Migrating BeWelcome to Drupal

This is an overview of the project to migrate BeWelcome to Drupal.

The BeWelcome project was started late 2006, and it has gained considerable respect for the way it's run. Unfortunately so far this has not materialized into an big active member base. One possible underlying problem is probably the current code base, which takes an considerable amount of time and effort to get into, experience that is not directly usable on other projects. So the idea has risen several times to move to a platform that is

According to a survey among potential and actual BeWelcome developers, taken in October, there is considerable knowledge of Drupal, compared to Zend, Symfony and even the BW Rox framework itself. (The survey: File:BW developers survey 2010-10.pdf.)

This is a work in progress. You're very welcome to edit.

Migration

Main things to migrate:

• userprofiles (comments / relations / location (geodata) / groupmembership)
• messages
• preferences
• admin (backend)
• page-like content:
  • FAQ => faq content type (multicrud?)
  • tour =>
  • about pages

Other:

• forum
• groups
• wiki
• galleries
• blogs
• trips

User fields

• user/register should show more than username/password
• geo + address: see "geo stuff".
• User fields settings should be exportable as features: http://drupal.org/node/989900

Geo stuff

We need a combination of geo and address features, as with support for the D7 field api.

Possible modules:

• openlayers. D7 dev release out since a few days.
  • tmwc says: "OpenLayers CCK will be axed; geofield or another module may be the replacement".
• openlayers_geocoder. No D7 announced.
• location. No D7 announced.
• geo. No D7 announced, see this d7 request

Privacy

Waiting for D7 modules:

• CCK Private Fields?

Roles

• developer
• support
• editor
• translator
• admin
• forum moderator
• safetyteam

..D

Translation

Drupal is based on "everything is English". We would prefer keyword-based translations. A solution would be creating another language: "real English" or something and rename "English" to "coder English" or "Drupal English".

Drupal can't show translation links, but it might be possible to create a module for that.

Deployment

• Deployment strategies. We want to have as much as possible to be code-based, but some modules really love the database and auto-increment.

Performance

• Page load speed
• Scalability

Want to help?

Some things you can do right now:

• create an account here and watch this page so you get updates
• PHP coding
• Drupal site building

More will follow later, such as testing and bug reporting.

People

• guaka, d.o - everything but graphic design
• lemonhead - everything but graphic design. donquixote on d.o.
• Robin - experienced site builder (hardly any PHP)
• su2010 - experience with theming
• Sitarane - Site builder (hardly any PHP)
• add yourself

Technicalities

Code driven development

• Features module for exporting stuff that lives in db into code
• Context module: works with features
• custom modules
  • sites/all/modules/custom
  • but we want to stick with mainstream modules as much as possible

Drupal 7

We have chosen to start right away with Drupal 7 (D7).

Con

• Many modules aren't ready yet.
• There are still some bugs.

Pro

• No need to upgrade to D7 ;)
• D7 has many good things in core that we want.
  • Especially: "Fields in core". In D6, only nodes could have fields. To allow (full-featured) fields for users, one needed modules like content_profile, which brings structural problems.
• A lot of Great Stuff we don't yet know about will not be for D6

Learning Drupal 7

Some ways:

• Create a D7 site at Drupal Gardens.
• Set up D7 on your own machine
• Read stuff from http://drupal.org/planet

Questions, comments?

Please add it to the talk page...