I have installed drupal 5 and 4.7 for testing purposes and as a newbie in CMS development I can't make a decision on which version I should use and I am wondering if any experienced CMS developer could help in this choice.
The decision should be based on the following:
1.The website will be a double-site (2 community websites with one drupal installation) with nothing in common except:
- Single sign on
- Some of the forum Categories will be commun
- Some of the Gallery2 (http://gallery.menalto.com/) sections will not be common.
- Some of the posted stories
- Some of the poll (Ajax poll)
- ... and so on
2.Both sites will also have the following:
- Google Adsense
- rating system on each content (e.g. stories)
- Guestbook
- Email newsletter
You probably got the idea; I need to implement lots of features in both sites but they will be completely separate (separate domain names, themes, and so on) with the above in common and maybe some more features will meet later after the two sites are developed.
3.I am also looking for the drupal version that has the most useful modules according to the site needs listed above and also most stable ones (it seems to me that 4.7 has more modules supported)
Its worth mentioning that I am expecting to have a lot of traffic.
Any comment will be very appreciated and sorry for the length of the question?
Comments
I forgot to mention that
I forgot to mention that both websites will be multi language with one language RTL (right to left)
Contributed modules
Simple: If the contributed modules you need exist for 5, go that way.
I want to go with 5 but
I want to go with 5 but I seems that a big deal of modules developed previously for 4.7 aren't updated to 5 and I don't have enough skill to update it.
By the way, could you tell me what version did you use for developing http://www.blufftontoday.com/ and what modules did you liked the most specially for the photos sections.
Thank you
Bluffton Today photos
Bluffton Today's photos section is not implemented on the Drupal platform. It's a completely separate, proprietary application. Single signon is implemented through a custom module, and "recent uploads" images are passed around using RSS and a bit of PHP on the Drupal side that grabs, parses, and caches the feeds.
The primary modules used by Bluffton Today are the core blog module, the core profile module, buddylist, and private messaging. Theming profile pages is covered in the handbook.
I had a very similar
I had a very similar question some time ago. Here is the thread: http://drupal.org/node/123475 . I finally decided to go for 5.x, and I haven't been sad about my decision since then.
Why would you go for 4.7, except for the (true) fact that some modules have not been ported to 5.x? My feeling is that all of the important ones have been made available for 5.x too, and some functionality of 4.x modules has even been taken up in the core of 5.x.
Anyway, maintaining 2 separate sites is already a hassle from a content point of view. Why don't you make it easier on yourself and make 2 sites, but both based on one Drupal (5.x) installation? I fail to see the advantage or the sense of maintaining a 4.7 site, if you have the choice, apart from the difference in modules.
Furthermore, taking into consideration the speed with which Drupal development is taking place, I would fear that 4.x module development will sooner come to a standstill than 5.x module development.
Just my 2 cents.
Ludo
Yeah but 5x module
Yeah but 5x module development will stop when 6x comes out. I think module production for 5 will never be that of 4. It's lifespan is just too short.
not quite
A huge swath of 4.7 modules have been rendered obsolete by a combination of 5.o modules. Keep in mind also, that if it's not updated for 5, changes are it won't exist for 6 UNLESS someone takes over maintainership or funds development.
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain
-Steven Peck
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Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
I had to make this decision
I had to make this decision about a month ago. I chose 4.7. I regret it every single day. Can't wait until I upgrade. :)
I think 5.x is the way to go, most modules have been upgraded. Even if there is no official release, many have dev releases which generally means an official release is not far away.
On point 3: 3. I am also
On point 3:
If you go to http://drupal.org/project/Modules/date and check the pager tabs at the bottom you will find 24 pages of Drupal 4.7 modules and 20 pages of Drupal 5 modules. Not bad for a 3-month lifetime. Furthermore, after page 17 you will notice that all Drupal 4.7 module releases are dated Nov 13 2006 -- this is because most of these releases were automatically created by the system, untouched by the developers.
Some of the new modules developed are Drupal-5-only because they are only possible with the new core functionality. There are also some performance enhancements in core.
Furthermore, many modules are always just dropped along the way and their issues are never addressed any more. So as a general rule I avoid using modules which don't have regular updates.
Of course it is possible that you absolutely need a specific module which only exists for Drupal 4.7. This would be the only good reason to choose 4.7 (which will become unsupported in a few months).
One other thing which you should consider, whatever your choice, is that even with Drupal 4.7 you should probably follow a Drupal 5 design philosophy using CCK etc to make a future upgrade more painless.
Thank you all
Thank you all for your useful feedbacks.
I think the question I asked could be regarded as a general issue with Drupal (CMS in general) which is the popularity (in modules, themes, solutions and so on) of an old version (in our case 4.7) and the speed, the security and the strength of the newest version.
I think one solution for that would be integrating by default the popular modules and themes of the old version into the newest or asking what feature the users would like to see in the future version. (I hope that already exists)
Another solution would be providing guidance and tools of upgrading modules and themes to the new version before the official release so the community would get prepared.
Anyway those were just some thoughts.
Now let me ask for a favor. Could some of the experienced drupal users list some modules I could use according to the needs I mentioned in my first post.(I find it very tedious searching through all these modules without a keyword filtering tool in the module section)
Thanks again