I have been looking forward to upgrading sites to Drupal 7 for a while now. While I have played around with it a bit, you never really know how things work until you use it for a real working site. So I might as well test the upgrade process on my blog here. Before I do, however, I have to make sure everything is in place so that the site still works. Does everything have to be the same? No. But I do not want to lose major functionality
One of the first things to check is whether or not contributed modules will function in Drupal 7. Is there a Drupal 7 version? Is there an upgrade path? I started by taking a cursory look at the modules I currently use to see their Drupal 7 status.
Here’s what I found:
Drupal 7 status for modules
Status listed below is as of June 24, 2011
Google Analytics
Status: Stable release
Wonderful! I can check my stats on Drupal 7.
Pathauto
Status: Release candidate 2
This module automatically creats nice and neat URL paths. Probably fine to use.
Views
Status: Release candidate 1
While not a stable release, my guess is this will work relatively fine. Pretty essential for any Drupal site.
Administration menu
Status: Release candidate 1
I use this all the time, as it makes administering a site much faster. Even though Drupal 7 has a simple administration menu, this module allows for more robust access to administration options. Should work.
Token
Status: Beta 2
This helps pathauto, and many other modules, to create text from other bits of text. Important, and it looks like it will work.
Node clone
Status: Beta 1
If you want to start from one page or post, and you want to create another one that is fairly similar, this module will create a duplicate of pretty much everything except the URL. I don’t use it all that often, so I will probably be fine.
Advanced help
Status: Beta 1
Allows modules to provide more detailed help. Not something I access too often, so no problem.
Page title
Status: Beta 1
This allows you to customize the page title that appears in the browser bar. Not the end of the world if it is not 100% ready.
Comment notify
Status: Alpha 1
This allows for notifications to go out when there are comments on a post or replies to a comment. I would miss this if it was not available, but I could live.
Weblinks
Status: Dev
I have links to some other sites, and this creates a field for those links within CCK. I can live without those links or find a way around using this, I am sure.
Nodewords/Nodewords by path
Status: Metatags module in Dev
This allows for meta descriptions and keywords to be put on individual posts. Not absolutely essential, but since I have done this for my blog posts, if only to spruce up the descriptions that show up on Google results page, I am a bit uneasy that this may not be functional.
Pingback
Status: Vinculum module in Dev
This module inserts a comment on a blog post when another blog refers to my post. It is a nice way to find out what others are saying about things I write. Not thrilled that this does not look ready yet.
Advanced Taxonomy Blocks (and jQuery Menu)
Status: none
These modules are used to create the blocks listing the categories of my posts. No Drupal 7 port yet. Frustrating. Maybe could be reproduced with Views.
My take
From looking at this, I think there will be some challenges with the modules I use. Most will probably work fine, but some will not. I will either need to find other options out there (suggestions welcome!) or develop the missing functionality myself. Enough modules are probably ready, however, that I could give it a try.
I will post more updates as I work to convert the site!