[theforum] w.e.o. updating/rethemeing and re-architecting?

[Adrian Simmons]

John Handelaar wrote:
> a)  Apparently my oddly-configured brain as a weird aptitude for directly
>     manipulating the DB to port (eg) one module's data into another's
>     schema.  I'll handle that when someone comes up with a work list

1. Convert evolt (propstar) ratings into Voting API/Fivestar ratings.

Er... that's it so far. But I have memories of you working all sorts of 
database voodoo during the conversion to Drupal...I worry about what we'll 
find :)

> b)  Drupal's current version is 6.something - if we're changing versions
>      it really ought to be to the most recent release
6.4 :) Ideally yes. But contrib modules have been a lot slower to update to 
6 than to previous versions. Largely because everyones addicted to 
CCK/Views/Imagecache these days and until those are ready a lot of people 
aren't moving. I'm building my first Drupal-6 site right now, and we are 
about to reach critical mass on 6 IMO.

We/I'll need to do another module audit if we're seriously considering 6.

But there's also the question of how Drupal-6 can benefit us. With 4.6 we 
were stuck with a lot of markup that was hard-coded into core, and stuck 
with limited content types. We had to shoehorn the existing content into that.

Drupal 6 has:
- Custom content types in core
- Much of the core markup in template files, easy to modify
Add in modules that didn't exist back then: CCK, Views, Imagecache and 
there's far greater potential for doing exactly what we want.

If we're really talking about a kick-ass new design and not just 
redecorating then we have to think about re-architecting the site too 
imnsho. I'd throw in re-branding to that too, tying a redesign to those 3 
cubes and the same old logotype is, I think, too limiting. The important 
things about evolt are the community and the browser archive, coloured cubes 
shouldn't be at all sacred.

I'm still of the opinion that upgrading the site to Drupal-5 and polishing 
the current design is a good interim measure though :)

> Me, I think that about 209% of the lack of enthusiasm about WEO we've
> seen recently is down to how fugly it is.
fugly is a bit strong, but yep, it's not inspiring.

> That said, if whatever we come up with doesn't look at least as good
> as ALA
I like ALA, but it's a magazine, it's a bigger challenge doing a large 
community site like evolt. I think we're more like a non-commercial 
sitepoint http://www.sitepoint.com/ - but evolt.org also looks uglier than 
them :(

-- 
Adrian Simmons (aka adrinux) <http://perlucida.com>
e-mail <mailto:adrinux at perlucida.com>