Module development and code questions

I am a little confused about the concepts that Drupal uses for determining links which show up in the pages in generates. I have a few issues with how it is done (like why does drupal do a @import for CSS rather than just link the css - @import breaks most CSS validation tools!!).

But the concern i am most confused about at the moment is what it is doing to IMG hrefs.

- i add an image using TinyMCE
- in Tiny i need to add absolute path to image as "/files/img1.jpg" - which seems wrong to me from the get go

- but now; when i view my page i do not get the image (i can see area where it should be and i see alt text)

BUT VERY ODDLY:

- i do a view source of the page which has no image (although i can see box where image should be) and save this
- then i add that page to my root and go to that static html page and the image is fine (duhhh.. and why wouldn't it be.. the source says just as it should

- so why doesnt this show in drupal????

CLUE:

- if i go to drupal page where img doesnt show and i do a properties in my browser for the missing img.. i see http://mydomain/node/files/ov.jpg

- obviously this can't work since i have no folder called "node"...

but..

- how the hell does that get there?
- why do i not see it in source?

i suspect something along the lines of the "silly" base_url thing that used to be in drupal (which was a pain!!) that was removed in 4.7.... but it is NOT there now so shouldn't be modifying my urls

It seems that I'm not the only one who can't get the image upload (on the advanced theme of tinymce) to work.

Is there an easy way that I can just remove that button. I've got a site deadline for Monday and I want all of the other advanced features, but it seems naff to explain there's a button there that doesn't work.

Hello again and sorry about my poor english.

I would like to insert a custom content (text) under the view of a node. I know that it is possible putting something in theme file (node.tpl or so). But my question is:

It is possible to extend the hook view of a node witouth hacking it or touching theme files?
I would like to do something like this:

mimodule_extend(node_view) {

blablablacodecodecode

}

I am searching thru drupaldocs but no luck.

Thanks in advance

from this doc page:
http://drupaldocs.org/api/head/function/hook_nodeapi
I am trying to find out when the node actually gets written into the db. ( i need the value of 'nid' ) Is it saved during the 'fields' operation, or during the 'insert' operation? when can i find out the value of the freshly inserted node id, to use as a key in my auxillary node data table?

Hi, I've just got Eclipse going. I've downloaded what I think is the HEAD, but it's not entirely clear.

The top of the changelog file says:
drupal x.x.x, xxxx-xx-xx (development version)

Does that mean this is the HEAD version?

How do I make the menu for SimpleNews settings invsibile to users?