Drupal 7 Close to Beta Release

The Drupal community is at the moment mainly focused on fixing the beta blockers for Drupal 7. The list on the Drupal core improvements page currently only list this ONE issue needed to be fixed for the upgrade path. It also lists THREE security issues. When those four issues have turned green the first Drupal 7 Beta will be released. We are very close now.

In the release notes for Drupal 7 Alpha 6 Angie "webchick" Byron wrote that "On or about August 1, 2010 (or when the upgrade path is working, whichever comes first) we will create a new official Drupal 7 release". Lets hope it will happen and we can celebrate the birth of a beta soon.

Difference Between Alpha and Beta

The most important difference between a Drupal Core alpha and beta release is that updating will be supported. This means that you can actually start building websites with the beta version and update it for every new beta released. This is a huge change compared to the alpha versions where you have to take care of all the update issues yourself. Unless your a very skilled PHP/Drupal developer that often means you have to redo your website from scratch, including migrating all content manually.

What You can do to Help

You don't need to be a skilled PHP/Drupal developer to help speeding up the release of Drupal 7. Even though I know a fair bit of PHP and have no problems reading code, I am far from skilled enough to really help out crushing the bugs by submitting patches.

Instead I opted to help by testing both the core and contributed modules that are in development for it. I have come across many issues and also been able to provide the developers with instructions on how to replicate them. In some cases it turned out that the code was working on the developers setup, but not on mine. When the developer replicated my setup he also saw the bug.

This is very common when it comes to computers. It is because no two computers are the same. Even if they use the same OS, the configuration is different, the hardware is different and of course the installed software is different. Therefor something that works in one setup can break in another.

This is also true when it comes to server applications, which Drupal is. Each website based on Drupal will be different as soon as it has been installed and you start configuring it, adding modules, creating content types and so on. Bugs are often discovered when a user is trying to use something that no one has tried before.

Therefore, the more Drupal users that chip in and help testing both the core and contributed modules, the quicker remaining bugs will be found and fixed.

Of course, just installing and fooling around trying to find problems will quickly turn a bit boring. A more fun way is to do like me, simply test by building a website like you normally do and report back any problems you find. Its not only a great way of helping the community, it also gets you up to speed with all the changes and new features in Drupal 7.

Try it, you will have a lot of fun.

Best of all, the more users that do it, the sooner Drupal 7 will be released!