Drupal 7 Website update





We strongly recommend updating or upgrading your site for security, reliability, features, bug fixes and speed. This is also an excellent time to change the look of your site with improvements to your existing theme or a whole new look.

Your site is like a car, it needs maintenance and service to keep running smoothly. As the sites get older they tend to produce more errors that can lead to corrupted database tables (which has already happened to your site) causing the site to go down briefly, hackers find vulnerabilities and can compromise the site and its content, and the site can slow down as its overhead increases.

Fortunately unlike your car features get added as well, you can see a partial list at the bottom. Please keep in mind these features are in addition to literally thousands of fixed bugs.

They keep updating both versions for reliability, security and speed but major features are added to version 7.

Please also keep in mind that as time goes on it will become more and more difficult to upgrade the site so the longer you wait, the more time it will take and the more it will cost.

Alternatively we can upgrade your site to the new versions of Drupal 7.14 and Ubercart 3.1 (Ubercart 3 is only for Drupal 7) that have major portions rewritten from the ground up with many new features and usability improvements some of which are listed at the bottom of this document. This will cost $1400 as all supporting modules (how your site works) and themes (look of the site) will need to be upgraded and reconfigured as well.

We will create a clone of your site and work on it so that there will be no downtime for your site. We will then switch them over instantly. You will gain many new features and usability improvements yet the only thing your customers will notice is a faster, more reliable site with a more attractive and intuitive cart plus a easier purchase process.

Also just to clarify, Drupal is the technology your site is built on and Ubercart is the shopping cart and store component added to Drupal.

An additional benefit to the process is we will clean up and repair any database, cache or site errors that have accumulated over time.

If you would like detailed information on the improvements and features or if you have any questions on the process please let me know and I'll be happy to answer them.

Here is the partial list of improvements:

Whats new in Drupal 7:

· Better support for search engine optimization and web linking
· More secure implementation for scheduled tasks (cron.php).
· More secure password system.
· More secure log-in system.
· Modules can be updated via the web.
· Implemented drag-and-drop positioning for input format listings, language listing, poll options
· Added contextual links (a.k.a. local tasks) to page elements, such as blocks, nodes, or comments, which allows to perform the most common tasks with a single click only
· Many usability improvements
· Administrative links to edit existing page elements are now available on each web page, without having to go to an administration page first.
· Improved administration panels
· Improved support for integration of WYSIWYG editors. (visual editors rather than code)
· Added more drag-and-drop for administrative tasks.
· Permissions now have the ability to handle more scenarios
· Tagging for pages and products
· Redesigned password strength validator to make it kinder and gentler, and clearer.
· More custom text formats on a per-role basis.
· Added "vertical tabs", a reusable interface component that features automatic summaries and increases usability.
· Improved time zone support
· Added new "Shortcuts" module to allow user to create their own menu for the pages they visit the most.
· More powerful and stable database use
· Many performance improvements
· Added import functionality for RSS feeds.
· Added feed update options.
· Added support for language-aware searches.
· Added test framework and tests.
· A more powerful and flexible theme system that give more control over the look of your site
· Better support for files and images
· Added a field specifically for uploading files, previously provided by
the contributed module FileField.
· Improved image handling, including better support for add-on image
libraries.
· Added a field specifically for uploading images, previously provided by the contributed module ImageField.
· Added RDF support
· Provides most of the features of the former Content Construction Kit (CCK) module.
· Custom data fields may be attached to nodes, users, comments and taxonomy terms.
· Node bodies and teasers are now fields instead of being a hard-coded property of node objects.
· Fields are translatable.
· Upgraded the core JavaScript library to jQuery version 1.4.2. (Better animation and visual support)
· Upgraded the jQuery Forms library to 2.36.
· Added jQuery UI 1.8, which allows improvements to Drupal's user experience.
· Improved node access and control system
· Improved handling of long-running tasks.

What's new in Ubercart 2.9/3.o (They are the same for drupal 6 and 7):

· More versatile and customizeable products and store

· Rewritten shipping quotes for ease of use and consistency

· Simplified cart and order pages with animated transitions

· Customizeable invoice templates

· Better support for custom reports for purchases, customers, just about anything

· Additional Caching which speeds up the display of products and catalogues

· Better support for sending e-mail notifications on site events (product purchase or reduction of stock to zero for example)

· Better stock support