![]() ![]() Homestead is a similarly fashioned Vagrant box, maintained by the Laravel community, built on Ubuntu 18.04. Thus, in a beautiful instance of open source collaboration, it was so. However, with Ubuntu 14.04 reaching end of life, Andrew thought to merge the best of trust圓2-lamp VM with Laravel’s Homestead. My starting point of choice for using Vagrant on a project has been the excellent trust圓2-lamp VM, maintained by Andrew Berry. Unfortunately, this API, while summarily documented, isn’t clearly explained with example code anywhere therefore, if you want to start playing with it, it’s going to take some digging around before you feel comfortable using it in your projects.For a long time now, I’ve preferred Vagrant for local development. But it goes beyond that: built-in content types like nodes, users, and taxonomy terms are now also tied in with the Field API, so these, fields are fair game for developers to modify at their whim. The Field API aims to replace the CCK and bring this functionality to Drupal’s core. Previous versions of Drupal have relied on the CCK (Content Construction Kit) module to add new content types and fields it was almost always the first module you’d install on any new Drupal site. One major change is the move to PHP 5 as of version 7, Drupal requires PHP version 5.2 as the minimum.įrom a developer’s perspective, one of the most exciting additions to Drupal 7 is the new Field API. So, overall, I’m a fan of the new UI: it’s a complete refresh that manages to retain a unique identity and showcase the strengths of the platform.ĭrupal 7 is not just about a flashy UI, though: there are significant changes in its codebase as well. The inline editing of blocks and regions in the theme is nice and slick, as you can see below: Some parts have been moved around (for instance, Content Types administration used to sit inside Content, now it’s in a new section called Structure), but overall it’s quite recognizable as good old Drupal. If you’ve been using Drupal for a long time, this might seem confusing at first, but after playing with it for a bit, I found I got used to it fairly quickly. There’s a fixed menu bar at the top containing links to all the admin functionality click on any item and the relevant options page will be displayed as a modal dialog on top of the site. In previous versions of Drupal, the admin interface took the form of an extra sidebar widget however, in Drupal 7, the admin interface is more like a layer sitting above the site itself. This makes sense, as Drupal bills itself as a community CMS, rather than a more traditional publishing platform like WordPress. Unlike WordPress, the admin interface of Drupal is integrated into the site itself. Once it’s installed, Drupal 7 will drop you on the front page of your new site. ![]() You’ll then need to fill in your database information and a few other key settings, as well as enter the details for your first user, and the installer will then go on its merry way configuring the database accordingly. The installer first gives you the choice of a Standard or Minimal install (the former will have several common modules activated and configured for you, while the latter is a bare-bones alternative). The first impression you form of a CMS will often come from its installer, and after lagging behind WordPress in this area, Drupal 7 has finally come equipped to play. Of course, I’d stop short of rushing out to install it on your production sites! But you should have no problems throwing it up on your VM and having a play. While I wasn’t overly rigorous in how I used it, it seemed complete and I encountered no bugs. On the whole, the beta feels fairly polished. I skipped version 6 entirely, but with some of the buzz surrounding the version 7 improvements, I figured it was a good time to have a look and see what’s been going on. ![]() However, Drupal always had a steep learning curve, limited documentation, and more than a few peculiar ways of doing things. I’ve used it for a few projects in the past, where I was able to have them up and running quickly, due to Drupal’s sophisticated functionality available out of the box. I’ll admit, I have a love–hate relationship with Drupal. ![]()
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