Drupal 7 End-of-Life is near! – Steps to take for your Drupal website!

By | Date posted: | Last updated: August 25, 2023
Drupal 7 end of life

Drupal 7 is longest running version of Drupal until now. It was launched in 2011 and even after more than one successful decade and the launch of other latest versions, several websites are still running on Drupal 7. However, now these websites/organizations have no option but to upgrade/migrate their versions to the latest Drupal version since Drupal 7 is approaching its end-of-life.

January 5, 2025 is probably the time after which Drupal 7 will no longer be supported by the Drupal community. The Drupal 7 end of life was initially scheduled for November 2021, but for some reason, its life span was extended for two more years.

Since a profound number of websites are using Drupal 7 to run their websites, now they have to take immediate steps (if not taken yet) to avoid any technical crisis. And since Drupal 9 end-of-life is also January 5, 2025, thereby organizations can either migrate their websites directly to Drupal 10 or immediately migrate to Drupal 9 and then upgrade to Drupal 10.

Let’s see what solutions you can find to overcome this situation.

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Drupal 7 End-Of-Life – What does it mean?

If a website stays on Drupal 7 even after January 5, 2025, it implies that the website will no longer get community support. Automated testing services for Drupal 7 will be shut down, and no more updates will be provided by the Drupal team. New project creation, bug fixing, or writing documents on Drupal 7 will not be possible

Moreover, such websites will be miserable to security threats. Thus, it is wise to move on now with the latest version of Drupal in order to safeguard sensitive data and the performance of the website.

Preparing for Drupal 7 end-of-life

Well, you might not wish to switch to another version because of several doubts you have about migration and its aftereffects. But upgrading your website to the latest Drupal version will only benefit the website with new features and functionalities and with exceptional performance.

Drupal 7 to 9 or 10 migrations might take some time, but it is not difficult. Drupal 9 and 10 has migration tools that help migrate your website safely from Drupal 7 to Drupal 9 or Drupal 10.

Either you jump to Drupal 10 directly or go step by step and migrate from Drupal 7 to 9 and then 10, the first step should be performing a content audit. So that you would know, what to keep in the updated version and what is not required. And when you begin the process, remember that your website is updating now for a futuristic approach. Thus, keep content that is actually needed.

1. Upgrading to Drupal 9 or 10

It is a step-by-step process of migrating content, modules, and other crucial elements from your existing Drupal version to its latest version. There must be many modules that are not supported in the latest versions. In that case, you need to leave them and choose the new ones for the updated website.

Upgrading to Drupal 9 or 10 should be your first choice. Also, the latest version of Drupal 9 and Drupal 10 has new features and modules that help your website with more advanced functionalities. And Drupal community is contributing more new modules every now and then, which you will not be able to use if the website will stay on Drupal 7.

As mentioned above, Drupal 9 has tools that help Drupal developers to migrate from an older version to the new one and make the tricky migration process simpler. And once you are on Drupal 9, updating to Drupal 10 is not a big deal since Drupal 10 is built on Drupal 9 itself.

For larger organizations with complex functionalities, this is the best way to overcome Drupal 7 EOL.

2. Stay on Drupal 7

There is another way that you keep your older website running and create another new website for future operations. The website will stay on Drupal 7 and work as a legacy website. Though it will have security issues, but the operation will not get hampered.

It can be done by archiving your website using static site generator like VuePress to convert the web pages into raw HTML. This way, you will keep your ages-old website running and that too at the lowest expenses. Also, since they are simple HTML pages without any complex CMS backend, they get delivered to users at blazing-fast speed. The only problem is, you won’t be able to add or update the content on pages. Also, archiving is not a good option for many websites that have sensitive users’ data due to security concerns.

3. Migrate to an all-new CMS!

If the above two options are not suitable and you find some other CMS more suitable than Drupal, then creating a new website from scratch on your desirable CMS can be an option as well. Though it will land you in a completely new environment, but with the new CMS you will get new features and functionalities as well.

For example, WordPress, Magento, Shopify, Joomla, and there are many others. However, before you take this crucial decision, think of Drupal’s latest version capabilities. Compare your desired CMS with Drupal and if you think the new platform will work for you more than Drupal, then go for it.

Don’t forget to note that migrating to another platform will be more complex than upgrading to Drupal 9 or 10. Every platform has its own benefits and pain points; thus, make sure that this is the only option you can go with.

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Wrapping up

Choosing any option should be in favor of your organization. However, it is suggested that if the website is enterprise-level, then stick to Drupal and upgrade from Drupal 7 to Drupal 10.

