Drupal 7.0 Beta 1 Now Available
Drupal has finally released its first 7.0 beta for testing. After a long alpha period, there are a number of notable changes in Drupal 7.0 when compared to the current stable version. They noted the following about the decision from moving from alpha into beta testing:
- All of the critical data loss and security issues that were noted during alpha development should be now resolved.
- All of the API are “frozen enough” so that creators of themes and modules should be able to begin their pledges.
- All of the upgrade path issues should be now resolved.
As always, it is important to remember that this is not a stable version of Drupal and using it for live websites is not recommended. While there will likely be several beta versions, the Drupal community is very excited about the recent release.
There have been a large number of changes in Drupal 7.0, at a glance it seems like every aspect of Drupal has been modified and improved. Here are some of the most noted differences between between Drupal 7.0 and previous versions.
Installer
The new Drupal installer is much more streamlined and much more efficient than previous versions. It has been noted that while updating from a previous version should be fairly simple, this is one area that needs to go through a lot of testing in order to ensure that all of the bugs have been worked out.
General Administration
The admin for Drupal 7.0 will take place on the website itself, rather than a separate dashboard, which is common in many other CMSs. Instead of existing in a sidebar widget like it has for previous versions, it now acts like an “extra layer” on your website with a fixed menu bar on top. While it is still recognizable as a Drupal interface, there are a lot of changes that will make managing a website easier.
The Code
There have been a large number of code based changes in Drupal 7.0. One of the most noted is the switch to PHP 5 as a requirement. Additionally, there is a new field API as well. The goal of the Field API is to replace the Content Construction Kit that is used in previous versions as well as make the core more user friendly. The Field API has been tied to a number of content types including: users, nodes, and a number of taxonomy terms. The file and image handling has been improved as well.
There have been a number of changes elsewhere as well, however the installer, general admin area, and core code seem to stand out immediately. If you want more information about recent changes and additions then make sure to take a look at the CHANGELOG.txt as it includes everything.
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