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Content Tagged with Announcements + 6.x
Drupal 6.5 and 5.11 released
Drupal 6.5 and Drupal 5.11, maintenance releases fixing problems reported using the bug tracking system, as well as critical security vulnerabilities, are now available for download.
Upgrading your existing Drupal 5 and 6 sites is strongly recommended. There are no new features in these releases. For more information about the Drupal 6.x release series, consult the Drupal 6.0 release announcement, more information on the 5.x releases can be found in Drupal 5.0 release announcement.
Announcing a New Book: Drupal in Education and E-Learning
Bill Fitzgerald, of FunnyMonkey, has written Drupal for Education and E-learning, due out from Packt Publishing in late October. Targeted for Drupal 6, this book covers how to set up community sites to support interactive teaching and learning. This book gives an overview of the functionality of Drupal core, and then gives precise instructions on using CCK, Views 2, Organic Groups, and a range of other contributed modules to extend the functionality of your site.
This book is written with the needs of educational users in mind, but the information in this book can be useful for site administrators, or for people looking to build a community/social networking site in Drupal.
"Drupal Essential Training" seven-hour video course released by Lynda.com
with: Tom Geller (Publishers bio)
...is now live in the Online Training Library at Lynda.com! Contact me privately via email or comment here if you have a well-known site and would like to publish a review of the full series, and I'll do my best to get you a DVD or free site pass. (It's normally $25/month for access to all their videos, which I think is a really good deal.)
Pro Drupal Development ships for Drupal 6!
The much-anticipated second edition of Pro Drupal Development has shipped! Newly updated and revised for Drupal 6, it includes more than 200 pages of additional content covering the Actions API for automating complex operations, the Batch API tools for managing long or complex processes, and other new tools. As with the first edition, it covers important foundational issues like building modules, working with FormAPI and the node system, using Drupal's search tools, and more. Purchases of the book made through its web site also benefit the Drupal Association.
When Pro Drupal Development was first released in 2007, it was a runaway success, hitting the Amazon.com top 100 in just a few days. As critical tools like Views, CCK, and Drupal are shipping for Drupal 6, the book's release should help give another important boost to the Drupal development community.
Drupal 6.4 and 5.10 released
Drupal 6.4 and Drupal 5.10, maintenance releases fixing problems reported using the bug tracking system, as well as critical security vulnerabilities, are now available for download.
Upgrading your existing Drupal 5 and 6 sites is strongly recommended. There are no new features in these releases. For more information about the Drupal 6.x release series, consult the Drupal 6.0 release announcement, more information on the 5.x releases can be found in Drupal 5.0 release announcement.
2008 Open Source CMS Award launched - Drupal fans, get voting!
Packt has launched the third annual Open Source CMS Award today, giving fans of Drupal an opportunity to help them defend their title, which they won last year, collecting a first prize of $5,000.
The first stage of the Award is a call for nominations, which enables fans to nominate their favourite Open Source CMS. The five Content Management System's that receive the most nominations in each category will go through to the final stage of voting, which starts at the beginning of September, so your nomination counts!
To ensure that Drupal makes it through to the final voting stage, submit your nomination for Drupal here: www.PacktPub.com/article/nominate-overall-open-source-cms-winner/system/Drupal
New Drupal Book: Drupal Multimedia!
Aaron Winborn, of Advomatic and Embedded Media Field fame, has completed writing Drupal Multimedia, to be published by Packt Publishing this September (and you can pre-order now)! Packt will be donating a portion of the royalties to the Drupal Association, in keeping with their long-standing policy of supporting the Open Source community.
Written for Drupal 6, this book is a comprehensive overview of integrating multimedia into your Drupal-powered web site. With hands-on examples and tutorials, the book is written for site developers, themers, and administrators. The book makes no assumptions about your skill level, although one should probably already have an understanding of Drupal and how to set up and configure a basic site. The book will guide you through its topics, gently moving the reader from basic concepts such as module set-up, to intermediate techniques such as creating views, to advanced methods such as writing jQuery and custom modules.
Drupal 6.3 and 5.9 released, fixing security issues
Update: Drupal 5.9 has been released to correct a vulnerability that was inadvertantly left in Drupal 5.8.
