I’ve decided against migrating to Joomla 1.7, at least for now. After running a test migration on a test server, I found that it would be far more work than it would be worth.
Templates aren’t migrated
JUpgrade doesn’t migrate templates, none of the templates I use, have a 1.7 version available, and there isn’t a 1.7 compatible template which suits my needs.
Lack of good multi-language support
Joomla 1.7 doesn’t support multi-language sites in a way I can use. It’s a totally different system from Joomfish, which I’ve been using so far. Instead of a translation item, you have to create copies and translate them. And Joomfish hasn’t released a version which is compatible with Joomla 1.6/1.7 yet, despite being pestered about it for a long time. I started asking them about it as soon as 1.6 was released, as did many other users. But they still see 1.6/1.7 as developmental, and just for testing, not as a stable version. If JUpgrade had migrated my Joomfish translations into new items, I might consider it, but it doesn’t.
The amount of work needed
I would have to rebuild the entire template. I’d have to copy and paste the entire site, content, menus, modules and all. And I’d have to do it twice, as I have two additional languages. I also had to run the migration twice. The first time it got stuck, and I’m not sure why, because it worked the second time without any changes to file or folder rights. It would be less of a hassle for me to revert to using PmWiki, which I used a couple of years ago. This would give me a WordPress – PmWiki – ZenCart solution, instead of Joomla – WordPress – PmWiki – ZenCart.
One of the reasons why it would be easier is that I still have backups from when I ran PmWiki and WordPress on the stuff I now have on Joomla. It would take a fair bit of work to incorporate the new articles into PmWiki, but I can work on it on my test server while the site goes on as usual. There’s also the option of dropping PmWiki, and going for WordPress, but then I’d have to do just as much work with the translations as if I migrate to Joomla 1.7. If any of my techie friends have any good advice on what to do, please leave a comment, or send me an email or PM. Because of my physical problems, I have to go for a solution which doesn’t make me do too much work in front of a computer.
