Nextgen installer flow in the horizon

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kika's picture

chx is working on a very interesting patch http://drupal.org/node/332303 what by theory can totally redefine Drupal installer experience. The trick is to use a lightweight SQLite database what should be built-in to PHP 5.2 - so you will get your site running without providing mysql/postgres database credentials at all. If needed, you can migrate over to these "big boy" databases later. It simplifies Drupal code and removes the need for weird code trickery in the installer.

For UI it means we can dramatically simplify installer UI, cut several steps from there and basically hand over a almost-working site for the admin. Also, we need a proper messaging/notification system what later informs admin when the site needs a proper database to migrate to.

This discussion is a placeholder to provide UI design support and ideas for that zupa-cool idea.

Comments

Almost working?

chx's picture

No, the site should be fully functional. When you unpack Drupal, you will get a few warnings:

  1. Create the files folder
  2. Make the files folder readable
  3. Drupal runs in a read only mode until these two are done

if there is a writeable folder, Drupal copies the SQLite database it came with into that folder and that's it you have a fully working site. The .htaccess should protect the database from downloading. Drupal in itself can hardly decide when you need to move over to MysQL, this should be your own educated decision.

There should be no installer. Installer should be a module. We can decide to enable it by default, promote it in one way or another but it must run in a fully bootstrapped Drupal empowered fully enabling the free use of hook_form_alter...

D7 or D8?

cburschka's picture

This sounds like an amazing step UI-wise, far huger than PDO and Code Registry put together (neither of which impact the average site admin quite so much). That said, do you expect this to be ready for Drupal 7, or will it take until the eighth release cycle?

Today

chx's picture

I expect the patch to be in http://drupal.org/node/332303 today.

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