Drupal 6.3 and Drupal 5.8, maintenance releases fixing problems reported using the bug tracking system, as well as security vulnerabilities, are now available for download. Drupal 6.3 also includes some changes to the installer to prevent file ownership issues on shared hosts; upgrades jQuery to version 1.2.6; improves PostreSQL compatibility; fixes performance issues in search, menu and form API and contains a variety of other small improvements. It should also be noted that the Views for Drupal 6 release candidate requires Drupal 6.3 to run properly.
Upgrading your existing Drupal 5 and 6 sites is strongly recommended. There are no new features in these releases, but we fixed some notable performance issues too. For more information about the Drupal 6.x release series, consult the Drupal 6.0 release announcement, more information on the 5.x releases can be found in Drupal 5.0 release announcement.
New Drupal DVD/Video - Understanding Drupal
Understanding Drupal is the first video in The Lullabot Learning Series. This video provides an overview of Drupal as a content management system, as a PHP web application framework, and as a developer community. Its documentary-style exploration covers all the terminology and fundamental concepts for both site administrators and developers. If you've ever been confused by Drupal or are still trying to wrap your head around the community and platform, this video is intended as a roadmap to accelerate your journey up the Drupal learning curve.
Lullabots Addison Berry (add1sun), Angela Byron (webchick), Jeff Eaton (eaton), Nathan Haug (quicksketch), Jeff Robbins (jjeff), James Walker (walkah), and Matt Westgate (matt westgate) sit down to tell us about Drupal in this video directed and edited by Kent Bye (kentbye). A portion of the profits from this video will be donated directly to the Drupal Association.
Topics include...
New Drupal Book: Learning Drupal 6 Module Development
Developing new modules for Drupal 6? Porting older modules? Packt Publishing has just released a new book, Learning Drupal 6 Module Development, by Matt Butcher. This book is targeted toward PHP programmers interested in Drupal 6 module development.
The book takes a hands-on approach. Each chapter walks through the development of a module, theme, or installation profile. As the reader progresses through the book, she or he will be able to create increasingly sophisticated Drupal modules.
If you're new to Drupal development (but have PHP development experience), this book will get you developing modules right away. Are you a more seasoned Drupal developer just looking to get some modules updated? This book focuses on many of the new features, changes, and improvements made in Drupal 6. Check out the sample chapter Creating Our First Module (1.3M PDF) to get a feel for how the book is written.
Announcing Drupal's Summer of Code 2008 projects and students
We are thrilled to announce that Google will be sponsoring 21 Drupal projects for Summer of Code 2008. We'd like to extend our sincere thanks to Google, who are making more than a $100,000 investment in the Drupal project.
This year particularly, there were many more projects that we would've liked to accept than we were able to (probably due at least in part to changes Drupal made to its SoC application process this year). The mentoring team deliberated fiercely over the past two weeks, and arrived at the final acceptance list detailed in the "read more" link.
Many of the projects this year build on work done during previous Summer of Codes. Drupal core will benefit from a new aggregator, improved search scoring, OpenID attribute exchange, revamped help system and color module, SimpleTest security scanner and generalized Validation API. There are also projects focused on improvements to the Drupal.org infrastructure, including ApacheSolr search, version control API, and the much demanded plugin manager for secure, automated updating of module and themes.
Some of Drupal's major contributed modules will also gain, including Views as widgets, Views RDF/XML/JSON output, Views & CCK chart support, extensions to Nodequeue and OAuth support for Services.
There's also a healthy component of brand new functionality, including an image manipulation GUI, memetracker, bookings API, Icon module, document import module and Usability testing suite.
If you'd like to keep up on Summer of Code happenings, would like to volunteer to help test students' projects, and/or would like to help students as they find their way in our community, please join the SoC 2008 working group and help out in whatever ways you can. Also check out Planet SoC to read blog entries from Summer of Code students across all mentoring organizations.
Here's to another great summer! :) Read on to find more details about Drupal's accepted proposals.
Drupal 6.2 released, fixing security issues
Drupal 6.2, a maintenance release that fixes problems reported using the bug tracking system, as well as security vulnerabilities is now available for download. The security issues identified were in code new to Drupal 6, and are therefore not applicable to sites running on Drupal 5.
