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Beyond Drupal 7:

Soft Landing Community Initiative

�Irina Zaks �Fall 2023

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Introduction

Building websites and apps for research and higher education

https://fibonacciwebstudio.com

Irina Zaks

Web Developer ��Feeds Module Co-Maintainer

One of organizers of StanfordWebCamp�irina.zaks@fibonacciwebstudio.com

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Introduce D7 Soft Landing initiative
Explain why D7 EOL is a Big Deal (Chromatichq Podcast)
Discuss decision tree for getting off D7 (Blog Post)
Present tools and flows for One-click /Simple/Easy migrations off D7
Talk about learning curves
Plan to sharpen migration tools

In this presentation

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It’s camp!

“What is the use of a book without pictures or conversations?”

― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

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State of Drupal - from D7 to D8/9/10

Drupal 7 was released in 2011
In 2016 over 1.2 million sites were built with D7
Drupal 8 with new architecture was released in 2015
End of support and security updates Drupal 7 was planned for 2020, but with COVID support was extended

Today (Sept 2023) over 380K sites are still on D7, while D8+D9+D10 have 404K installs

Drupal 7 was released in 2011. It is a landmark version of the powerful CMS that has helped build the digital presence of hundreds of thousands of organizations. While this legacy version still serves the needs of many, the next generation of the Drupal CMS (versions 8/9/10) fundamentally changed the technology used by the product.

The Drupal project has extended support for version 7 until at least 2023, and may extend it further. But the Drupal project cannot continue to maintain both the legacy and the modern versions of Drupal indefinitely, as that is a considerable overhead.

In order to ensure that our existing community of Drupal 7 site owners is not left behind, this initiative aims to create resources and tools to assist them to prepare for what comes next. The main drive is to help move these legacy sites to a modern solution, that is supported for longer

Why is Drupal 7's End-of-Life a Big Deal?

There has been quite a bit of talk about what it takes to upgrade to 'modern Drupal,' but less ink has been spilled painting a picture of what it will actually be like to still be responsible for a Drupal 7 site after that date.

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Why is Drupal 7's End-of-Life a Big Deal?

Drupal project cannot continue to maintain both the legacy and the modern versions of Drupal indefinitely, as that is a considerable overhead.

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Drupal 7 Soft Landing Initiative

Started in Dec 2022
First announced at Florida Camp in Feb 2023
Provides Roadmap for Responsible D7 EOL

Each of the roadmap areas represents an element of this initiative that could use community collaboration and investment. These areas each provide different ways to support the existing Drupal 7 community, and help them determine their best path forward.

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Responsible EOL for D7

In order to ensure that our existing community of Drupal 7 site owners is not left behind, this initiative aims to create resources and tools to assist them to prepare for what comes next. The main drive is to help move these legacy sites to a modern solution that provides support and security updates.

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Goals

The primary goal of this initiative is to support owners of current D7 sites with guidance on what to do before Drupal 7's End-of-Life date. This includes giving them documentation, resources, and tools to understand how to migrate to modern versions of Drupal, improving those tools and resources where we can, and maintaining an open dialog with this community of users.

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Initiative Scope for July - Dec 2023

Identify points of friction that prevent Drupal 7 site owners from upgrading
Provide a decision tree that gives guidance for Drupal 7 site owners
Provide better Site Audit tools
Provide more tutorials and demos for "easy" upgrade tools for site builders

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Drupal 7 Migration: DIY Resources

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Drupal 7 Migration: DIY Resources

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Tools and flow for an "easy" upgrade for site builders

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Website Update planning

�

Compare cost of upgrading for YOUR case

Analysis and Planning

25%

Estimated cost and schedule

Presentation

30%

Logic and Rules

20%

Data Import

20%

DevOps

5%

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Understand your options

	WordPress	Backdrop CMS	Drupal 9
Migration approach	Complete rebuild.	Backward compatibility with D7.	Complete rebuild or “as-is” upgrade from D6/7.
Content Migration tools (major options)	Import ALL module for content import.	Entire site import, including full configuration import and content.	Migrate module in core with .yml.
Content Editor experience (back-end UI)	Gutenberg Editor with Preset Widgets and Media browser.	Built-in configurable editor. Configurable views for various content types and media.	Built-in configurable editor. Configurable views for various content types and media.
Workflows (approvals, productivity tools, etc.)	Not a common task.	Easy to customize via web UI.	Possible via custom modules.
Multi-site management	WP network can support multiple sites with one codebase.	Designed to support multisite.	Designed to support multisite.
Development and DevOps	Affordable.	Affordable.	Expensive.
Security and compliance	Easy security updates.	Easy security updates.	Security updates can be complex.

