Drupal 5.2 - 5.6 - 6.0 (and back again...)

I still haven't upgraded Drupal to version 5.6 and so I thought - well let's see what going to 6.0 entails? Next step: download release candidate 2.

Reading the instructions - after backing up the database and files, I put the current 'site' off line, disabled all the modules, set the theme to a core offering and ran through the remaining steps. The Drupe 6 install screen is slick and shows quite a few changes that I look f/w to completing one day.

This time though - trying (foolishly) to upgrade I did not get very far.

Selecting 'English' as the install language then running update.php, the SQL complained and suffered one of those last-line kind of fatal errors.

I may have left one module - 'localisation' enabled and this amongst other things tripped me up.

Anyway, I managed to get back to my original 5.2 and learned quite a few things along the way.

Now at least I feel able to take a copy of what I have to the Drupal NW England user group in Manchester next month (Feb 20th) or whenever. The Drupal directories are a lot clearer in my head now, I even feel like going for a multi-site set up...?

I know this is dreary and at this rate there will be more 'Drupal' tags here at W2tQ than 'Hodges Model'; but as was mentioned at the start it's steep over here and well worth the time spent reading and planning. Another question is what will the database look like? Hence the possible benefits of a multi site set-up?

I've been clearing the existing website directory of redundant clutter, on my PC and at Demon. Reading my pages now, there is not an awful lot to archive. I'll start putting together the style sheets:

• archive pages (existing content)
• book pages (new)
• links pages (existing - unsure about the future)
• front page template?

The theme will be a contributed effort for now as I'd like to focus on the content and overall structure at this stage. I'll post a few more screen shot examples over the weekend.

(Need to photograph a jacket for that Apollo, Africa and E.T + a favourite book - post)