Module development and code questions

So I have a php AJAX handler in a module that I wrote that needs access to the drupal databases. I can't seem to load the drupal_bootstrap() from the modules directory though. If I move the handler into the root drupal directory it works, but it seems that the relitive links to the other includes within the bootstrap process are running relitive to the handler instead of the root index.php file. Here is the error message:

Im trying to use this function to generate a custom menu. It is almost 100% what I want but I dont think it has the ability to tell me if a menu is expanded or not. IE: It gives me all the children, the whole menu. I only want the visible layer. Is there a better function for me to use?

I've got a multipage form that I have working pretty well so far. However, I am using a nodepai module (location) to add form elements that I want to show on the second screen. I want site admins to be able to determine which address components are required, but the handbook says to not set the '#required' flag in hook_form. The following code in mymodule_form_alter does not seem to work:

$form['location']['city']['#required'] = FALSE; 

Note that mymodule's name starts with an "s" and comes after location.

Running drupal 4.7 with google sitemap module showing version 4.7.12 . Mod rewrite enabled and in use.

Problem:

• submitting repeated sitemaps to google produces error of Invalid URL for the first 10 URLs then drops the map.

Actions taken to remedy the situation:

Hello ,

I am putting together a contest module and am currently writing a backend administration page which asks the administrator various questions and then generates the form on a page submission .

I can generate the form on the page submission that works fine and i can store the form in the variables table but what i am not sure how to do at the moment is to how to save the form content as a node and access the node like any other node as /node/1234 for example

Would someone offer some guidance here ?

Best Regards
Paul

Is there any work being done on enabling News Page to work with aggregator2 nodes?

If not, how is it possible to build new node or block containing:

-- the title/teaser of all nodes
-->all items containing user-specified keywords
---->from all nodes of a specific node type
---->from all nodes tagged with a specific category term
unless
-->they contain user-specified 'exclusion keywords'

any help welcomed!