Upgrading your existing Drupal 6 sites is strongly recommended. There are no new features in this release, but we fixed some notable performance issues too. For more information about the Drupal 6.x release series, consult the Drupal 6.0 release announcement.
New Drupal Book Published: Building Powerful and Robust Websites with Drupal 6 by David Mercer
Given the success of David Mercer's first Drupal title for beginners, Packt has published a new and improved edition to go with the latest release of Drupal. The new book, still targetted at beginners and intermediates, builds on its predecessor to provide a steeper launching ramp for everyone who still feels they're not yet a pro.
Changes to the new version include:
- Slimmed down writing, to provide faster flowing and more concentrated information
- Updates to all the original text to reflect the enhanced features of D6
- Vastly expanded the range of topics
- Increased the depth and level of coverage for many topics
Despite the fact that I have cut out quite a bit of the old text and trimmed that which remained, the new version is over 330 pages. This gives you an idea of how much new material went into this edition in order to bring it up to speed with this most impressive of Drupal releases. This new book is as much an overhaul of the last as Drupal 6 is over Drupal 4.7.
I hope that this title will meet the following goals that I have personally set for it:
- To help lower the intellectual "price of admission" into the Drupal fan club
Drupal 6.1 fixing security issues released
Drupal 6.1, a maintenance release that fixes problems reported using the bug tracking system, as well as security vulnerabilities is now available for download. The security issues identified were in code new to Drupal 6, and are therefore not applicable to sites running on Drupal 5.
Upgrading your existing Drupal 6 sites is strongly recommended. There are no new features in this release. For more information about the Drupal 6.x release series, consult the Drupal 6.0 release announcement.
Drupal 6.0 released
After one year of development we are ready to release Drupal 6.0 to the world. Thanks to the tireless work of the Drupal community, over 1,600 http://drupal.org/project/issues?projects=3060&versions=97368,219510,216... --> issues have been resolved during the Drupal 6.0 release cycle. These changes are evident in Drupal 6's major usability improvements, security and maintainability advancements, friendlier installer, and expanded development framework. Further, from bug fix to feature request, these issues follow-through on the Drupal project's continued commitment to deliver flexibility and power to themers and developers.
Today, Drupal powers sites including the homepages of Warner Brothers Records, The New York Observer, Fast Company, Popular Science, and Amnesty International and project sites by SonyBMG, Forbes, Harvard University, and more. Drupal can be used to create personal weblogs (Tim Berners-Lee), deliver podcasts (TWIT.tv), connect online communities (SpreadFireFox.com), form artist collectives (Terminus 1525) or inform the masses (The Onion).
Drupal 6.0 RC4 released
We are proud to present the fourth release candidate of Drupal 6.0. Building on the extensive testing of the third release candidate, we have discovered and fixed a number of critical issues, including errors during search indexing in languages with accented characters, the display of unpublished content in menus and book outlines, and localized menu data being saved into the database. Thanks to the cooperation between the jQuery and Drupal communities, we have also updated the version of jQuery to be included with Drupal 6 to the latest 1.2.3 release. I want to publicly thank jQuery's John Resig and his team for providing a new jQuery release in time for Drupal 6!
Although I had hoped that the third release candidate would be our last before Drupal 6's official release, our priority is to ensure that Drupal 6 is the fastest, most stable, and feature-filled version of Drupal yet. We've translated your experiences with the previous release candidates (including my own upgrade of drupal.hu) into a number of bug fixes, and will be watching closely for any other last-minute issues. I'm again hopeful that this will be the final release candidate before the official release of Drupal 6.0.
The first beta announcement provided a comprehensive list of high level improvements made since Drupal 5.x, so this announcement will concentrate on how you can help ensure that Drupal 6 is released as soon as possible and is as rock solid as the previous Drupal releases that you've grown to love!
Drupal Partners with U of M Libraries - Formal Lab Usability Testing of D6
Drupal Usability Testing
An evaluator at the usability lab reviews a site.
Eye tracking technology helps identify points of interest.
Heat maps indicate site usage patterns.
