We monkeys are re-designing our site and using Drupal 8 for the first time! We've been watching the progress and are excited to test it out. Dave will be writing about the technical side; documenting his challenges and successes. He's been working with Drupal since 2007 and version 4.7. Personally, I started using it actively in November of 2008 but initially I was only adding content in the form of galleries and blog posts to my art website.
Now I'm considerably more involved in the backend: installing and configuring modules; SEO optimization; and social media integration.
Since I'm not sure what we'll be encountering along the way, I'll share with you some of the functionality I'm curious about:
- WYSIWYG text editors. Dave likes to write his blogs in code, but for me and most of our clients, a functional, user friendly, customizable WYSIWYG editor is critical.
- Non-text content. How will Drupal 8 work for different content types: embedded videos, GIFs, slideshows, inserted images. What mobile challenges might we encounter with the different file types?
- Any new ways to ensure content is easily shareable and discoverable? Specifically how social network cards, metatags, RSS feeds, and XML site maps are currently the backbone of that structure.
- eCommerce solutions. We have three client sites with online shops; how will Drupal 8 integrate with external payment systems, SSL certificates, and how easy will it be to migrate over.
Dave set up our dev environment yesterday, and I must say that my initial reaction is positive! In regards to the general backend, it's clean and the placement of menus is familiar. I was disappointed that drop down menus were still not part of the core and found Admin Toolbar to add that functionality. For our Drupal 7 sites, we are using Adminimal, but it did not play well with the dropdown menu, so other than that we're using the basic back end.
The most impressive thing for me is the "Quick Edit" function which allows users to edit directly on the view screen; woohoo, inline editing!. From the other side of the office, Dave is grumbling a bit as the first content migration is missing some of our data.
Some other questions we hope to answer during our initial prodding:
- How difficult will it be to migrate custom built tools?
- How much of our existing schema and content can be easily migrated?
- How difficult will it be to import or recreate Features from Drupal 7?
- Will user permissions be similar to Drupal 7 or will we have to rebuild/rework the permissions grids?
Stay tuned for our adventures learning Drupal 8!