Migrating to another CMS, archiving the website on Drupal 7 itself, or upgrading to Drupal 9 or 10, each option requires a seasoned Drupal professional, who will help you with the right solution. Surmount this challenge of Drupal 7 end-of-life and execute your business website with more efficiency by opting for the most suitable choice.

Ensure your website keeps up with the fast-paced era by upgrading to the latest version of Drupal and staying ahead of your competition. Being a member of the Drupal Association, we possess industry knowledge and a proven methodology to guarantee successful Drupal website upgrades. Contact us at hello@skynetindia.info to hire Drupal developers or fill out the free quote form below to learn more about our Drupal migration, upgrades, and our Drupal development services.

If you have any questions or would like to know more about how Skynet Technologies can help your business to reach one step ahead, Reach out us through below form & We'll get back to you soon!
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Drupal 10 Timeline: New Features, Updates, & End-of-Life Information

By | Date posted: | Last updated: August 25, 2023
Drupal 10 New Features

Drupal is one of the most popular open-source content management systems in the world. Many government sites are running on Drupal in the US and several are migrating or planning to migrate their applications to this efficient CMS.

It is one of the oldest and trust-worthy CMS amongst other popular open-source CMS. Drupal holds approx. 2% share of the websites across the globe out of which Drupal 7 is used by 50 – 54% websites approx., which is a profound number.

The above-mentioned numbers say it all! Some of the well-known industry name that are using Drupal to manage their data are Tesla, Verizon, NASA, The Economist, Australian government’s website, and it is a long list including social networking giants Twitter and Pinterest.

Across the world, significant businesses are trusting Drupal to offer a seamless digital experience to their users. And to live its customers’ expectations, Drupal keeps on releasing updates and security patches regularly. In the new version release series, Drupal 10 is the latest version. Let’s know more about this recent Drupal 10 new features and other improvements.

Drupal 10 Release and Its Predecessors’ End-Of-Life

The latest Drupal 10 was released on December 14, 2022. This new version has myriad advanced features, deliverables, and goals to keep businesses’ websites updated with changing technologies and market needs.

One of the reasons behind this new release is its predecessors’ EOL. Drupal 9 and 7 both versions are reaching their end-of-life in January 5, 2025. However, this time upgrading the website from Drupal 9 to 10 is simpler because Drupal 10 is built in Drupal 9. Thus, if a website is running on the latest minor version of Drupal 9, it will be easily updated to Drupal 10.

Nonetheless, Drupal 7 to 10 migration might take some time. But now it is also the need of the hour to update your website from the oldest version to the latest one. Because all previous versions are heading towards their EOL and after that, your website will not be receiving any security and other updates.

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Drupal 10 New features & Updates

Drupal 10 has come up with several updates and new features out of which, two of the much-talked features are the project browser and automatic update. With these two, there are many other features, look at all of them.

1. Project Browser

Developers will be able to easily search and install modules from their Drupal website admin dashboard, using Drupal 10. With the project browser, the Drupal interface behaves as a smart app store which makes Drupal even more robust and delightful. This functionality is a fresh add-on to the Drupal CMS.

DrupalPod tool allows you to create a cloud-hosted Drupal development environment in the browser using Gitpod, which makes project browsing simple.

2. Third-party components are upgraded

Drupal 10 has upgraded all the third-party components to their latest versions which makes it more powerful, secure, user-friendly, and faster for developers and end-users.

Some important upgrades are-

  • CKEditor 4 to CKEditor 5
  • Symfony 4 to Symfony 6
  • Composer 1 to Composer 2
  • PHP 7 to PHP 8
  • Replacing jQuery UI with modern JavaScript components
  • Internet Explorer 11 is no longer get supported

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3. Decoupled Menus

Drupal 10 includes amazing features such as headless architecture and decoupled technologies. Drupal provides JavaScript development experiences and enables the JavaScript frontend to consume menus managed in it.

The latest version supports REST, JSON, and GraphQL APIs. Also, it allows the creation of an extensive ambassador repository of web components and framework integrations. Developers will be able to update menus using Drupal UI with Drupal 10. The changes will automatically reflect in the JavaScript front-end.

4. Automatic Updates

Automatic updates are one of the features included in Drupal 10 on users’ demand. It allows safe updates automatically, which makes Drupal website upgradation easier and faster.

Since the updates will get done automatically, it will be more secure because of less outer interference. It also leads to an impeccable user experience with robust security.

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5. Claro theme replacing Seven

Drupal 10 has a new administration theme named Claro. Though this theme was initially launched with Drupal 9.4 updates to make the admin interface easy to use; in Drupal 10, it is now replacing Seven.