We are pleased to announce that the University of Minnesota Libraries are partnering with the Drupal development community on the first round of formal usability testing for the Drupal open source content management platform, to take place in February 2008.
- Testing will be conducted at the University's Office for Information Technology’s usability lab with the generous support of Usability Services.
- Seven Drupal community members, including project lead Dries Buytaert, will be on-site as members of the usability test team.
- Results will be presented at Drupalcon Boston, where we’ll discuss future directions indicated by the test results as well as next steps for further usability testing.
- To get involved or to learn more, see this post in the Usability Group.
Our goal is to provide the Drupal development community with a baseline picture of Drupal’s usability for common user tasks. In doing so, the University Libraries hope to improve user experience in a new generation of Drupal-based tools for discovering, managing, and sharing information.
Drupal 6.0 RC3 released
We are proud to present the third release candidate of Drupal 6.0. We hope that this will be the final release candidate before we can make an official release of Drupal 6.0. Since the second release candidate, we have fixed various issues including JavaScript performance problems, cleaned up menu updates, added several improvements to the update.module, and added a memory requirements check to update.php. We have even added some small usability improvements since RC2.
The first beta announcement provided a comprehensive list of high level improvements made since Drupal 5.x, so in this announcement we'll concentrate on how you can help ensure that Drupal 6 is released as soon as possible and is as rock solid as the previous Drupal releases that you've grown to love!
Drupal 6 RC2 released
We are proud to present to you the second release candidate of Drupal 6.0. Although there are still a few known issues that we are working on fixing for you, we are confident that our code is stable enough for wider testing by the community. Since the first release candidate, we have fixed various issues including the security fixes that come with Drupal 5.6 and others involving caching filtered content, menu item inheritance, missing breadcrumbs, better error reporting in the installer and updates, some translatability issues and lots of code style cleanups, and other small fixes. The most notable usability improvement since Drupal 6.0 RC1 is that the files directory is now automatically created in sites/default.
The first beta announcement provided a comprehensive list of high level improvements made since Drupal 5.x, so in this announcement we'll concentrate on how you can help ensure that Drupal 6 is released as soon as possible and is as rock solid as the previous Drupal releases that you've grown to love!
Drupal 6 RC1 released
Update: Drupal 6.0 Release Candidate 2 is available now!
Following four beta releases, and with tons of bugs fixed and user interface improvements added, we are proud to present to you the first release candidate of Drupal 6.0. Although there are still a few known issues that we are working on fixing for you, we are confident that our code is stable enough for wider testing by the community. Since the last beta version was released two weeks ago, we have improved on the embedded developer documentation, strengthened several update functions to ensure that updates are properly applied for Drupal core and contributed modules, revised most user help text and form descriptions to be more understandable and accurate, made user logins more secure, improved right to left language support for several features, and improved table indexes to help with referential integrity and improve performance.
The first beta announcement provided a comprehensive list of high level improvements made since Drupal 5.x, so in this announcement we'll concentrate on how you can help ensure that Drupal 6 is released as soon as possible and is as rock solid as the previous Drupal releases that you've grown to love!
There are a number of modules already ported to Drupal 6. A list of already released updates is available on the modules page by selecting 6.x from the drop-down menu. For all other modules that don't yet have 6.x compatible releases, keep your eye on the modules' issue queues or on the Drupal 6.x contributed module status page to get an idea on the upgrade time-frame. If you are a module maintainer, now is the time to start working on the update to Drupal 6! Read on for more details.
Drupal 6.0 beta 4 released
Following on the third beta release two weeks ago, we are ready to present Drupal 6.0 beta 4. Since the previous beta release, we have committed over 80 fixes to the Drupal 6.x code. This beta version includes some usability improvements and lots of bug fixes for issues which the testers and contributed module upgraders encountered. The first beta announcement provided a comprehensive list of high level improvements made since Drupal 5.x, so in this announcement we'll concentrate on how you can help ensure that Drupal 6 is released as soon as possible and is as rock solid as the previous Drupal releases that you've grown to love!
