install profiles

This is a re-write of my drupal.org forum post at http://drupal.org/node/424154 . I figure it would be better discussed here.

How do I get configuration updates out to "pre-configured" sites? I'm currently using install profiles to "pre-configure" drupal sites, but they offer no way to "update" the profile on an existing site when a new version is released.

Note: My proposal has evolved to include a detailed schedule, glossary, and long brief about the reasons why my methodology is at least different, if not better than the existing ones. I have moved the content from this single page to the Package Management project page. The project home page links to the SoC Proposal with the schedule.

Old Titles for this project ordered by earliest (from these you can see 3 major aspects of the project):
Automated Drupal Software Appliance Builder

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

So I agree for the most part with the idea that we don't necessarily need an install profile so much as a bunch of documentation on how to set-up a Drupal based IMC.

I'm not sure if this would be super helpful for the IMC's that have next to no tech related help, but at least if we had a set of default procedures and workflows we could utilize this in order to set-up a site for them without having to spend a lot of time deliberating over the best way to do something within drupal.

I just released an install profile for D6 core that sets up a test site for trying out all the combinations of CCK date field configurations: CCK Date Testsite. I've discovered various bugs in Signup's handling of CCK date fields (and have been fleshing out bugs and limitations in DateAPI itself with KarenS's help). I was spending a lot of time just configuring a reasonable test site to try different combinations of CCK date field types (Date, Datestamp, vs. Datetime) and timezone handling (there are 5 different ways date fields can handle timezones). So, I quickly decided the time spent automating the test site would easily save me time in the long run. And, I hope this profile will be useful to other folks working with DateAPI and CCK date fields.

I've created a custom profile with a task for submitting a form. I can't seem to get it working. The form renders and the task moves onto profile-finished but I can't call the submit hook. I've written a test version of it here.

Does anyone know what I am doing wrong?

Hi,

Just wanted to pop my head in and let everyone know of the new release of ProsePoint (www.prosepoint.org), a CMS for publishing online newspapers and magazines.

If you look closely at ProsePoint, you'll discover it's derived from Drupal. In fact, it's a Drupal distribution bundled into a single tarball for easy download. Of course, that means there's third party code in there, but it's all in the name of making life easier for end users.

I just found the Innovation News Installation Profile and wanted to post it here on the Newspaper Group. (I know the issue of newspaper installation profiles has been discussed more than once here, and maybe someone would like to know about it.)

I haven't tried it yet, but will have a closer look when I get time.

Cheers!
//Johan Falk, Sweden

Hi,

Just wanted to announce the availability of the first (alpha) release of ProsePoint, a newspaper content management system.

Some things to note:

ProsePoint is a distribution built on top of Drupal 6.

It is currently alpha software and this is the first release. Hence, there are most likely all sorts of bugs and design inefficiencies. Please be welcome to try it, but use at your own risk.

It has the most customisation and add-on functionality of any distribution that I know of. The eventual aim is to have everything ready to go out of the box. No more searching for extra modules or testing of combinations of modules. Just install and go!