First Look at Drupal Canvas in CMS V2 Alpha1: Visual Page Building Reinvented

Drupal Canvas offers a block-based editing experience, enabling editors to visually assemble pages using reusable components, responsive layouts, and theme-integrated designs. The tool draws inspiration from builders like Elementor or Gutenberg, with a familiar interface that includes sidebars for components and properties, a drag-and-drop centre canvas, and zoomable device previews. The release also ships with the Mercury theme, replacing Olivero and providing an agency-style design foundation optimised for Canvas.

Under the hood, Drupal CMS V2 leverages site templates (Starter and Byte), integrates Single Directory Components (SDC), and introduces a new “Pages” tab for managing Canvas-built content. Editors can manipulate headers and footers globally, manage Views within layouts, and even build JSX-based code components directly in the interface. The system replaces the traditional “Manage Display” workflow with visual templates, giving more control over how content types render on the front end—all within a unified interface.

The alpha release is ideal for experimentation in local environments (DDEV recommended), and includes AI-assisted features via the optional Canvas AI module. This enhancement allows prompt-based component generation, bridging Drupal with AI-powered content workflows. While the release is still evolving, the foundational shift introduced by Drupal Canvas signals a major transformation in how Drupal sites will be built and maintained moving forward.