Gi2MO IdeaStream for Drupal 7.x released!
Posted By admin on July 27, 2014
We are happy to announce another milestone in Gi2MO IdeaStream development. Starting from now on, we give our user base the choice to pick which version of Drupal they prefer to use. Gi2MO IdeaStream supports both 6.x and 7.x with the same core set of Idea Management System functionalities.
Drupal is a popular Content Management System (CMS) which is used by Gi2MO IdeaStream as a base platform. Initially, years ago when we kicked-off our project, IdeaStream was developed for the most popular version of Drupal system at the time – version 6.x. However, since then both IdeaStream and the Drupal platforms have evolved.
In 2011 Drupal had its first 7.x release. The new version update has brought many changes, not only for the users but also in the overall system architecture. This had a profound impact on a lot of open-source modules and the community of developers that contributed earlier to Drupal 6.x.
To this day many of the Drupal 6.x modules have their 7.x versions not yet fully developed, missing a lot of key features or simply in their alpha/beta state with a number of bugs. For this reason, Gi2MO IdeaStream has been a bit stale as far as Drupal 7.x adoption goes.
However, today we would like to go ahead and deliver a version dedicated for Drupal 7.x for those who already require to use the new Drupal version. For us this meant a full rewrite of the entire Gi2MO IdeaStream, some community modules had to be removed, while others replaced with different ones. However, today we are happy to deliver a fully functional IdeaStream version for Drupal 7.x with a complete set of features available before for 6.x users.
If you would like to try the new version, please go to our Apps section for IdeaStream. Since this is the first release for Drupal 7.x, we would be very happy to get any feedback about potential problems or feature requests.
On the other hand, if you are not sure about this update and would like to know more about Drupal 7.x please read below our recommendations.
Should You upgrade/migrate to Drupal 7.x?
For those who are fully aware of Drupal 7.x capabilities and limitations, yet still require to use that version: Gi2MO IdeaStream v7.x-1.8 delivers them all what the 6.x does.
For all the other users: we advise not to upgrade yet and wait for Drupal 7.x independent module community to become as rich as currently 6.x.
The reason for above recommendation is a lot worse state of the community modules for version 7.x. A lot of them (including the ones used by IdeaStream) are heavily under-development, constantly changing and often do not have all features of their old but stable 6.x versions. Therefore, unless you need some specific functionality only available under Drupal 7.x, you will be heavily limited in terms of extendability of your system.
What is new about Drupal 7.x?
In our opinion, from the point of view of Idea Management System, the Drupal 7.x update does not bring huge novelties. The core set of functionalities remains the same.
Still there are some changes in visual interaction and in terms of minor additional functionalities. For a detailed list see the Drupal homepage. We anticipate Drupal 7.x to continue evolving and being updated more than 6.x version in the coming future. It is possible that some of the very new community modules will have their versions only available for Drupal 7.x. We would like IdeaStream to be a good choice for now but also for the future. Therefore, we decided to provide a version for both 6.x and 7.x.
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