By coplan on

I've been experimenting heavily with drupal 4.6 over the last several weeks. I have been working on creating a new node based the wikipage.module which allows all users to edit the wiki pages. Problem is, I would like to add a log message to the revision history.

In another forum discussion, someone recommended that I experiment with 4.7. Bingo...that works really well. I created my module to work in 4.7, and it does everything that I need it to...for that module.

The problem is that there aren't a lot of modules out yet for 4.7. And there are a few I really want to implement such as BBcode, freelinking, movie review, book review, etc. I'm not bad at PHP, so I could probably bring these up to date as 4.7 modules (with a lot of playing around as I havn't yet done very much module writing revision for drupal). Time is an issue, however, and I don't know that I have a whole lot of time to make things 100% perfect. So I keep thinking that maybe I should stick to 4.6 for now to avoid compatibility and other problems.

My goal is to bring my site up in February. I'm hoping some of you have some good advice. Should I stick with 4.6 and just live with the fact that I won't have revision log messages? Or should I go to 4.7 and potentially waste a lot of time trying to get the modules I want up to par?

What do you think?

⋅ Categories: Drupal 4.6.x, Drupal 4.7.x

Comments

morisy’s picture

morisy commented

I'm bringing up a site in April ... it's being built now, but should we go ahead and plan on using 4.7? If we stick with 4.6, how hard will it be to upgrade later down the road?

bryansd’s picture

bryansd commented

I only have a couple Drupal sites under my belt and haven't been in the Drupal community that long...so take my advice with a grain of salt. However, I've been around project management long enough to know how to make proper decisions (at least most of the time).

Since the product is time critical, I'd stick with 4.6. You can always start with 4.6 and upgrade to 4.7 when it's ready. You can't however, start with 4.7...find that it's too buggy...and downgrade to 4.6 in a very quickly and timely manner. Also, there could always be last minute changes to 4.7 before final release that would render either the modules or your custom changes incompatible. Now if this project was just for fun...I would say go for 4.7.

-Bryan

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jasonwhat’s picture

jasonwhat commented

This is really a tough call. I'd say if you aren't launching a site until April definitely go with 4.7. Also, be sure to check CVS, there are many updated modules, but as I've complained about before, it takes some digging to find out which ones are 4.7 ready.

I'd love to get one of the big guns opinion, but I'm pretty sure 4.7 won't have anymore major changes to it. The major change was the forms api and already took place. What that does mean is that if you go with 4.6 you will have to upgrade all your modules soon, because none of them will work. This can be a real pain.

I'd say if you are starting fresh, go with 4.7, unless it is a major corporate site or something. I wouldn't use 4.6 to manage nuclear missile control for the US just yet, but it is probably good for most your needs.

If your module works better with 4.7, even more reason to use that. Most new module development will be 4.7 focused.

Great. I used the word, "nuclear." The NSA is spying on Drupal now.

dries’s picture

dries commented

If you're not afraid of fixing some modules to work with Drupal 4.7 (make sure to contribute back patches), I'd consider going with Drupal 4.7.0 beta x. If, however, you don't want to get your hands dirty and if you expect things to "just work", go with Drupal 4.6 for now. It will take several months before Drupal 4.7.0 is well adopted.

(We could certainly use more people to help upgrade many of the contributed modules. It won't happen unless someone steps forward to do the work. The sooner someone does it, the sooner you'll be able to use Drupal 4.7.)

jasonwhat’s picture

jasonwhat commented

Dries, would you say, as a general rule, if all the modules someone needs are ready for 4.7 they should go with 4.7? Also, what is the difference between 4.7 and 4.7 betax?

coplan’s picture

coplan commented

I don't mind getting my hands dirty. I would have to learn some things to upgrade the modules I wanted (and of course, I would provide a patch). I'm just concerned about the whole "moving target" issue.

Two follow-up questions:

1) Is it likely that the module structure will change enough that any updates I make for 4.7.0beta2 won't work in 4.7 final?

2) How difficult would it be to update 4.6 modules to the 4.7 structure? I'm not that great of a PHP programmer, and the documentation here is confusing me.

Edit:
One more quick question. If I upgrade modules to 4.7, will they work in 4.6?

-- Coplan

jbrauer’s picture

jbrauer commented

Certainly not an "expert" opinion, but here's my take:

1. No. Not significantly.

2. This is where I have more experience. There is a great document (http://drupal.org/node/22218) on moving modules from 4.6 to 4.7. A month or so ago I got into a few modules (publish and subscribe) and managed to get them pretty easily upgraded to 4.7. With these modules the changes were not backwards compatible (because of the changes to node_load/node_save). But if you're taking working 4.6 modules and upgrading them the 4.6 version will continue to work.

I'd suggest you'll definitely want a 4.6 and a 4.7 beta site to work against, see the differences and test/compare.

I've not gotten to figuring out the CVS system yet - having enough of a time keeping it straight on my own machines - but there is plenty that can be done by submitting patches (http://drupal.org/node/22568).

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Adding Understanding

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coplan’s picture

coplan commented

I think I might as well get my hands dirty. I don't mind doing some extra code and what-not.

that tutorial looks pretty good. Thanks for the info.

-- Coplan

coplan’s picture

coplan commented

I tried my hand at updating the freelinking module. This sucker is harder than it looks. Even with your documentation.

I'm going to have to start over from the beginning and start reading up on a lot of the API. I don't know what does what.

Think I may have to stick with 4.6 for now.

-- Coplan

jasonwhat’s picture

jasonwhat commented

They may have something to say about their timeline for updating, or even be willing to do it now or help you.