Drupal

Are you ready to upgrade to Drupal 9? If you're moving from a Drupal 8 site, it needs to be reviewed and updated to remove any deprecated code that will no longer be compatible with Drupal 9. Luckily, there are a few ways to check existing codebases for deprecated code, get a glimpse of what changes need to be made, and even apply the fixes automatically.

Drupal 7's end of life is scheduled for November 28, 2022. Up until then, the Drupal Security Team will continue to provide patches to Drupal 7 core and contributed projects should any security threats arise. After that point, however, the Drupal Security team will no longer support Drupal 7.

Is it Safe to Stay on Drupal 7?

If your organization is currently running Drupal 7, you’re faced with a decision on whether to upgrade to Drupal 9 or not.

Are you still on Drupal 7 or 8?

All software, even that of Drupal’s top world ranking open source community, comes with a shelf life.

Drupal 7 is now a decade old, with the advent of Drupal 8 falling just four years behind. These previous major Drupal versions weren’t left in the dust with the release of Drupal 9 in the summer of 2020. But that support has an expiration date coming soon. Both versions 7 and 8 have set “End of Life” dates which means they will no longer be supported by the official Drupal community.

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When you are used to working in Drupal 8 and beyond, having to make changes to custom Drupal 7 code can be unpleasant. If you’re lucky, the code was well written and maintained and you can make your changes without feeling like you’re adding to a house of cards. Too often, though, the code is in a state where it could really use refactoring.

Selecting a CMS for a university can be a challenging decision. There are so many needs and nuances to consider - costs of implementation and maintenance, a wide range of technical ability among site administrators, developers, and content editors, a variety of end-users looking for different information...and the list goes on and on. While your answer likely isn’t as easy as, “let’s just do what everyone else is doing,” better understanding why other universities made the choice they did can shed light on your decision-making process. 

As DrupalCon comes to a close for the crew at Mediacurrent, we’ve all had a chance to reflect on the experience. Here are the top 10 things we loved and learned at this year’s event.

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New Year, New Faces, Same Focus

We’re back! Season 2 of Mediacurrent’s Open Waters podcast is officially on its way. We recorded a special trailer episode to celebrate.