Planning for Mini-Migration - Joomla 3.10.x to 4.x

From Joomla! Documentation

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Going from Joomla 3.10.x 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[edit]

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. Please post to the Migrating and Upgrading to Joomla 4.x Forum for assistance.

The 3.10.x Bridge[edit]

Joomla 3.10.x is intended to be a bridge between the Joomla 3 life cycle and the Joomla 4 life cycle. Joomla 3.10.x will primarily be a release containing backports of API changes from the Joomla 4.x development branch to help ease the transition to the next major release for the community. New to Joomla 3.10.x is an excellent feature to the Joomla! Update component to help you with your mini-migration process: the Pre-Update Check. Once your website is updated to 3.10, the pre-update check will allow you to check the compatibility with Joomla 4.0 of your PHP and SQL options, settings, and the extensions you are using as long as extension developers utilised the targetplatform tag. See Pre-Update Check documentation for more.

Planning Action Items[edit]

The following assumes that you have already updated your Joomla 3.x site to version 3.10.x. This will allow you to take advantage of the Pre-Update Checker as part of your planning.

  1. Make sure your website is running 3.10.x.
  2. Assess your original site goals. Migration is an opportunity to get back into focus with your goals or change direction.
  3. 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 than during a migration.
  4. 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?
  5. Make a list of all third-party extensions in use. This includes components, modules, plugins, languages, and templates. You may 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.
  6. 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 (once running Joomla 3.10.x) in the Joomla Update Component and checking if they show compatibility with Joomla 4. Don’t run the update to 4.x, just select Joomla Next in the Joomla Update Options so that the Pre-Update Checker can display. This will help you get a summary view of extensions in use and their compatibility. It is not a substitute for still needing to use Extensions → Manage. More on that in the Step-by-Step and the documentation for the Pre-Update Check component. This is simply to get prepared on what third-party extensions will stay or go or be replaced.
  7. 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?
  8. 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?
  9. 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? The Joomla core template for Joomla 3.x, Protostar is NOT compatible with Joomla 4. Upon migration it will disappear. Using the Joomla core template for Joomla 4.x, Cassiopeia might be an option for you. For an expansion of Template based considerations, see Template Considerations During Migration.
  10. 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.
  11. If you redesign or make changes to your site design or navigation, will you have obsolete pages that will require a redirect? If so, document them. A spreadsheet is helpful for documenting links that will need to change.

Joomla 3.10 to 4.x Step by Step Migration