Module development and code questions

Can someone recommend a good, free or not too expensive php debugger? I think it would be a lot easier to learn drupal programming with a debugger.

Thanks!

How do I invoke the search module programatically. I know the node category(defined vocab/term) and node type (story) and I know the search key.

How do I call it programatically?

Thanks!

First of all... I don't know if this is the right place to post this topic; in case it isn't, please accept my apologies and feel free to move it.

I'm currently developing a weblog/community based on drupal, so the last few days were pretty intense in terms of themeing, installing and configurating modules, etc.

So far, this project consists of the two papers below, with development most likely beginning on Monday, June 18. The originals, Current Status of "Related Links" Modules and Best Related Links Plan can be found at http://www.openject.com/?q=node/30 and http://www.openject.com/?q=node/31 respectively. It is being sponsored by Co-op Tools for Ashoka.org with research and development by Openject Consulting.

1. Current Status of "Related Links" Modules
2. Best Related Links Plan

Current Status of "Related Links" Modules

Currently, several Drupal modules provide functionality for displaying related web links that are node specific. The Best Related Links project wishes to find or develop a module that will show these links in a block. Ideally, this module will meet the project's objectives.

As a step in that process, this report was written to investigate the pre-existing modules and provide research on them. We'd like to know what they to, how they work, their development status, and their popularity. For more information on the project and its goals, please have a look at the project's web page located at http://ashoka-dev.org/wiki/BestRelatedLinks.

This report also aims to be a tool for the community. Hopefully, it will provide information to others that have similar or related objectives, and allow for further research and development in this area. These questions have been raised before and discussed previously. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Don't really have time to properly lobby for this feature at the moment, other than to say there are countless situations where personal contact forms are worthless if only registered users can access them.

Here's the feature request http://drupal.org/node/69395 with full info and code example that I'm trying to figure out.

How do I detect everytime a profile field is edited and then notify site admin. The module http://drupal.org/node/67084 already has a function at the end that notifies site admin everytime someone new registers. It uses this code