Drupal 4.7 Overview: What's New

Presenter: James Walker

Link to walkah's slides goes here..

Drupal 4.7 has just been released, with some major changes to the core set of features, as well as APIs and "backend" stuff

New Features: Look Ma, it's Web2.0

• taxonomy system extended to include freetagging features: still within the taxonomy system, so all the niceties of taxonomy.module still apply (feeds, category listings pages, etc)
  • a new host of modules in contrib to display tags/categories (tag clouds, "drill down" stuff, taxonomy context, etc)
• javascript has been brought into core (AJAXy stuff): autocomplete form fields, resizable textareas, upload module attaches files inline
• RSS feeds for just about everything: new config options, standard icon
  • aggregator module now imports Atom feeds
• menu system: create menu items on-the-fly, connects to "primary" and "secondary" links
• search system updated: indexer much better, advanced options (filtering by category, node type, etc)
• mass operations on comments
• custom regions (for themers) for blocks, etc.
• a long list of other stuff..

New Developer Tricks (APIs etc)

• important point to note: the drupal.org handbooks have a pair of pages on how to update to 4.7: Converting 4.6 modules to 4.7 and also Converting 4.6 themes to 4.7

• update.php now handles contrib modules (using new _update hook), and generally makes things easier
• most contrib modules will self-install when enabled (including sql table creation, etc): this is due to the new .install file mechanism
• phptemplate engine is now in core (xtemplate is gone)
• node revisions are handled differently: all custom data fields are JOINed against a version id (vid) rather than a node id (nid), so they can be versioned along with the title/body content
• input security mechanism overhaul: filter everything on output (helps avoid XSS problems, etc)
• forms API: major overhaul for handling all forms (see Forms API Handbook for more info), and/or attend walkah's next session going in-depth
  • big change: all forms begin as a giant nested array, defining properties (rather than a giant list of form_ functions to generate html). this allows nice things like "required" fields and security checking, that the API can handle automatically
  • you can manipulate forms on-the-fly: customize any form by simply implementing a couple of hooks (rather than hacking core) and tweaking the form's array before it gets displayed
  • themeing forms becomes much easier, because you are handed abstract form elements, rather than a big chunk of html: theme individual form elements, entire forms, or entire classes of form elements
  • form processing flow changed: display the form, submit button is clicked, validation hook is fired, submit hook is fired
• javascript API

Q & A

• i18n - new hooks in core, but still need contrib modules
• ecommerce is not ready: help is greatly appreciated :)
• webform/survey modules stuff: looking to add a form-building API on top of Forms API
• recommended upgrade path to 4.7: see drupal handbook links above, and use the Form Updater module to kickstart your modules, note your contrib modules, and follow their docs. Don't update a live site!

General Advice: if you want to participate in a free software community, be active in the community; pay attention to where things are at, but also where things are going..