What's Up With Drupal 7?

You may have heard that Drupal 7 was released a couple of weeks ago. It has been quite a long time (almost 3 years) since the last major Drupal version so Drupal 7 is quite a big deal in the community. The two most frequent questions that I'm now getting are: 1) Will you be creating a video series for Drupal 7? and 2) Should I start my site on Drupal 7 or Drupal 6? My answers are these: 1) Yes and 2) It depends.

The videos for Drupal 6 have cumulatively received hundreds of thousands of views or downloads. So I know there is demand for them and I want to help to meet that demand for Drupal knowledge. The next logical questions are about the video content and the timing. I'd like to once again do a series that shows how to build a site from the ground up and then get more advanced from there. The timing of the first videos hitting the street is most likely going to be around the middle of 2011. This is good timing for two reasons. First, there are many modules that will be critical to building exceptional websites that are still in alpha, beta or dev states. So they're definitely going to change over the next few months. There are some D6 modules that have not been ported over to D7 at all. And then there are modules we haven't seen yet that will leverage new features in the D7 architecture. Second, the timing of mid-year is best for me anyway because I have some advanced schooling to finish this spring.

I expect to follow the same model that I followed with the Drupal 6 videos. There will be many free videos and there will also be a number of premium videos as well. All of the premium videos will have lower resolution free versions. All of the premium videos will be formatted at a high resolution (most likely 1280x720) and will be bundled into a one or more series so that all of the videos that go together will be able to be purchased at once for a reasonable price. This is what I have done with my Getting Started with Drupal and Learning CCK and Views series for Drupal 6.

Speaking of the Drupal 6 videos I have thought about what to do with the premium D6 videos since their usefulness will be diminished in the coming months. What I plan to do is start making the premium versions of all the D6 videos available for viewing at no cost in the browser starting in April. There will still be a charge for the downloaded versions but they will sell at a discounted rate. It's important to note that a decent number of the premium versions of videos can be streamed in the browser today, but the series I mentioned above are not. So the premium versions of those videos will be available to watch for free via your web browser in April 2011.

Ah yes, a question for the ages. The Lullabots have created a nice upgrade flow chart that can help you walk through the decision making process if you are already using Drupal. Here's my two (or three) cents on the topic for those who are planning to build a new Drupal site today.

If you're starting on a site now but don't plan to go live for six months or more. Drupal 7If you're starting on a site now but it's going to be basic (like a blog plus static content). Drupal 7If you're just researching functions and don't plan to start building anything for a few months. Drupal 7If you're starting on a site now with a tight deadline to ship. Drupal 6If you're starting on a site that will launch in a few months but requires lots of advanced features. Drupal 6If you're not sure of your goals but want to have the minimum number of road blocks in your process. Drupal 6

Drupal 6 is very mature at this stage of the game and even though there are some nice new features in Drupal 7 I still think that Drupal 6 has plenty of life left in it. So I don't think you can go wrong with Drupal 6. If you do decide to go with D6 I recommend building out a sandbox (or test) site on Drupal 7 so you can become familiar with the new user interface, and new functionality that Drupal 7 has to offer.

As always, your comments or questions on the subject are welcome in the comments section or the forum.

One more thing...for those who are very new to Drupal I recommend that you take a look at my Beginners Guide To Drupal e-book which is free and can be downloaded in Adobe PDF format. It will help to give you a very high level overview of the Drupal platform.

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