Drupal 7.x

Hi,
I am building a content structure for project-oriented portfolio site with drupal7. I have custom content type "Project". Fields include type, year, status, ect... The problem I am having is that I would like to add field for collaborators, and I would like users to specify both the name of the collaborator and the role. For example, a project might have 10 collaborators, each of which played specific roles (possible roles are not finite or unique). This is what I would like the Add Project form to look like:

name: [ some project ]
type: [ some type ]
year: [ 1998 ]
location: [ Seattle ]

collaborator: [ Jack, Jill ] role: [ Photography ]
collaborator: [ Bill ] role: [ Energy Consultant ]
etc...

This seems like precisely the kind of thing with a very natural solution for node-based cms. For example, having a "location" field of type "location" (not text) that consists of city, state, etc...What are options for implementing this structure. some possibilities:

1. It seems like node-reference field type would work with a simple "contributor" content type composed of two text fields (names and role), but not sure how node reference module works. and I would NOT want to reference an existing node but create a new one and use it to effect a compound field entry. also don't think node reference has been implemented for 7.x

I believe many image handling functions are now to be included in the Drupal 7 core. From what I can see there will not be an image cropping user interface included - i.e. user chooses cropping area of uploaded image to fit with a given preset (or whatever the new term is). Can anyone suggest a good way forward on this?

What does everyone use for Drupal 6? A module or 'inserted' javascript stuff?

I want to be able to access the node object for a page (if there is one) from the code for a block displayed on that page.

The writeup on contexts on the Panels project page says

For example, when displaying the node view, NID argument on the page is converted into a context through the 'arguments' system. You can then create a relationship from that node to, say, the node author, or if you have a node reference from CCK, a related node [as of CCK 2.3]. Once the contexts are in place, content specifically about those contexts can be placed. For the node context you can add CCK fields, the node body, attached files and a host of other information that can be provided by plugins. For the user context you can display things like the user picture or profile.

which leads me to believe that CTools or Panels (probably CTools) provides a way to get to this data.

I have had a look at the CTools, Panels and Context modules - they provide all sorts of cool, complex functionality. I can find information on how to make block display conditional on characteristics of a node from code or through the GUI. I can't find an example of how to do something as simple as access the node object though.

Could someone please provide me with a code sample for this task or a reference on where to find one?

Hi,
I'm getting the following error message during database init in install:

SQLSTATE[HY000]: General error: 2006 MySQL server has gone away .

I have quite a few questions to ask you all.

I have already a dreamweaver-made website up and running. Now, I would like to convert it to Drupal to add more functionality. What shall I do if I want to replace this dreamweaver-made site with Drupal-made site with minimum service interupption. I would like to keep the content of most of this original site, the SEO and the ability for the user to keep accessing this site while a replacement site is being built.

Hello,

I created a taxonomy list with countries and cities in it and used it as a menu items with 2 levels.
Ex:
Country a
City a
City b
City c
Country b
City a
City b
City c
The link goes to a view who receives the 2 args. country/city which generates a list of items for that city.