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.
Want to help?
Some things you can do right now:
- create an account here and watch this page so you get updates
- Drupal site building
- build features that behave like BW functionality
- find out what's working in D7
- PHP coding
- fix what's not yet working in D7
- add needed functionality to Drupal modules
- Drupal theming => turn the BW layout into a Drupal theme
- learn Drupal 7
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)
- globetrotter_tt - learning Drupal, can help with theming and graphic design
- add yourself
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:
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
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...