Update: Drupal 6.0 Release Candidate 1 is available now!

Following on the third beta release two weeks ago, we are ready to present Drupal 6.0 beta 4. Since the previous beta release, we have committed over 80 fixes to the Drupal 6.x code. This beta version includes some usability improvements and lots of bug fixes for issues which the testers and contributed module upgraders encountered. The first beta announcement provided a comprehensive list of high level improvements made since Drupal 5.x, so in this announcement we'll concentrate on how you can help ensure that Drupal 6 is released as soon as possible and is as rock solid as the previous Drupal releases that you've grown to love!

Changes made since the release of Drupal 6.0 beta 3 include several multilingual support fixes, caching improvements, more clear help texts, drag and drop support for book outlines, user profile administration, taxonomy pages and file uploads, and fixes to node teaser generation. With the right to left version of the pushbutton theme, we also completed RTL support for all core themes. We have also hardened the security of the system, closing potential cross site scripting (XSS) and cross site request forgery (CSRF) security holes. This beta release also includes the security updates released in Drupal 5.4 and 4.7.9.

The what now?

With the repeated success of the Google Summer of Code, Google has announced the Google Highly Open Participation Contest (GHOP) for pre-university students involved in all aspects of open source development. Drupal has been chosen as one of the ten projects participating in the new pilot program, which means we need you!

So if you're aged 13-18, or know someone who is, come join in the fun of improving Drupal! Sign up for a drupal.org account, and join the Drupal GHOP Group. We are looking for all varieties of contribution, from development to bug fixing to writing documentation to doing user-experience research.

Calling all designers!

Packt Publishing, who recently donated $5,000 to the Drupal Association after Drupal won the 2007 Overall Open Source CMS Award, announces a new book, Drupal 5 Themes by Ric Shreves. A description from the publisher:

This book is the ideal introduction to theming with Drupal 5. If you want to create a striking new look for your Drupal website, this book is for you. Starting from the basics of theme setup and configuration, you will learn about the Drupal theming architecture and the PHPTemplate engine, and then move on to modifying existing themes and building new themes from scratch. Included is a complete guide to the various style sheets and themeable functions in Drupal 5, making this book a valuable resource even to experienced theme developers. It covers:

• Creating custom templates
• Basics of theming in pure PHP
• Modifying an existing PHPTemplate theme— a step-by-step guide
• Creating a new PHPTemplate theme—a step-by-step guide
• Working with forms

Update: Drupal 6.0 Beta 4 is available now!

With another month of active beta testing, our code is growing more stable by the day. Since Drupal 6 beta 2 was released, we have committed over 180 fixes to the Drupal 6.x code, so we are proud to announce the release of the third beta version of Drupal 6.x for your testing. This beta version includes usability improvements and lots of bug fixes for issues which the testers encountered. The first beta announcement provided a comprehensive list of high level improvements made since Drupal 5.x, so in this announcement we'll concentrate on how you can help ensure that Drupal 6 is released as soon as possible and is as rock solid as the previous Drupal releases that you've grown to love!

Major changes made since the release of Drupal 6 beta 2 include several code and interface documentation fixes and improvements, HTML validity fixes, performance improvements and easier to use templating. The core system now also runs without table locks and temporary tables, making Drupal usable in more shared hosting environments, and also improving performance at the same time. Localization support in the installer is now complete, as well as error reporting and requirements management through the installation process. One of the major usability improvements in this beta release is the addition of drag and drop ordering support to the blocks, menus and filter formats administration interface.

50 Drupal Tips and Tricks is the title of Lullabot's 50th Drupal podcast. The team has assembled a list of pointers for beginners and experts alike. A useful list of additional tips is starting to emerge as people expand on the list in the comments.