Changes made since the release of Drupal 6.0 beta 3 include several multilingual support fixes, caching improvements, more clear help texts, drag and drop support for book outlines, user profile administration, taxonomy pages and file uploads, and fixes to node teaser generation. With the right to left version of the pushbutton theme, we also completed RTL support for all core themes. We have also hardened the security of the system, closing potential cross site scripting (XSS) and cross site request forgery (CSRF) security holes. This beta release also includes the security updates released in Drupal 5.4 and 4.7.9.
Drupal 6.0 beta 3 released
Update: Drupal 6.0 Beta 4 is available now!
With another month of active beta testing, our code is growing more stable by the day. Since Drupal 6 beta 2 was released, we have committed over 180 fixes to the Drupal 6.x code, so we are proud to announce the release of the third beta version of Drupal 6.x for your testing. This beta version includes usability improvements and lots of bug fixes for issues which the testers encountered. The first beta announcement provided a comprehensive list of high level improvements made since Drupal 5.x, so in this announcement we'll concentrate on how you can help ensure that Drupal 6 is released as soon as possible and is as rock solid as the previous Drupal releases that you've grown to love!
Major changes made since the release of Drupal 6 beta 2 include several code and interface documentation fixes and improvements, HTML validity fixes, performance improvements and easier to use templating. The core system now also runs without table locks and temporary tables, making Drupal usable in more shared hosting environments, and also improving performance at the same time. Localization support in the installer is now complete, as well as error reporting and requirements management through the installation process. One of the major usability improvements in this beta release is the addition of drag and drop ordering support to the blocks, menus and filter formats administration interface.
Views 2: Call for help
Views 2 is currently being updated for Drupal 6 compatibility, but it needs major help in order to be ready for the Drupal 6's approximate release date! We're short on people and short on time, so here's the bottom line. Without your assistance and contributions, there will be no Views for Drupal 6 within any useful timeframe. If we don't have Views 2 ready for the D6 release date, the vast majority of casual users might not even bother to download and try Drupal 6. That would be bad, so you need to get involved in helping to complete Views 2 so this scenario doesn't happen!
Drupal 6.0 beta 2 released
Our first Drupal 6 beta version was released just over a month ago, so given the large number of usability improvements and bug fixes that we've added since then, we're proud to announce the release of the second beta version of Drupal 6.x for your testing. This beta version includes all the latest security bug fixes as released in Drupal 5.3 and 4.7.8. The first beta announcement provided a comprehensive list of improvements made since Drupal 5.x, so in this announcement we'll concentrate on how you can help ensure that Drupal 6 is released as soon as possible and is as rock solid as the previous Drupal releases that you've grown to love!
The most notable change is that we moved the long time favorite Drupal.module out of the Drupal package. It will instead be available as the contributed Site network module. This was done because Drupal 6 has a more secure and widely supported solution for distributed authentication in the form of the OpenID standard.
We've also fixed a number of issues since the previous beta. We fixed numerous PHP notices, upgraded to jQuery 1.2.1, included a more secure solution for IN() queries, added schema based load and save functions, extended built-in AHAH functionality so developers can write AHAH code without JavaScript for different types of form elements, merged .schema files with .install files, made it possible for themes to override core and module CSS files and made it possible to have comment settings per node type, among a number of other improvements.
Knight News Challenge Grants -- Deadline 15 October
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation is a U.S. nonprofit foundation dedicated to the news industry. Since 1950 the foundation has granted more than $300 million to advance quality journalism and freedom of expression. The foundation focuses on projects with the potential to create transformational change.
The Knight News Challenge contest awards $5 million for innovative media ideas, however the October 15 application deadline is quickly approaching. The streamlined application takes less than 20 minutes. Anybody worldwide has a chance to win. For more information and to apply visit www.newschallenge.org.
Last year, Drupal contributors Benjamin Melançon and Lisa Williams were both awarded grants.
In particular, the Knight Foundation is looking for open source projects that improve local communities and have a news focus. The only restrictions for applying are outlined in their FAQ. Your proposal must be:
* Digital – Your idea uses digital technology (computers, the internet, cell phones, that sort of thing).
* Innovative – Your idea is new and original. It’s different from what people have done before. You are, in some way, breaking new ground.
* News/information – Your idea is about giving people access to what they want to know.
Drupal 6.0 Beta 1 released
Update: Drupal 6.0 Beta 2 is available now!
