News and announcements

Note: If you never used an "@drupal.org" login to a site then you can gleefully ignore this post. It was a feature launched long ago and not widely used.

Hey Everybody,

It's been a long time coming, but we are now approaching the point where the old "distributed authentication" mechanism will be turned off on drupal.org.

For a while, the distributed authentication method was a great idea. Sites like spreadfirefox.com used the distributed authentication and it helped spread awareness of Drupal. It was an early idea for identity and federated websites and distributed social and all those fancy buzzwords.

But while the concept might have been visionary the implementation was not. It is not a super secure architecture, as perhaps the biggest complaint.

So, we will turn it off on drupal.org on November 1st, 2010.

Update: Drupal 7.0 Beta 2 is available now!

Our final Drupal 7 alpha version was released about three weeks ago. Today, we're proud to announce the first beta version of Drupal 7.x for your further testing and feedback!

The jump between alpha to beta means the following:

• We think that we have resolved all critical data loss and security bugs in Drupal 7.
• We think that our APIs are now frozen enough so that contributed module and theme authors can start (or pick up again) their #D7CX pledges.
• We think that we have caught and fixed most of the problems with the upgrade path. We were able to successfully upgrade a copy of the Drupal.org database to Drupal 7.

That said, we definitely still have some bugs to shake out, and we need your help to find them! Especially new folks who haven't taken Drupal 7 for a spin yet. So please, do so, and let us know what bugs you find in the "Drupal core" issue queue (Please search incoming issues before filing).

What's new?

Tons of stuff! A revamped user interface, a new admin and default core theme, image handling in core, fields (CCK!) in core, module and theme upgrades from within the browser, an automated testing framework with over 24,000 tests, improved security and scalability, revamped database, AJAX, and file systems, jQuery 1.4, jQuery UI 1.8, RDFa, and literally gazillions of other things! Please see CHANGELOG.txt for a comprehensive list of all improvements in Drupal 7.

FunnyMonkey is pleased to announce the release of VoiceBox, a community discussion and aggregation platform. Using VoiceBox, an organization can set up a site that allows people to create profiles, start discussions, upload content from mobile phones, comment on one another's posts, share content to other social media platforms, and follow incoming news feeds.

The VoiceBox installation profile simplifies the work of groups looking to create or expand their online presence. Organizations looking for a place for their stakeholders to publish, collaborate, and get more informed could use VoiceBox to support these goals.

The site was designed to support community media and other grassroots organizations, but the base functionality can be used in a variety of different contexts. VoiceBox can easily support a school newspaper, or, with some modifications, it could work as the public-facing site for organizations that want to communicate with their stakeholders and develop a community around their work. In particular, the blend of content aggregation, internal site discussions, repurposing content within issues, and sharing out to external sites via social media helps connect the smaller communities of individual organizations with larger external groups that share a common interest.

VoiceBox was built by FunnyMonkey as part of the Knight Drupal Initiative, which was funded by the Knight Foundation.

Drupal 6 Panels Cookbook, by Bhavin (Vin) Patel, a newly-published title from Packt Publishing, is a collection of simple useful recipes that gives a very clear understanding from the basics of Panels to complex implementations to generate Web 2.0 layouts.

It begins with the basics and gradually delves deeper into the complexities of Panels. You will learn how to set up CTools and Panels, upgrade from Panels 2 to Panels 3, about page layout, theming, and lots more. The layout of the book is a series of interconnected but distinct recipes that gives a basic understanding of usage of Panels in Drupal and also the advanced settings that makes Panels one of the most powerful modules. You will learn to master the Panels user interface and theme each panel quickly with a series of practical recipes. You will be able to integrate powerful Drupal modules like Organic Views, Advanced Profile Kit, Views, CCK, and many more to create socially connected Web 2.0 websites.

As a reader of drupal.org, you can receive a 20% discount (see below) and benefit the Drupal Association!