With all the discussion of Drupal 8, we've heard more and more questions from nervous people with Drupal 6 sites.
In truth, the status of Drupal 6 is still in flux. Security plans for Drupal 6 were released last month, but they depend on when Drupal 8 will be released, which is unknown.
So, how can good, honest Drupal 6 site owners know what to do?
Never fear, we're here to help. Here are 8 questions and answers to help you decide what to do with your Drupal 6 site.
The Drupal 6 core will get security updates until 3 months after Drupal 8 is released. You can read the announcement explaining that decision here.
Good question. Our best guess at the moment is early-to-mid 2015.
Yes, it would be a safe assumption for your planning. Expect that Drupal 6 security patches may stop around July / August / September 2015.
Yes, and you won't be alone. There are many large organizations and government bodies that will do just that. We know sites that are still running successfully on Drupal 5, so Drupal 6 sites still have a long shelf-life if well looked after.
However, it's worth reading our article, "Should You Keep Using Unsupported Software?" to understand the pros and cons of staying with Drupal 6.
The best explanation is that without significant help from your own developers you will be putting your site into a lockdown / feature freeze mode. In addition to no more core updates, you're unlikely to get module updates either as the module maintainers focus on Drupal 7 and 8.
Yes, if you have the time and money to make the move. Being on a supported version is always peferable to being on an unsupported version.
One tricky part will be deciding whether to move to 7 or 8.
Moving to 7 is not an easy task. These tutorials will give you an introduction to the task:
Drupal 8 will actually have a migration feature in the core. The aim of this migration feature is to move most of your critical site data.
However, if your site has a lot of custom work, custom theming or unusual modules, the migration feature won't help with that. It's reasonable to assume that moving from Drupal 6 to 8 will still be a difficult task for most sites.
Yes, if you want to know what's coming for Drupal, I highly recommend these posts:
Drupal Developer having 9+ year experience, implementation and having strong knowledge of technical specifications, workflow development. Ability to perform effectively and efficiently in team and individually. Always enthusiastic and interseted to study new technologies
Next week we'll start digging into the State API to get more parts of our block moved over. Have a great week and enjoy!
Writing is an art that comes in many forms. Some forms are structured, others are entirely free from the restraints of any mandated rules or regulations.
In our last blog post, we saw how to set up a simple website in a foreign language. Like our last recipe, this one is very easy too. The main difference lies in the fact that we need to give users the possibility to choose their preferred language.
