Drupal 7 Module Development has been published by Packt, just in time for the release of Drupal 7. This book provides in-depth coverage of key elements of Drupal 7 and is designed for professional developers. Every chapter provides fully functional code samples illustrating the APIs and strategies discussed in the chapter. With this foundation, developers can quickly build sophisticated tools on their own by making use of the strategies and techniques exemplified in this book.

If you are a PHP developer or a Drupal user looking to dive into Drupal development then you will find this book an excellent introduction to coding within Drupal. Those with some Drupal experience will also find this an invaluable tool for updating their knowledge about the powerful new features of Drupal 7. Theme developers looking to extend their abilities will find this an accessible introduction to PHP coding within the Drupal environment.

About the book

The co-authors of the book have been collaborating since summer of 2009. We tried to write the book that we wanted, but could not find, when we started working on Drupal 6. That is, we tried to cover some of the more complex topics and bigger changes in the newest version of Drupal.

Hello from your friendly neighbourhood Drupal Docs co-leads!

It's been an action-packed December in the Drupal Docs world. Drupal 7 is poised to be released in the next few weeks, and we’ve been focusing accordingly on getting the Drupal 7 documentation ready. In addition, Addison Berry (outgoing docs lead) used the last chunk of her Knight Foundation grant to fund a planning meeting and sprint in Vancouver in early December. At the planning meeting, the incoming and outgoing documentation team leadership got together with a few Drupal.org redesign and infrastructure people to make plans and set realistic goals for the next year. We followed this up with an all-day documentation sprint that was open to the general documentation community, with participants both in Vancouver and around the world in IRC. Thanks to all who participated!

One of our goals as new documentation team leaders is to post regular status updates, in order to communicate our goals and plans, what we’ve been doing, and what we’re hoping to accomplish with your help. This will be the first of our quarterly updates, and the sections below outline some of the short-term and longer-term priorities of the Documentation Team. Since this is our first official communication, we have a lot to catch up on!

Update: Drupal 7.0 Release Candidate 4 is available now!

We are proud to present to you the third (and likely final) release candidate of Drupal 7.0. Big news since last time!

1. We're back down to 0 critical issues again!
2. We've announced a January 5 release date for Drupal 7!
3. There are release parties being thrown worldwide on January 7. Please set one up in your town! (tips)

So. It's officially GO time for final testing! Something to keep you busy over the holidays. :)

Since the last release candidate two weeks ago, we have fixed numerous bugs, improved the AJAX framework, field UI etc. Also alternate database systems have seen serious improvement thanks to http://ci.drupal.org/. PostgreSQL 9.0 now installs without errors, and we have 100% tests passing on SQLite! And files[] is no longer required in .info files for each file! Only if the file in question registers a class or interface. $cruft--;

For the full list of changes, see the release notes.

The first alpha announcement provided a comprehensive list of high level improvements made since Drupal 6.x, so in this announcement we'll concentrate on how you can help ensure that Drupal 7 is released as soon as possible and is as rock solid as the previous Drupal releases that you've grown to love!

There are a number of modules already ported to Drupal 7 for your testing pleasure. You can keep tabs on whether or not your site is ready for Drupal 7 by using the Upgrade Status module. If you are a translator, now is the time to start working on your translations. If you are a module or theme maintainer, now is the time to start working on the update to Drupal 7! Read on for more details.

Ultralingua, Inc. is a software company that makes products for people who love languages. Their website is a place for people to access a free online dictionary, download product trials, and purchase software for personal use. It is also a hub of information for business partners and offers a technical support section for customers.

Ultralingua competes in the market for software-based language tools such as dictionaries, spellers and grammar checkers. Their customers include teachers, students, translators, and multi-lingual professionals from a host of industries. They also sell to many organizations including HarperCollins, the Government of Canada, Hachette Multimedia, netTrekker, and Texthelp who purchase site licenses and embed OEM, APIs, and web versions of their products.

Ultralingua began work to transition to Drupal in 2009, and launched their new Drupal-based site in early 2010.

Goals

Drupal 6.20, a maintenance release fixing issues reported through the bug tracking system, is now available for download. There are no security fixes in this release. Upgrading your existing Drupal 6 sites is recommended.