[meta] A Twig-based theme system in Drupal 8

There are a lot of things wrong with the theme layer in Drupal.

First, and of highest importance to me (jenlampton) creating themes for Drupal is way too hard to learn. HTML is the universal language of the the web, and anyone working in web should know HTML. That means that the theme layer is where almost everyone will start when they begin to work with Drupal. If we make the entry point too complex and Drupal-specific, we'll be turning away potential adopters, and contributors to our project.

Second, and of highest importance to chx and greggles, is security. By processing PHP code in our templates, we hand our theme developers a loaded gun, and ask them to hammer in nails with it (quote from JohnAlbin). Yes, we have "best practies" and "guidelines" that should be followed to keep themes secure, but it's hard to know when they must be used, and easy to make mistakes.

The reason I put security second, is because if we made it easy to do things securely and hard to do them insecurely, Security would become an non-issue. Le's make Drupal's theme layer easy to use, easy to learn, consistent and intuitive, and make it also become more secure!

D8 theme layer sprints

We'll be holding many sprints on the new theme layer for Drupal 8. Here's the current list:

Further Reading

• Chx's core issue to replace the theme layer
• John Albin's DruplaCon Denver core conversation
• Nate+Jen+Carl's DrupalCon Denver session proposal
• Jacine's consistent templates
• Related Blog posts:
  • Jacine's blog post
  • John's blog post
  • Carl's blog post
  • Jen's blog post
• Twig
• Twig.js
• Twig macros

IRC

If you are interested in helping with this initiative or talking to us about twig, please meet us in IRC in the #drupal-themepsrint channel.