Alpha launch: Drupal Essentials distribution - opinions needed.
For the past several months we have been working on a D6.x recipe for a web 2.0 style business/organization website, e.g. brochureware + portal. We have been using the old copy the database method to start new sites. However, over the holidays we decided to make profile out of the recipe. We weren’t anticipating it being that difficult, but now it’s close to done. I would like to get some opinions before we launch it officially.
You can download the entire distribution here:
http://www.leveltendesign.com/l10apps/cms/download
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Great!
I'm just doing a first install now. I've downloaded the package and have some early feedback -- put all your modules in profiles/essential/modules -- not in sites/all/modules.
I see you used the install_profile_api -- are there any functions you can see including there?
Basically, anywhere you have a db_query, that's a candidate for inclusion into install_profile_api as a function, and also a candidate for turning into a function in Drupal core. This also makes install profiles future proof between versions.
More feedback after I run through the install process a couple of times. As I did before, I'm stripping out Acquia modules and installing it on that (another reason to keep everything in profiles/essentials/modules).
Thanks for the input. I am
Thanks for the input.
I am not familiar with putting all the modules in the profile section, e.g. how do these module version interactive with the ones in all. Traditionally we have been putting them in the sites/all directory because we treat this profile as just a starting point for our clients, then do module upgrades as they become available.
When placing modules in the profile directory, what is the best practices for upgrading them? Do you upgrade the ones in the profile or in the sites/all area?
If you could point me to some reading on the subject that would be great.
As far as install_profile_api I will have to look at it. We actually did not start using it till we were part of the way into building the profile, so I am sure there is more we can do with it.
thanks again.
Themes too
profiles/--profilename--/modules is one of the many locations that Drupal looks for modules if you use a non default install profile to install. You can also create a themes directory in there.
Also, rather than bundling an entire Drupal download, you could also just zip up the essentials directory in profiles, and people can drop it into an existing Drupal site.
Basically, the great thing is that you can use that profile in multiple places and for multiple sites. You don't need to upgrade or touch anything in sites/all at all. Site specific modules go in their own modules directory. So, you would easily see which modules are different for a client, while having the shared profile modules.
Upgrades are done just like you normally do upgrades. If you do continue to maintain this profile, then it becomes a simple matter of, for example, upgrading your profile and then pushing out those upgrades to all the sites you maintain (could be a zip file, could be in SVN, etc.).