Our first video in the GTDUG: Back to Basic Series - Covering content cleanup, migration and post migration cleanup for users looking to migrate to Drupal 8

Institute Communications has released an update for the Georgia Tech theme for Drupal 7.

GT Theme 7.x-3.4

• Fixed bug in which in-page ajax actions caused duplicate menu items.

• Reinforced heading styles and accessible color.

• Cleaned up some color, padding, and alignment issues.

• Changed GT logo links to point to site homepage rather than TLW.

Georgia Tech’s primary supported content management system (CMS) is Drupal. The majority of websites at the Institute using Drupal are currently on Drupal 7.

Since Drupal 8’s release, there has been increased interest in transitioning to Drupal 8 across the Institute. Georgia Tech Information Technology and Institute Communications (IC) would like to share additional information and recommendations on this for campus.

The Drupal 8 platform is a significant departure from Drupal 7 and is, at this point, only recommended if you have a web developer on your team who is comfortable taking on a project like this.

In particular, there are a few roadblocks which make this more complex in the short term:

• Composer: Composer, a dependency manager, is a key tool needed for successful management of Drupal 8. The current Plesk hosting environment that the majority of sites at Georgia Tech reside on does not easily allow for site deployment using Composer. Georgia Tech Information Technology is reviewing this situation. In addition, there is a project to seek a new hosting solution for the Institute.

• Drupal 8 editor: There is not currently a strong out-of-the-box solution available to use as an editor tool in Drupal 8. The IC web dev team will likely need to use an existing solution as a base, customizing it to meet our needs. This project will require research, effort, and testing to execute properly.

• Training for site admins: Related to the above, the editing experience for website admins will be different in Drupal 8. It is in the Institute’s best interest that those in charge of their unit’s web presence be well-equipped to do so.

Georgia Tech Information Technology and Institute Communications are tentatively planning to have some of these barriers to entry addressed by November 2019. We recommend that any units without an experienced web developer or the funds to hire a third-party agency to execute such a project hold on transitioning to Drupal 8 until after that time.

In the meantime, the new Georgia Tech “Tech Gold” branded website header and footer theme is available for Drupal 7. The WordPress team is similarly working on updates to align with the new branding as well.

Prior to the Fall, Georgia Tech Information Technology and Institute Communications will work with campus web developers to identify and outline training opportunities for campus website admins and draft a recommended path to transition to Drupal 8.

We have received numerous questions about Drupal 8 and Georgia Tech websites in the past few months. To help facilitate discussion and timelines for Drupal 8, here are some helpful dates, links, and resources to guide your planning, strategy, and timelines for Drupal 8 on campus!

Drupal 8 Theme Development

Georgia Tech's central Drupal 8 theme and associated plugins are managed via Institute Communications, which has posted a rough Drupal 8 theme development timeline. 

Of note from the timeline:

• Georgia Tech's A theme handles the display of header, footer Georgia Tech elements. 
• Georgia Tech's B theme handles configurations and display of body styling, editor improvements, and Views styling. 

Drupal 8 Hosting and Composer

Drupal 8 brings some changes to web development best practices with the adoption and proliferation of composer.

For campus units looking to use composer on OIT Web Hosting, we strongly recommend metroplus. Metroplus is a command-line interface (CLI) tool allowing tools such as drush, composer, and git on webhosting.

To learn more and join metroplus, please contact Michael Sheldon in the College of Sciences.

Drupal 8 Migration Planning

While it is still a bit early for most site owner to begin building new sites in Drupal 8, you may want to start your strategic planning so that you're ready to go when the right theming resources become available.  A guide to migrating Drupal 7 to Drupal 8 is available, as is a more specific guide to planning for migrating Drupal Express sites to Drupal 8.

What about Drupal 7?

The Georgia Tech Drupal 7 theme will be updated to the new 2018 "Tech Gold" (metalic gold) design in late winter 2019, per Institute Communications' Drupal 8 timeline.