Alexander on Web Development

 

The Drupal Content Creation Kit module, a.k.a. CCK current stable release is the 2.x branch. CCK allows Drupal developers to create database fields from a web interface with ease. Tight off the shelf integration with the Views module allows developers to further tweak how data entered via CCK created fields are presented to the end users. The 3.x development branch of the CCK project brings a new interesting and often needed feature - multigroup support. I for example have a use case in which a end user has to:

1. Create a user account
2. Upload a document
3. Populate some (CCK) fields with details about himself and his document

The first Drupal 7 alpha release was released in December 2009. [Drupal 7.0 Alpha 2 released recently got released](http://drupal.org/drupal-7.0-alpha2). Once Drupalistas are able to upgrade their Drupal 6 installation to Drupal 7 successfully the community is switching to Beta releases, but at the moment [there are a number of open issues regarding the upgrade that must be fixed first](http://drupal.org/project/issues/search/drupal?status[]=Open&issue_tags=D7+upgrade+path).

These are my recommended readings for people that want to learn Drupal or further enhance their knowledge of this content management system. - Beighley, Lynn (2009). Drupal for Dummies. New York: For Dummies. [Amazon link](http://www.amazon.com/Drupal-Dummies-Lynn-Beighley/dp/0470556110/) - VanDyk, John K. (2008). Pro Drupal Development, Second Edition. New York: Springer Verlag/Apress. [Amazon link](http://www.amazon.com/Drupal-Development-Second-John-VanDyk/dp/1430209895/) - Peacock, Michael (2008).

One of the newspapers I most admire both in content and design, souitu.es, announced recently that they closed shop. According to their farewell message their Spain-based crew of 22 writers, media editors and programmers could not resist the economic downturn. I thank Souitu for the inspiration they brought to me and the Diálogo Digital team since 2008. They will be missed.

The [Interaction Design Association](http://http://www.ixda.org/ "Interaction Design Association") or IXDA for short, is a professional network of more than 15,000 members and 80 local groups around the world. IXDA was founded in 2003 and provides an online forum for the discussion of interaction design issues. Their redesign was performed by [Growing Venture Solutions](http://growingventuresolutions.com/ "Growing Venture Solutions Web site"), one of United States most respected Drupal consulting firms.