After eight months of development, we are proud to announce the release of the first beta version of the Drupal 6.x family. This beta includes a tremendous number of new features and new programming APIs for both users and developers. We improved Drupal's human language related features, interoperability with databases, logging solutions, sign-on systems and also included an update notification module for improved security, so it becomes easier than ever to get up to date with the latest security and bug fixes.
It is important to note that this beta version should not be used for production sites. We've resolved most errors reported so far, but there are outstanding known issues and most likely some problems that have not been reported as of yet. It is expected that there will be at least one more beta version followed by at least one release candidate before Drupal 6.0 is finalized. You can help us reach the final release date sooner by testing this beta and providing feedback.
2007 Drupal Summer of Code results
Aug 20, 2007 marked the end of the 2007 Google Summer of Code. Below is a table of this year's students, their projects, along with links to download and (where available) try them out. Please help test and provide feedback!
Please note too that we'll be having a Summer of Code wrap-up call on Sunday, Aug 26 from 11AM - 2PM Pacific (US) time, for students to talk about their projects, share lessons learned, etc.
Drupal awarded $5000 USD OpenID Bounty
Today, as part of the O'Reilly Open Source Conference, Drupal was awarded a $5000 USD bounty as part of the bounty program announced last year. I'm proud to say we were one of the first three projects awarded along with Plone and dotnetnuke. The award comes for including OpenID support in core for the upcoming Drupal 6 release, as previously announced. The bounty, sponsored by the newly formed OpenID Foundation, will go directly to the Drupal Association.
Special thank you to Scott Kveton and the OpenID Foundation for creating the bounty, as well as to SPAWAR for sponsoring the Drupal development.
Drupal 6 status update: welcoming bug fixes
Our last status update noted that July 1st was the code freeze deadline for new features to get into Drupal 6. While some of the strategic improvements that were close to being ready at that time got committed, we are now focusing on bug fixes, performance improvements, documentation updates and usability improvements.
We would like to encourage all users and developers to download a development tarball and test the old and the new functionality. There are certainly bugs in the code still, and we would like to squash them. Existing bug reports in the issue queue need some review. The patch spotlight page helps you understand how patch reviews work, and how can you help, if you are new to this kind of involvement. On the other hand, if you found a new bug, don't hesitate to open an issue and submit a fix. We are working towards releasing the first beta of Drupal 6.0 in a few weeks, which depends on how well the bug fixes go, so get involved if you'd like to see Drupal 6 released sooner.
Code freeze in preparation of Drupal 6.0
Thanks to all the hard work we've done in the past months, the next version of Drupal will have a lot of great improvements!
- improved logging functionality
- support for reverse proxies
- many language system improvements (support for right to left languages, advanced language detection, support for translating posts to different languages, etc)
- improved handling of teasers
- drastic theme system improvements
- an improved installer
- support for OpenID
- and much more
There are also a ton of API improvements that should lead to more and better contributed modules. For a complete overview of the most notable improvements, take a look at the CHANGELOG.txt.
Drupal 6 will be an important factor for Drupal's continued success in 2007 and 2008. Needless to say, I'm really happy with what we accomplished together. Especially with the improved localization (l10n) support and the newly added internationalization (i18n) support, we hope to reach out to a much larger group of people.
In preparation of the Drupal 6.0 release development of Drupal core is frozen as of July 1st. During the initial stage of the code freeze, documentation updates, usability improvements, and performance improvements will still be accepted. New functionality or API changes / additions, on the other hand, will not be unless deemed critical. As of today, the focus is to strengthen the code base's performance, usability, and stability. As we progress, focus will shift towards stability and, near the end of the code freeze, only bug fixes will be allowed, until no release critical bugs are left. As always, everyone is invited to help.
Drupal 6 gets OpenID support!
After much hard work led by James Walker, OpenID 2.0 support is now in Drupal 6 core!
OpenID is a decentralized, secure single sign-on system. It allows you to create a login at a site you frequent, and use that same login on any other site that supports OpenID. Drupal 5.x and below have supported this with the built-in Drupal module, but OpenID is an open standard, better supported, and more secure.
"Let this be the day where we help revolutionize the online society, and the way websites and web services interoperate. Or something." - Dries