Claro theme is a clean and accessible theme, and it has exceptional color contrast checks, enticing and simple UI, and many other features.

6. Olivero replacing Bartik

Olivero‘s front-end theme was first seen in Drupal 9.4.0. It comes with a modern and clean look with minimal usage of drop shadows and gradient effects. Even the animation, color palette, and typography are out-of-the-box in Olivero. Embedded media, second-level navigation, etc. have also become easy-to-use with Olivero. And now in Drupal 10, it has become the default front-end theme replacing Bartik.

7. New Starterkit Theme

There is a new Starterkit theme included in Drupal 10 to add a new experience for developers to create themes in Drupal CMS. This new update has replaced Classy, which was the previous theme. The Starterkit theme allows front-end developers to copy any existing theme and use it as a template to create new themes. With the help of the Starterkit theme, developers may get rid of subthemes problems and will be able to create new ones.

8. Distribution & Recipes

Another update Drupal 10 has the new recipe functionalities that can solve each pre-existing issue with distribution and recipes. You will find a new and improved way of Composer workflow and recipes packaging. Users will be able to mix and match recipes/distribution with Drupal 10’s new updated architecture.

So, these are the main updates and features Drupal 10 has. Since Drupal 7 and 9 reaching their end-of-life soon, start migrating or updating your websites to Drupal 10. And Drupal 8 has already reached its EOL in November 2021, now the websites running on Drupal 8 are miserable for security threats.

Wrapping up

Drupal 10 incorporates myriad amazing features and profound changes that will uplift the quality of your website. Drupal 9 has some of the features which Drupal 10 includes and since the new version is created within Drupal 9, migration from Drupal 9 to 10 is simpler.

Both Drupal 9 and 10 have the power to help businesses to create flawless web and app experiences.

So, what are you waiting for? Upgrade the flawless experience with the latest Drupal 10 by hiring an experienced Drupal developer. You can contact Skynet Technologies at hello@skynetindia.info to hire a Drupal developer. We also provide Drupal maintenance, Drupal migration, Drupal 10 upgrades, and Drupal SEO services to make your website more user-friendly and secure.

If you have any questions or would like to know more about how Skynet Technologies can help your business to reach one step ahead, Reach out us through below form & We'll get back to you soon!
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Unfold new possibilities for your website with Drupal personalization!

By | Date posted: | Last updated: May 27, 2022
Drupal personalization

Website personalization is not new now, organizations are following personalization practices to grab more visitors and increase their sales. Every users have rush and they don’t want to waste their time exploring unwanted stuff, they like getting precise suggestions and offers to buy their desired products.

Every platform that allows to create a website, is providing easy personalization tools or in-built features to unravel an amazing personalized digital experience. Drupal is leading the personalization race. It has taken website personalization to another level.

Drupal offers many options for content personalization. If your website is running on Drupal, you can build compelling and engaging content with its tools and provide that personalized content to your users to increase conversion and revenue.

Content personalization is done based on users’ location, their age, gender, the device they are using to explore your website, previous shopping history, etc. So, the catch is your user’s browsing history. But it depends on your website platform and how it manages the content personalization and holds your customers/ users for a long time despite immense competition.

Let’s find out how Drupal makes your website personalization smooth and unfold new opportunities.

Drupal personalization for myriad new opportunities

Providing personalized content is not enough, you ought to offer the right content at right time to the right user. Then only you can expect a new height for your website. Drupal has a few personalization modules, that help you to create tailored content for your users.

EU Cookie Compliance Module (GDPR Compliance)

Drupal 8 and 9 both support this module. EU Cookie module does not personalize content for you, but it gives a start to the personalization process. For creating personalized content, you need users’ demographics and other browsing histories. EU Cookie Compliance Module assists you to provide a customizable banner wherein you can ask your visitor to save their identifiable cookies. The cookies aid in collecting personal and other details of the visitors and accordingly you can provide them with personalized content. It is illegal as per General Data Protection Regulation to steal someone’s information without their knowledge. Thereby, you make your website compliant with GDPR as well by using this module.

Menu Per Role Module

This module is a no-frills module, which helps you show or hide menu items as per user role. User role means if you are a new user, you will not be able to see the ‘My Account’ section in the menu, instead, you will get ‘Register here’ option. Menu Per Role Module was supported by Drupal 7and 8 and now Drupal 9 migration also supports it.

