Module development and code questions

I've got a custom filter that I use to process nodes written in a special purpose XML language. This all works nice and now I want to take control over the syndication.

As far as I can understand, drupal automatically uses the function node_teaser() to decide wath to include from a node during syndication.

I've set the teaser lengt to unlimited, otherwise the XML will break. This causes the RSS feed(s) to show the whole filtered node.

I regularly check for module updates on the site but find this very time consuming and tedious. I was thinking about ways to simplify this process. I have come up with two solutions:

1. Account tracking

When you login to drupal.org and download a module, its details should be added to your profile. This would allow notifications to be emailed to you when a module is updated.

2. An update module

Greetings. Until yesterday, I had a good thing going with Taxonomy. It was simple, effective, and I didn't have to worry about it coming home drunk one night and putting it's fist through the wall.

Then out of the blue, someone introduces me to Category. Of course it seemed like a good idea at the time, as these things go. Category was impressive from the start, nearly brimming with confidence and heartfelt promises. In fact, I really dig its complexity; almost admire its daunting nature.

I'm creating a module that adds my own fields to the registration page using hook_user(). I'm trying to make it so that which fields are created depends on whether a $_SESSION variable is set, so I have the following (simplified down) code called from hook_user() when $op = 'register':

function dm_teams_register_teams($edit, $account, $category) {
  if($_SESSION['dm_teams']['tid']) {
    $form['team']['tid'] = array(
      '#type' => 'hidden',
      '#value' => $_SESSION['dm_teams']['tid'],
    );
    unset($_SESSION['dm_teams']['tid']);
  }  elseif($_SESSION['dm_teams']['new_team']) {
    $form['team']['name'] = array(
      '#type' => 'textfield',
      '#title' => t('Team Name'),
      '#size' => 60,
      '#maxlength' => 100,
      '#required' => TRUE,
    );
    unset($_SESSION['dm_teams']['new_team']);
  } else {
    $form['team']['find'] = array(
      '#type' => 'button',
      '#value' => 'Find a Team',
      '#submit' => FALSE,
    );
  }
  return $form;
}

It shows up very nicely the first time, but then if there are errors, no matter what the else statement shows up (because the $_SESSION vars have been unset). Not only that, but I checked the $edit array in my validate function, hook_user($op = 'validate'), and the information that was in $form['team']['tid'] or $form['team']['name'] does not appear. I do not understand that because the form generated fine.

I'd like to start extending drupal with a catalog module.

I don't think using nodes for the catalog items (like the ecommerce module does) is the right way to go because:

• I need to update articles regularly (once a day, maybe deleting all and recreating them)
• there's a huge number of articles (more than 10K)

Since it's a couple of weeks that I read documentation but didn't find something similar, I don't know which direction to take, i.e. using nodes for the whole catalog or categories, or using taxonomy for categories or ...

Hi all,

I think would be useful adding a class to links in event.module (lines 39-43). With a class, you can add for example a background icon like this:

month [icon] | week [icon] | day [icon] | list [icon]

What do you think about?