Planning for Mini-Migration - Joomla 3.10.x to 4.x
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Going from Joomla 3.10 to 4.x is considered a mini-migration or a minor migration. This means that Joomla core extensions will upgrade with a “one-click update” but third-party extensions are debatable and need to be taken on a case by case basis.
Intro
Migrations are a great time to reassess goals, clean up, and develop other areas/elements of your site. The more organised you can be with your ideas/thoughts/plans the better. Plan, plan, plan. Planning makes execution easier.
Start planning by asking the following questions or doing the tasks listed below. You may have more items to plan for depending on the complexity of your site. Sadly, there is no way we can list every possible scenario. Closer to the time we will set up a specific Joomal 4.x Migration Forum similar to previous major versions of Joomla.
Planning Action Items
- Assess your original site goals. Migration is an opportunity to get back into focus with your goals or change direction.
- Does your server meet the minimum technical requirements for Joomla 4? If not, you will need to change hosts. No better time to change hosts then during a migration.
- What kind of development environment will you use? A development environment on your local device? A subdomain or subdirectory on your server? A new server/hosting account due to technical specifications?
- Make a list of all third-party extensions in use. This includes components, modules, plugins, languages, and templates. You may use the Third-Party Extension Inventory Worksheet or just copy/paste them into a document for reference, or a paper and pen works too. Include if these extensions are used heavily, moderately, hardly ever, or not at all.
- Determine whether the third-party extensions you rely on are ready for the version of Joomla you are migrating to by selecting the Joomla Next option in the Joomla Update Component and checking if they show compatibility with Joomla 4.
- Determine if you really need all the extensions you are using. Could it be that Joomla 4 has built in features that could eliminate the use of a third-party extension?
- Take a look at your Categories and Articles. Is there clean-up that needs to be done so that you don’t migrate unnecessary content?
- What about your template? If you purchased your template from a third-party source, is there a 4.x version released for it? Would you like to continue using it? Is there an upgrade path published by the developer? Is the new version of it responsive? Is your template a custom template? Or was it heavily customised from a third-party template? For an expansion of Template based considerations, see Template Considerations During Migration.
- If you are changing out your template for a new one, will it require any new images? For example, if your current site has a white background and your logo or other images are .jpg images with a white background it won’t look very nice against a new template with an off-white or coloured background.
- If you redesign or make changes to your site design or navigation, will you have obsolete pages that will require a redirect?