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[From Al, as opposed to Connie since it's an Admin account]
Re: D7
There will be a point and time when we pull the trigger and upgrade to
Drupal 7, but I agree with Ed that it's not quite ready for prime time.
On average, I have a pretty good feel for Drupal as a solution. It's really
my tolerance for fiddling with the old theme's CSS versus moving toward a
brand new shiny theme that I can customize (so the next folks can pull their
hair out :).
Lauren's thoughts on starting with Zen Framework prompted me to finally go
to the site and download it to our test server. Reviewing it, was for just
a moment, like finding myself on a nice warm island with plenty of cold wine
and a good seat for viewing the ocean. But then, I went back to our current
theme which required a coat, gloves and a flashlight. For the record, it's
mostly my in experience with this level of programming rather than anything
else. In a previous life I gathered requirements, fleshed out use cases,
and occasionally funct specs and then happily handed it over to our
technical team to do the voodoo that they do. But now I do all the
functional work on an envelop and go back to working on the rail road.
We're working toward a reorganization of the current site in something we're
calling version 2.5 so when we do put up new content it's easier to find,
etc. Once we hit a steady-state with 2.5 - I'll then start building version
3.0 from the ground up.
take care,
al
On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 8:13 AM, <lists -at- edmarsh -dot- com> wrote:
> As someone active in the Drupal community, I'd hold off on 7 for a bit if
> you're using a lot of contributed modules. Things like the Views and Panels
> modules are still problematic in 7.
>
> Regardless, the Drupal community is fantastic, friendly, and
> extraordinarily helpful. I'd highly recommend going to a meetup.
> -=Ed.
>
>
> On Wed, 20 Apr 2011 08:57:34 -0400, "Tim J. Slager" <
> TSlager -at- isdcorporation -dot- com> wrote:
>
>> Any chance you could upgrade from Drupal 6 to Drupal 7? It is
>> considerably more intuitive (although still massively robust and
>> complex). If there is a local drupal group in your area, they may be
>> eager to help you get things sorted out. The group in my area (Grand
>> Rapids, MI, US) is. If you want to experiment with Drupal 7, start a
>> (free) site on Drupal Gardens (http://www.drupalgardens.com/). You may
>> decide the upgrade is not worth the effort, but it might be worth
>> checking.
>>
>> tims
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: techwr-l-bounces+tslager=isdcorporation -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
>>
>> [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+tslager=isdcorporation -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com]
>> On Behalf Of Lauren
>> Sent: Tuesday, April 19, 2011 5:24 PM
>> Cc: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
>> Subject: Re: Searching Techwr-l archives (Was: Advice on starting out)
>>
>> On 4/19/2011 4:49 AM, INKtopia Admin wrote:
>>
>>> [From Al]
>>>
>>> Morning folks -
>>>
>>> I'll do my best to send out updates via the list but right now the arc
>>> of my progress can be summarized as: know problem --> frustrated b/c
>>> the first 10 solutions don't work the way I wanted --> find solution
>>> or something I can accept as better than where I started.
>>>
>>
>> Many people on this list use the list as a collaboration and support
>> tool for dealing with these sorts of issues. It is educational and
>> fun for participants and often helpful for the person who is looking
>> for a solution. So share away...
>>
>> But for those playing along at home, I can give a little structural
>>> background on the site and email discussion groups:
>>>
>>> Most of the website is powered by the CMS solution Drupal 6.x. Drupal
>>> is a very robust open source platform but is pretty complex. I'm an
>>> avid Wordpress fan because it's fairly user friendly. Drupal isn't.
>>> However, there's a ton of good training out there for novices like
>>> myself. Lynda.com has some good stuff.
>>>
>>
>> I *love* Drupal. I use Drupal with Zen as my main theme and I build
>> custom themes for my sites that go on top of Zen. I'm still learning
>> how to use this. I have several sites served from one Drupal
>> installation, but I began with several installations and I recently
>> migrated them all into one. Unfortunately, I have shared hosting, so
>> my php limit is set at 32M, which means my sites have memory limit
>> errors.
>> I need to get that fixed.
>>
>> However, the archives for the email discussion groups aren't really
>>> part of Drupal thus the formatting problem I had late last week when I
>>> changed the navigation UI for the site. The archives are created via
>>> some dark art process I haven't quite figured out. As of yesterday, I
>>> know that Mailman runs this list serve and a small script comes into
>>> our mail server (postfix) and grabs all the recent content. Then, on
>>> the backs of fairies this content is archived into folders by date and
>>> time. It then generates a summary Index page which is level 2 in the
>>> archives if the entry page /archives is level 1.
>>>
>>
>> That doesn't sound fun. I would probably try to keep the archives
>> separate for now and look at various tools to integrate old technology
>> into Drupal. There are so many tools available that there should be
>> something for this.
>>
>> As of now, we just have deep links into the archive and a header that
>>> sort of looks the same. Our long term solution is to start archiving
>>> everything within Drupal, but I'm certain that the process won't be
>>> pleasant.
>>>
>>
>> I think it is best to keep the archives in their own database and
>> find a way to call to that from Drupal.
>>
>> Also, make sure that you keep your Drupal system modules and themes
>> separate from your site-specific modules and themes, otherwise you can
>> wreak havoc when you upgrade and when you have two modules or themes
>> with the same name. Plus, add-ons can break your system.
>>
>> Frankly, right now, I'd be pleased to find a solution that integrates
>>> the Drupal search with the archives search. There's a couple good
>>> possibilities out there but until I look into the difficulty of
>>> bringing all the content in house; the two searches will need to be
>>> separate. I'd rather not burn time with an interim solution if the
>>> long term fix has a comparable time and difficulty rating.
>>>
>>
>> I would keep the legacy stuff separate, since Drupal does not need to
>> change anything to read a database and importing that data into your
>> Drupal database could lead to trouble in the future.
>>
>> Thanks for being part of Techwr-l and for your interest in our
>>> progress. It's greatly appreciated.
>>>
>>
>> I am totally interested in your progress with this and I want to
>> learn how you are using Drupal.
>>
>> Lauren
>>
>>
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