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Understand your needs - Decision tree

Check 1: My D7 site works well for me.

NO -> Proceed with site redesign and migration.
YES -> Continue to Check 2.

Check 2: My site has complex structured content with relationships between those� AND/OR

My site has workflows (notifications, editorial workflows, custom processes).

NO -> Review Wordpress.
YES -> Continue to Check 3.

Check 3: Stay in Drupal Family: Modern Drupal or Backdrop CMS.

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Check 3: �My D7 site works great for me

My content is easy to update
Content types and views work great for my goals
I like feel and look of my theme
I have over ~100 pages
I have business logic for processing submitted information

Keep your site in Drupal CMS family

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Major D7 features: �Mapping to D9/10 and Backdrop CMS

	New	Same as in D7
D9	Configuration imports and exports between yml files and the database Composer installation Twig templates Modules architecture with PHP object-oriented approach More modules in core	UI for site editors Site building concepts such as content types, Paragraphs, Views, etc.
Backdrop CMS	Configuration imports and exports between json files and the database Project browser and security updates via UI More data structures are properly object-oriented More modules in core Better performance	UI for site editors Site building concepts, such as content types, Paragraphs, Views, etc. Workflow tools, like Rules, etc. PHPTemplate engine Modules architecture remains mostly aspect-oriented

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Prepare for migration

Compare which features of Drupal 9 (D9) or Backdrop CMS you need for your site and for your migration process.
Compare tools for each task for each system
Estimate cost of migration and support
Move on with your migration flow

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Five-Step Migration flow

Demo using CPQCC website

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Five-Step Migration flow

Step 1: Audit current site
Step 2: Setup new site download core
Step 3: Import content and configuration
Step 4: Set your theme and place blocks
Step 5: Final touch

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Step 1: Audit current site

Check what modules are available in target CMS

Reports -> Updates
Backdrop Upgrade Status
D7 to D9/10 upgrade status - backported to D7 recently

Review missing modules

code custom modules
port D7 modules

Install for Site audit module in D7 and�get instant review of your site

Just released for D7

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Site Audit module

Content types
Nodes per content type
Vocabularies and terms
Fields and un-used fields
Duplicate content
Modules
Many, many more

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Backdrop Upgrade Status

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D9/10 upgrade status

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Step 2: Setup new site (D9/Backdrop)

Install core
Install contrib modules

Based on site audit

Install contrib theme
If needed

install your custom modules
install custom theme

Set Backdrop on Pantheon
Set D9 on Pantheon

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Backdrop new site setup - modules and themes

Via Project Installer - Web UI, cloud based
Via drush - command line, local dev setup

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Drupal 9/10 new site setup

Requires local dev setup
Requires composer

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Step 3: Import via Backup and Migrate

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Step 3 continued: Run upgrade

Click “Run Upgrade” button to start migration at core/update.php

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Step 3: Import DB - Drupal 9/10

Enable Migrate �Drupal core module
Import db and files

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Running import is recorded in recent log messages

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What is migrated “out of the box” - Backdrop

Users
Content
Views
Blocks content
Path aliases
Rules ?

You can write custom migration for your custom modules if needed

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What is migrated “out of the box” - Drupal

Users
Content
Views
Blocks content
Path aliases

You can write custom migration paths for your custom modules if needed

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Step 4: Set your theme and place blocks

Various themes are available both for D9 and for Backdrop
New in Backdrop - layout system

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Step 5: Final touch

Whatever was not done in Steps 1 - 4 :)

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“One-click” Backdrop Migrations using D2B module

Live Demo

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Full migration using D2B module

https://github.com/backdrop-contrib/d2b_migrate/

d2b module �needs work

please help in issues

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Database analysis

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Learining Curve

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Learning curve moving off D7

Sitebuilding is very similar to D7 (content types, taxonomies, views, etc.)
Configuration management

very well documented for Backdrop and D9

New in D9/10/11

Composer

New in Backdrop core

Layouts - template + path

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Contribute to Open Source

You don't have to know code to give back!

Ways to contribute:�

https://backdropcms.org/contribute https://drupal.org/contribute

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