IndieCommunication: BEA Education Materials Available, Group 1 Prep

The IndieCommerce sessions held at BookExpo America last week were well attended, but for those who were unable to make it, all the documents that were presented at the sessions have been uploaded to the IndieCommerce section of Designs and Downloads on BookWeb.org.

The sessions included the following:

State of the Upgrade

The FAQ section of d7.indiecommerce.com covers many of the points touched upon at this discussion.  Additionally, Neil Strandberg, ABA Director of Technology, has resumed his twice-weekly State of the Upgrade conference calls. Sign up here to participate in a call.

Preparing Your Site for the Upgrade

Though it is not required, cleaning up the store site is helpful. This session details best practices on content review, including what to remove and what not to remove.

To read a PDF of the full presentation, click here.

Drupal 7: A Sneak Peek!

To aid the transition into the Drupal 7 environment, the IndieCommerce team has provided a list of commonly accessed pages and where to find them in the new admin toolbar.  The handout also outlines features of the new WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) module, CKEditor.  

Click here to download a PDF of the handout.

For a live demo of CKEditor, click here. (Note: The demo widget on the CKSource website will differ slightly from the widget in the actual IndieCommerce installation).

Choosing a Theme and Redesign 101

While most stores have the option to keep their current theme, others will select a new theme, either by choice or necessity. This session covers themes plus general best practices and menu organization. It is recommended that booksellers review the full presentation first to provide greater context for some of the handouts.

Click here for the complete presentation in PDF format.

Theme Selection Resources

• D7 Theme Introduction: Includes informational chart of each theme.
• Overview of Block Regions: Provides screenshots of the block regions available in each theme. This will assist users in selecting a layout with their desired structure.
• Blank Layout Templates: Blank layout worksheets to help plan the look and feel of your website.  These formats are just examples; feel free to grab a pen and paper to create a custom layout.

Conceptual Resources

• Menu Structure Worksheets: These worksheets provide areas to help get your menu organized.  Choose what you would like in your main menu navigation, what may be better suited in the sidebar, or what should appear at the bottom of the page.
• Best Practices Questionnaire: The migration to the Drupal 7 interface is the perfect opportunity to enhance your site, both visually and conceptually. Our team has compiled a self-assessment questionnaire to help brainstorm ideas, and to define the strengths and weaknesses of your current website.

Booksellers who attended any of the upgrade sessions at BEA or participated in a one-on-one are asked to take a short survey about their experiences, available here.

Group 1, Get Ready!

In the second week of May, all stores were mailed a group assignment to give them a sense of where they fall in the migration. 

The IndieCommerce team has been performing test migrations and is currently working out the last-minute details of the new installation. The upgrade procedure will be explained in full detail to all stores next week in a special edition of IndieCommunication.

How will it work for Group 1?

• All Group 1 stores will be contacted via e-mail in the next two weeks with detailed instructions. The e-mail will come from [email protected].
• Migration of Group 1 sites will be based on theme and will begin with the most popular themes that are active on Group 1 sites.
• If a store theme does not have an upgrade path to Drupal 7 and store staff is not ready to select a new Drupal 7 theme, the site will be provided in the D7 default theme, Bartik.
• After the initial migration, stores will be encouraged to sign up for an hour-long training session. Likely, the session will not take the full hour allotted. There will be multiple time slots available.
• There will be two stages to each migration: an initial transfer to port all non-order content into the Drupal 7 environment, then all order information will be transferred in a second migration when your Drupal 7 site is ready to launch.