The Spark distribution is a Drupal 7 distribution which aims to prototype cutting-edge authoring experience improvements that we hope to propose for inclusion in Drupal 8 core, announced back in May. Please download the latest release and check it out, and give us lots of feedback! (And/or patches! ;))

The next step is to propose the changes added to Spark so far as Drupal 8 core improvements. We’ve set up a number of events and Birds of a Feather (BoF) sessions at DrupalCon to help facilitate this, most of which are happening on Tuesday (first official day of the conference). (There’s also a handy calendar of these and other Spark-related community sessions.)

Tuesday, August 21

• Tuesday, 9am - 10:15am @ Westin, main room: Dries’s “The State of Drupal" Keynote

  During this presentation, in addition to other Drupal 8 improvements, Dries will be showing videos of various Spark functionality, including inline editing, responsive layout builder, and mobile authoring.

• Tuesday, 10:45am - 12pm @ Westin, St. Moritz room (lower level) : BoF: Spark in Drupal 8 core: Mobile authoring BoF

  After the keynote, we’ll be holding a BoF session for any interested community members who’d like to help brainstorm about how best to move mobile authoring experience improvements into Drupal 8 core, led by Jesse Beach.

• Tuesday, 1pm - 2pm @ Westin, Chamonix room (lower level) BoF: Spark in Drupal 8 core: In-Place editing + WYSIWYG

  After lunch, meet up with Wim Leers to strategize about how best to attack the In-place editing, inline macros, editables, and Wysiwyg in core battleplan. Members from the Aloha Editor team will be on-hand for questions.

• Tuesday, 2:15pm - 3:15pm @ Westin, Chamonix room (lower level) BoF: Spark in Drupal 8 core: Responsive Layouts

  Just after Wim’s session, Jesse Beach and Gábor Hojtsy will lead a BoF on getting the responsive layout builder functionality into core, layering on top of the Blocks and Layouts initiative.

• Tuesday, 3:45pm - 4:15pm @ Sheraton, Asam I Spark: Authoring Experience++ in Drupal 8 core

  A core conversation providing more information about Spark, as well as a demonstration of its features by its features. We'll even be joined by members of the Aloha Editor team!

• Tuesday, 4:20pm @ Westin, Chamonix room (lower level) Aloha Editor / Spark "after BoF" Q&A

  A place for overflow Spark/Aloha questions/discussion. IMPORTANT LOCATION NOTE: If there is room outside the core conversations room we will most likely just have this in the hallway there in the Sheraton rather than walk all the way back to the Westin. :P

• Wednesday, Thursday: Ad-hoc sprints/conversations in the Contribution Lounge @ Westin, lower level
• Friday, August 24

  Friday, all day Sprints

  Both Wim Leers and Jesse Beach will be leading sprints around mobile authoring, responsive layouts, and inline editing/WYSIWYG issues in the Drupal core and Spark queues. If you’d like to contribute to these initiatives, please join us!

  If you’re totally new to core development, stop by the “Core Office Hours" sprint first, where helpful mentors will be there to get you set up with a development environment and provide orientation as to how things work.

There are only about 15 short weeks before feature freeze, so let’s help Drupal’s authoring experience kick ass! :)

Tags: drupaldrupal 8Spark distribution