D7 release announcement copy writing

Forgot to link this back to the related core issue: http://drupal.org/node/953314

For now, we don't need more eyes, we need more hands :-) I suggest that people that want to take on a section put there name behind the section header in the docu itself.

Hi. I'm a complete Drupal newbie, but saw webchick's tweet and would like to help. I'm a pretty good technical writer with some time on my hands - just successfully defended my PhD dissertation. Looking to learn Drupal and thought that helping with documentation would be a good place to start. Please put me to work.

Yoroy, I think you originally proposed the Apple-release style of announcement page. I think that page could highlight the top 5 (10?) changes in Drupal 7, but like Apple, there should be a page with the 100s of additional changes and brief descriptions for each (see: http://www.apple.com/macosx/refinements/enhancements-refinements.html)

Maybe we could use http://www.unleashedmind.com/en/blog/sun/more-than-50-drupal-modules-mov... as the basis, with sun's permission of course.

karschsp - good advice to start by installing D7. New installer looks fantastic, but unfortunately stuck at the requirements check page. It says that my database does not support PDO database extensions. I am using Uniserver 6.0.5-carbo WAMP on Windows 7.

Found the "What is PDO" page (http://drupal.org/node/549702) and located php_pdo_mysql.dll in WAMP but not php_pdo.dll. Hmmm... Not much info on how to fix this issue when the file is missing in my WAMP distro. Will most WAMP stacks support PDO extensions?

Btw, just to make sure I'm not crazy, successfully installed D6 and all is well in D6-land. Seems like this might be a big problem for people trying D7. Please advise. Thanks.

Figured it out... :) Apparently, you don't have to look for php_pdo.dll at all. I found and uncommented the line with php_pdo_mysql.dll in php.ini, restarted WAMP and then D7 installs fine.

Will play with it some more and then make some comments. Should I post my observations and suggestions here or is there another place I should write them?

How do I start contributing to writing this D7 release announcement? Where do you guys need help?

Cross-linking this meeting Kieran set up to help coordinate the Drupal 7 PR effort:

http://groups.drupal.org/node/110449

I started mocking up an actual page: http://www.yoroy.com/elders/drupal/d7release/release.html

I'm in for the german translation. Where do we post it?

I mostly made changes to wording. I distilled some points that were stated separately into concise phrases to help simplify the message. And I added some plain english to a couple technical sections.

Since I'm new to editing wikis and was nervous about making changes I attached my diffs as a pdf. Though now I think that may not have been necessary.

Changed a whole lot more, I will try to consolidate more - a important point perhaps, the ammount of already ported modules. Perhaps even replace the "Fields and entities" part.

Made some changes and moved text to sync it with page structure http://www.yoroy.com/elders/drupal/d7release/release.html

Installation block needs some text.

Would be great if someone could think of how to rewrite "Test driven development" block, it has way too much word "test" in it.

Also I think that blocks "New Render API" and "Theming layer improvements" should either be merged or one extended and 2nd one removed, as of now they talk about similar stuff and both look not finished. After that we ll need 8th block of info - "Fields and entities" maybe? Or something other.

There's not clear statement that states what Drupal is used for? I'd suggest a couple of grounding statements like the uses: blog, micro-site, personal and organization websites, intranet, collaboration, community, web platforms, web application framework. See: http://buytaert.net/one-drupal-to-rule-them-all for inspiration.

Second: We should mention that we are strong in specific industries: NPO, Education, publishing, media, government, and healthcare.

That will ground the release announcement in what and who Drupal 7 is for.

Added things suggested here http://drupal.org/node/953314#comment-3871770 after our discussion with Bojhan.
Please help writing text for 4 new blocks or propose another block titles if there is something more important to be highlighted in the announcement.

@karschp: Aha, this looks more like Drupal.org
Now we definitely need a designer to give it some styling - all the text boxes are messing up the page and this needs to be structured a lot vertically in order not to overwhelm the on-looker.

I'll see if I can have a shot. We don't want to drown them with sheer masses. Adding more images according to the content sure helps a lot.
Samsung knows how to do this: http://www.amazon.de/Samsung-Galaxy-Touchscreen-Android-Videotelefonie/d...
Though this is also overwhelming, at least the images prevent from text-overkill.
Apple has a better shot: http://www.apple.com/de/iphone/features/

All those products present myriads of features, just like drupal.

Here you go, click to enlarge.

While this has a lot of flaws, it is only to show dividing the information into chunks makes it more readable. If we have such a lot
of features, we need to stretch to the vertical - or write less.
I guess the use of the light brownish tones for the horizontal bars is forbidden in Marks style guide - probably only allowed for sidebar and footer. But just a thin horizontal line was not enough.
Also it is a bit schematic like this, looks like three pages stacked above each other. Some more smaller images insinde the grid cells to illustrate single features would spice it up and make it more organic. These could also help to create vertical barriers to slow down the eye and give it orientation.

Would it be possible to turn off comments here and have everyone direct their comments to the issue: http://drupal.org/node/953314? It's taking a lot longer than it should to get caught up! :)