Acquia Lift Connector Module or Acquia personalization

The Acquia personalization module helps you to integrate your website with Acquia lift services, which allow you to deliver a personalized experience to your users/ visitors. It has a drag and drop UI to create personalized content and test user behavior in real-time. Moreover, Acquia lift has analytical capabilities for user experience analysis and many other creative features that make it an out-of-the-box personalization tool. Make your Drupal website design efficient for providing a brilliant user experience.

Smart Content Module

Drupal’s smart content module enables anonymous and real-time web personalization. Different user role-based content is a breeze with the smart content module. You can display specific content to a returning visitor and optimized content to a mobile user. The smart content module evaluates the client-side conditions and accordingly decides what to show and which content to hide. Smart Content Blocks and Smart Content Browser features are included in the Smart Content Module.

Next-level personalization with Drupal

Drupal helps you in achieving next-level user experience with its in-house modules and many other third-party APIs for more personalization targeting options. Drupal personalization is successful even for enterprise-level app digital experiences.

  • The personalization modules help in anonymous targeting by browser condition, location, or other third-party variables.
  • UTM targeting is a traditional way of personalizing the Drupal site for demand-gen and ABM campaigns.
  • Micro (one question) surveys and user inputs are another way to start progressive personalization.
  • Performing A/B testing within Drupal and without using external tools help you to provide accurate user experience.
  • Acquia profile managers or external CDPs and data warehouses assist in tracking customer data completely.
  • Google Analytics integration helps to track campaigns and provide reports for better personalization.

Drupal Personalization and AI

The combination of Drupal and artificial intelligence is unbeatable. AI piles Drupal with extraordinary features that escalate the sales and profits of any struggling business. Digital experience and innovation & globalism are the keywords that make Drupal perfect for online businesses. Drupal’s chat-bot API, support for the multilingual platform, deriving insights from the content, and many more other smart features help Drupal to meet dynamic business needs and make it future-proof.

Advantages of Drupal web personalization

Drupal is continuously evolving and providing new innovative solutions for your business. With Drupal personalization, your website reaches an altogether new height of improved and flawless experience. It offers you many advantages, such as

  • It increases customer loyalty: Personalization helps you gain customer loyalty. Apparently, many people re-visit a website that has personalized content for a particular user. When you personalize content, you gather data about your users and visitors. The data can be used in many ways for the benefit of your users. Thereby, users/ customers feel more connected with your brand.
  • It enhances user engagement: Engagement and acquisition are two important terms for online business. Website personalization aids you to achieve more user engagement through cross-sell, upsell, and customer loyalty.
  • It diffuses targeted ads to the correct segment: You can more efficiently broadcast your cross-channel promotional campaigns using data you collect from various resources about user preferences and the advertisements they click on. Irrelevant content lowers user response, whereas, personalized content gives you a more positive reaction.
  • Boost the business revenue: Drupal personalization always improves the conversion rate of your website, which eventually increases sales and revenue.

Wrapping up

In this competitive world, it has become a frequent practice to provide tailored online experiences to users and visitors to improve business. You are encompassed with the plethora of technologies but there are only a few which are capable to deliver the results. Aligning on a personalization strategy is easier said than done, but Drupal is all set to live up to your expectations with a crawl, walk and run approach to assist you on your road to personalization. And personalization certainly unfolds new possibilities for your Drupal website!

If you are looking for a Drupal website personalization, custom Drupal development, Drupal 9 migration, web development, Drupal commerce development and other related web development services, please explore our Drupal web development services! We also provide Drupal website maintenance services, Drupal migration and Drupal application security audit. For more information, please visit our Drupal maintenance services!

If you have any questions or would like to know more about how Skynet Technologies can help your business to reach one step ahead, Reach out us through below form & We'll get back to you soon!
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Drupal 8 to 9 Upgrade: Prerequisites, How-to and Other Tips!

By | Date posted: | Last updated: February 22, 2022
Drupal 8 to 9 Upgrade

Apparently, technology is evolving with time, and it ought to be. Because if it will not evolve, then it will become obsolete. There are many examples available of things that didn’t change with time; they got vanished.

The same happened with our favorite Drupal. We all liked Drupal 7 and then updated to Drupal 8. It also succeeded in impressing us. After using Drupal 8 for many years, now is the time for Drupal 9 migration. It is now mandatory because Drupal 8 has already reached its end-of-life in November 2021.

There might be some users who would’ve upgraded to Drupal 9. But there can be some who are still operating the previous version (Drupal 8). Let’s help them and find out how to upgrade to Drupal 9?

How Drupal 9 is different from Drupal 8?

