Module development and code questions

I'm using node_example to help me develop a module for video game reviews. At one point, the form hook references $body $title etc, am I to assume that all nodes require these fields and that they are stored in the main table for nodes? Am I also to understand that I don't need to write any code to have the fields inserted into the database (following the node_example.module file outline). From my POV then, developing a "new" node via module is really just an extension of the existing node system and includes all the basic node stuff.

Just curious if anyone is interested in a Drupal module to integrate your smugmug gallery into your site? I've started work on a drupal module which i've called smugmug.module, but I haven't quite released it. I consider it alpha code at this stage.

For that don't know, smugmug is much like flickr, but more advanced. Check it out, smugmug.com. If you decide to sign up, use my coupon code so 1) you get $5 off, 2) I get a few bucks to encourage me to develop smugmug. I'm not employed with smugmug, nor affilated in anyway other than I wanted my smugmug galleries integrated into my website. :-) Coupon code: qgSctxuKhAiAE

About the module I have so far:

• The module uses the xmlrpc.inc file to handle XML requests/responses to/from the smugmug API system.
• Random image block- Due to the load time of getting all image ID's from smugmug, the block selects 5 random galleries to pull random images from for that page load. At first, was getting image ID's of all albums, but this took a very long long.
• Input filter, much like flickr.module. Simply insert {{smugmug:1111111}} where 111111 is the ID of the image you want displayed in your node/blog/page/etc. This will get you a thumbnail size. You can also use {{smugmugY:11111}} where Y is the size of the image you want, T (tini), S (small), M (medium), L (Large), O (Original). These are the smugmug API sizes. Smugmug also allows you do dynamically request the image at any size. So, Y can also be a number such as {{smugmug201:11111}} and you'll get an image that it's largest side will be 201 pixels, the other side will be scaled down to the proper ratio. Pretty sweet. This allows you to have any size image on your node/page/forum post/book/etc.
  

My Drupal installation runs on mysql. However, one of my modules needs access to a pgsql db. I describe new db in settings.php but when I call db_set_active('mypgsqldb'), drupal dies with
Fatal error: Cannot redeclare db_connect() (previously declared in /home/username/public_html/drupal/includes/database.mysql.inc:23) in /home/username/public_html/drupal/includes/database.pgsql.inc on line 71

I'm fairly new to drupal, not new to PHP. I notice a very common pattern in module development when creating form inputs of various types:

$form['formname'] = array(
'#type' => 'checkbox',
'#title' => t('Overwrite'),
'#return_value' => 1,
'#default_value' => false,
'#description' => t('Overwrite the file if it exists.'),
);

I just installed the FlatForum module on Drulpal 4.7.0. I had some problems with combining the template.php (there were two function _phptemplate_variables which resulted in an error), but I think I got it to work.

However, I do not see the avatar picture below the user name in a post. When I click on the user name I can see the picture, but not in the forum. In the node-forum.tpl.php I can see the code:

Has anyone looked into useing Drupal to provide a REST API for end users.

seems like it would be fairly clean and easy to do.

I was looking into a module that would allow me to pick a node and what fields could be exported for a REST url.

say I have a node like a playlist.
I could create url http://www.example.com/REST/view/playlist
and then pick the fields to export such as
Title
Artist
Genre
Year