After a considerable amount of work, we're pleased to announce that the next iteration of OrangePolitics is now entering a public beta. Please check it out and let us know what you think! Feel free to log in, mess around, look for old content, and try out posting and commenting! The site reflects a pull of our current database which I made about a week ago. Related, if you have recently changed your password, the change may not be reflected on the new site; if you're having trouble logging in, let me know and I'd be happy to help!
Do note that when we say beta, we mean it. Things may break, disappear without warning, and there may be downtime while we perform testing, maintenance, and feature upgrades. All content posted to the beta site will be deleted before the final release, so if you've got something important to say that you want to make sure gets saved, make sure you post it on the current site (here). Anything posted to the current OP site (posts, events, comments, etc.) will be imported to the new site when we make the final transition.
It is worth noting that, although we have referred to this project as an upgrade, from a technical perspective it is not an upgrade, but the creation of a new site to which the old content has been imported. This method was chosen because of a number of technical issues with performing a direct upgrade due to legacy issues with the old site. I point this out mostly because there may be some things which we haven't recreated yet, and if you notice some features or content which is missing, please let us know! Just because a feature isn't on the new site yet doesn't mean it won't be there at launch, but let us know anyway just to be sure that we include it.
The new site at this point does not implement many new features from the user perspective (yet), but rather, will offer us the framework to do cool new things in the future. I'm excited about some of the things that the platform will allow (especially my desire to add some new mapping features) but most of them are still a little bit further down the road. That said, there are certainly some new tools which Drupal 7 brings will be helpful to the editors, in the form of crucial security updates, spam blocking, content management tools, and similar features, that will hopefully allow them to spend more time on content-related work.
Please post your comments, concerns, and wishlist here. I’m also happy to help answer any questions on a one-on-one basis via email if you are having trouble with your account or other issues.
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Comments
Yippee!
First, I want to thank everyone who donated to OP last fall and spring to raise the fund to make it possible for us to pay a taleted developer (Jason) to do this upgrade. Given the amount of time he has already put in, we (I mean all of us) are definitely getting an amazing deal!I also want to thank Jason who not only has put in a ridiculous number of hours chasing down all manner of weird bugs and issues, but who also has upgraded* us all the way from Drupal 5 to 7! This is a fantastic leap that will frankly be barely evident to most visitors at first but it will reap many benefits for all of us.The best thing that everyone should notice right away is that the new site is responsive, that means it adjusts automtically to whatever screen it's being viewed on and should work exactly the same on smart phones as it does on desktop browsers. You'll notice that the design of the site is similar to this one but a bit updated. I'm happy to take suggestions for how to improve the template as well, but will be focusing on basic functionality first.On the back end, editors' lives will be made much, much easier through a vastly improved administrative interface. This will allow us to quickly remove the many spammy user registrations we get every day, among other things. But most importantly, moving to a current version of Drupal means that in the future we can add new features to the site. And because we're already on Drupal 7, we will not have to upgrade* again for a while.* Jason is right when says that "upgrade" is a misnomer. It's nearly always the case with Drupal that moving between major versions actually means rebuilding the site and then figuring out how to get the content imported into the right places.