Drupal 9 is not entirely different from Drupal 8.9. Drupal Developers have only eliminated the deprecated APIs and used updated dependencies. Drupal 9 is based on a continuous innovation model; thus, you don’t have to be ready for major changes like you get in previous versions.

Drupal 9 has more features and amazing themes. To know more about Drupal 9, switch to this version now.

Prerequisites to upgrade to Drupal 9

You need to know a few prerequisites before you upgrade to Drupal 9.

  • You should be using either Drupal 8.8 or Drupal 8.9 if you want to upgrade to Drupal 9. The new upgrades are only meant for these two minor versions and not for previous ones.
  • All the modules should be updated to their latest versions. Old modules are not compatible with Drupal 9.
  • To upgrade to Drupal 9, your hosting environment ought to fulfill the minimum system requirements.
  • Check and remove all the deprecated codes.

If this checklist is done, then you can start the upgrading process.

Tools that help in Drupal 8 to 9 Upgrade

There are a few tools readily available to you to complete the upgrade process. In the Drupal 9 upgrade, deprecation and compatibility are the two main factors to pay attention to and these tools will be your savior in this journey.

Code editor or IDE

They understand the deprecation codes and identify them easily.

Drupal check

With the help of this tool, you run a standalone PHP executable from your command line, and it checks all the deprecated codes with Drupal 9 compatibility.

Upgrade status

This module is more or less similar to Drupal check. Upgrade status scans the complete site and alerts you if any deprecated code or incompatible module is there on the site. It also suggests you what updates are required to meet the system requirement.

Drupal.org testing

It helps you in two ways, 1. The way above two tools (Drupal check and Upgrade status) assists you, and 2. It configures the module’s test suite if you don’t find the correct deprecated code path. The complete test helps to get the best results.

Rector

It helps find deprecated codes with an automated system. Rector easily finds custom and contributed modules that need to fix.

These are five tools that can help you in finding and fixing the problem of compatibility and deprecation. Out of five, you can choose anyone, which is handy to you.

Composer based Drupal 8 site upgrade to Drupal 9

Perform the following steps from your Drupal site’s core (composer.json):

  • To protect files and directories, temporarily add write access
    • chmod 777 web/sites/default
    • chmod 666 web/sites/default/*settings.php
    • chmod 666 web/sites/default/*services.yml
  • Pull in Drupal 9 version of ‘core-recommended’ and ‘dev-dependencies’ packages as dependencies.
    • composer require ‘drupal/core-recommended:^9’ ‘drupal/core-composer-scaffold:^9’ ‘drupal/core-project-message:^9’ –update-with-dependencies –no-update
    • If you have ‘drupal/core-dev’ installed:
    • composer require ‘drupal/core-dev:^9’ –dev –update-with-dependencies –no-update
  • Now update the code
    • composer update
    • If any of your modules or code are not updated as per Drupal 9 prerequisite, then you will get an error here while updating the codebase. So, ensure you have achieved the prerequisites before you start to upgrade.
    • You can also add alias to ‘drupal/core’,
    • composer require “drupal/core:9.0.0 as 8.9.0” –no-update && composer update
  • When you update the module code and if the module needs the update, then run the pending database updates by visiting update.php in the browser or with Drush.
    • drush updated
  • Complete or restore read-only access to the site
    • chmod 755 web/sites/default
    • chmod 644 web/sites/default/*settings.php
    • chmod 644 web/sites/default/*services.yml

Also, ensure you change the entry in ‘composer.json’ file after a successful upgrade if you are doing this process for an upgrade to Drupal 9 from Drupal 8.9. Otherwise, you will not be able to install Drupal updates.

“drupal/core”: “^9.0.0”,

Don’t forget to follow this Drupal maintenance checklist to keep your Drupal website up to date!

Wrap-up

If you are still using Drupal 8, then your site is at risk. You are running a site that has no security promises with ample loopholes since the version is not live now. So, to protect your database, and to maintain the performance of your site, you should now upgrade to Drupal 9.

Hopefully, the above-mentioned steps will help you to upgrade to Drupal 9 smoothly. If you need any further assistance, then outreach to a professional Drupal developer to avoid any inaccuracy in the upgrade process.

If you are looking for a Drupal 9 migration, web development, Drupal commerce development and other related web development services, for more information, please explore our Drupal web development services! We also provide Drupal website maintenance services, Drupal migration and Drupal application security audit. For more information, please visit our Drupal maintenance services!

If you have any questions or would like to know more about how Skynet Technologies can help your business to reach one step ahead, Reach out us through below form & We'll get back to you soon!
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