the Webform module for Drupal 8. Looking back, it has been a great learning experience building and maintaining the Webform module. Looking forward, I want to make sure the Webform module is as stable as possible while still trying to smooth out any rough edges around accessibility and user experience. Everyone should feel that the Webform module is a stable, supported, and maintained part of Drupal's ecosystem of contributed modules. To help organizations and individuals understand what to expect from a stable release of the Webform module, it’s worth defining some general goals.

The goals of this blog post and the overall stability of the Webform module are to…

• Define the ongoing stable release cycle.

• Document what to expect from stable releases.

• Encourage the growth of Webform add-ons and integrations.

For the past three years, I've been tagging a new release at the beginning of each month. Frequently monthly releases were quickly followed up with a hotfix release to address unexpected regressions. Regressions happen because the Webform module is a feature-rich application with maybe not enough test coverage and definitely not enough eyeballs reviewing the code. Quality assurance is a challenge for open source projects; reviewing code for free is not as much fun as writing it. Even Drupal core needs help with improving the reliability of minor updates.

For example, Webform 8.x-5.1 was released at the beginning of January. It has been followed by Webform 8.x-5.2-beta releases which will last until March, at which point we will transition over to release candidates that will go until April 1st when 8.x-5.2 will be released.

The availability of these beta and release candidates appear on the Webform project page and Drupal's available updates. Hopefully, people will test out these releases, especially for projects that are under active development and would benefit from leveraging the latest features and bug fixes without immediate concerns for stability.

Now that the Webform module is stable and covered by the security advisory policy, it's important that we tag new releases anytime there are security issues. Security issues will force any pending beta or release candidates forward into next stable release. Until contribute modules support semantic versioning, this is the only way to move everyone forward to a secure release and stable release.

For me, second to ensuring the security of the Webform, is to ensure that the Webform module is accessible and usable for everyone. Accessibility and usability issues will be fixed as needed with change records documenting any major changes.

Finally, the Webform module for Drupal 8 is designed to build amazing forms which can route submission data to any system. Any feature that helps improve this vision will be committed.

For example, I just added the Webform Attachment sub-module which provides webform elements that generate or load files that can be attached to a webform submission and an email handler.

Even though the Webform module is a feature-rich application, advanced integrations with core and other APIs and applications, including Views, REST, Analysis, and Rules, should continue to be developed as dedicated contribute modules. Integrations with third-party applications also need to be built out as add-on modules. One of Drupal's and Webform's strengths is its flexibility and massive community who make it possible for Drupal applications to be integrated with any system.

Lastly, it's time for everyone to start migrating to Drupal 8. Heshan Wanigasooriya (heshanlk) built and supports the Webform migrate module which everyone should use to move their Drupal 6 and 7 webforms and submissions to Drupal 8.

Once we are all migrated to Drupal 8, it will be time to upgrade to Drupal 9. Drupal 9 will provide us with a chance to explore what core improvements make it necessary to create a 6.x branch of the Webform module. Supporting headless webforms and the modernized Drupal admin UI using React could require us to rethink and rework some internal APIs and the form presentation layer.

There are many ways to get involved with Drupal and the Webform module. And getting involved helps us all.

If you work on a new project which requires the Webform module, please use the latest beta or release candidate during development and testing.

If you create a useful Webform add-on or integration, consider contributing it back to the Drupal community by collaborating on an existing project or creating a new project.

If you launch a Drupal 8 project using the Webform module, consider backing our ongoing effort by joining the Webform module's Open Collective.