Replace “Recommended by the project’s maintainer” with stability indicator on project pages

I decided against adding “This release is not stable.” The releases area is already very busy, and alpha/beta/rc are shown in the version number.

This is currently in test on https://gitlab1-drupal.dev.devdrupal.org/project/project_module

Notes for deployment:

• cc views
• TRUNCATE cache_project_release_download_table;

The initial deployment here is done, leaving open for https://www.drupal.org/project/drupal → which is still showing all “recommended” releases instead of supported.

I don't like the colour change. I don't really have an issue with the blue one for stable & covered releases. But the grey is really not as clear that it's different for an none stable release or not covered project. Yellow/Orange pops more as "hey watch out". Grey is too neutral for me, and I think this will cause confusion. When landing on a project with no stable/covered release, it's really hard to tell without looking for the shield or the tagged version.

I guess this was done because the --drupal-yellow from the brandbook is too "hard". But I really feel we should pick a different collour as grey which is close to the blue.

Slack thread: https://drupal.slack.com/archives/C1BMUQ9U6/p1742889668136919

I agree with previous comment and as also discussed in Slack. I also feel like there is some information that is communicated with color but not with a text alternative. I think we should verify that we have the same information available for screen readers that is communicated visually.

I would like to propose a border or similar to mark releases that are covered by the security advisory policy.

Something like this:

This may also help to distinguish between stable and not stable releases (as long as the module has opted-in the security advisory policy).

I didn’t want the non-stable color to be too much of a warning. While we do hope production sites can run as many stable releases as possible, we also want maintainers to have some visibility for testing pre-releases.

The text alternative is whether the release is alpha/beta/rc. I decided against additional labeling, since the releases are already very busy.

I do think there should be clear a distinction between covered and not covered by the security advisory in the releases section. Besides the little shield, it should be very clear like it used to be.

Really not convinced blue and grey are the best colour choices. Also, with the goal to modernise, this feels like a step back with the rounded corers, it really doesn't seem to fit here. I can understand this for marketing content, but not here :-).

I tested the color contrast and it seems to pass WCAG AA at least, if not more.

FWIW, I feel like the grey is a decent color choice for the new brand. We can try this for a while and see how it goes, if there is confusion about it. The old yellow relies on cultural connotations that are broad, but not universal. The icon is the key element people should focus on for security and I think it works well here.

The blue on grey is a fail for WCAG AA small text.

Reading through 📌 Remove “recommended” status for releases? Active and to me it seems like a good reasoning for the change. I guess we should then just get rid of the option to even mark projects as Recommended by the maintainer to avoid confusion? Because at the moment the Ui to mark a branch as the recommended might lead to confusion. The initial question from Slack came when we were wondering what happened in the project we are maintaining when both the supported and recommended versions were identical and very hard to distinguish which one to install. But I guess the aim is that there would be only one supported stable version and one additional development version for early adapters which makes sense to me.

I also agree with @greggles that colors are very personal and cultural choices and it's hard to pick colors that everyone is fine with. I guess normally it's common to write something like "Not recommended for production use." when some release is still in beta and alpha version but knowing that there are many cases when you actually need to run a Drupal module in production even in alpha state, that might also cause unneeded confusion.

I did go ahead and replace the mild grey for non-stable releases with the mildest grey. This should improve contrast, and reduce the highlighting of prereleases.

Whenever we do small design changes, we’ll be incorporating the new branding elements. Hopefully things don’t look too mismatched as they gradually change, but it's a lot more doable than attempting to get everything right all at once.

And yes, the Recommended option for maintainers will be removed once everything that depends on it is removed. This should happen in within the next week.

The remaining use of the “recommended” filter is on https://www.drupal.org/project/drupal → . That will add the other two supported releases, currently 11.0.11 and 10.3.12.

I did go ahead and replace the mild grey for non-stable releases with the mildest grey. This should improve contrast, and reduce the highlighting of prereleases.

That looks a lot more easing on the eyes, and from a quick glance, looks a lot different to the blue so that's already a lot better.

Whenever we do small design changes, we’ll be incorporating the new branding elements. Hopefully things don’t look too mismatched as they gradually change, but it's a lot more doable than attempting to get everything right all at once.

Yes 100% agree, small incremental changes are easier to manage instead of a big bang. And let's not forget with designs, there is not a single design that works for everyone 😊.

Thanks for this small, but great change @drumm!

Agreed. Looks much more modern and fits better with the blue color. Shame there is no thumbs up symbol in d.org issue comments but nice change and all in all looks like a good direction to go.

Is there something missing from marking this issue as RTBC? To me it seems like done based on the first comment proposed resolution and for example comparing https://www.drupal.org/project/webform → releases.

We discussed/reviewed it internally before merging for what is worth. Just forgot to make any comments here.

Keeping this issue open for

The remaining use of the “recommended” filter is on https://www.drupal.org/project/drupal → . That will add the other two supported releases, currently 11.0.11 and 10.3.12.

https://www.drupal.org/project/drupal → is now updated and drupalorg module no longer uses the project_release_supported_versions.recommended column.

Isn't for accessibility colour/visuals should not be the only difference in the meaning of the links?

GitHub has tags for different releases:
https://github.com/vercel/next.js/releases