[development] Announcing DRUPAL-7-0-UNSTABLE-2

[Angela Byron]

I just rolled the second in the series of Drupal 7 unstable releases for 
developers (see 
http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/development/2008-October/031094.html 
for more info). Among the highlights this release are:

* Several awesome File API improvements. Files are now "first-class 
objects" like nodes and users are, the API has been dramatically cleaned 
up for better consistency, AND there are a slew of new hooks like 
hook_file_load() and hook_file_validate() for contrib modules to react 
to when stuff happens to files. This is a great enabler for some awesome 
stuff in core like image handling and document management. See 
http://api.drupal.org/api/search/7/hook_file for more info. A HUGE 
shout-out to Andrew Morton (drewish) for sticking with this patch 
throughout its long, LONG development cycle. :)

* Also in additional hooks, hooks are now fired whenever modules are 
installed, uninstalled, enabled, or disabled. See 
http://api.drupal.org/api/search/7/hook_modules for more info. This 
should pave the way for some nice DX patches in future unstable releases.

* In the DX clean-up realm, hook_user() and hook_nodeapi()'s $op 
parameters are now gone. Instead of having to switch on $op and figure 
out what in the world '$arg1' is in the 'load' context (UGH), you 
instead implement hook_nodeapi_load(&$node, $teaser, $page) and know 
exactly what you're dealing with.

* Permission names are now localizable, which gives permissions 
human-friendly names in addition to descriptions. This changed the 
hook_perm() array somewhat. See 
http://drupal.org/node/224333#descriptions-permissions for more details.

* Better security! Drupal 7 is now caught up to Drupal 6 on security 
patches. Now you can setup a Drupal 7 test site with far less pwnage! ;)

Incidentally, for those brave contrib module authors who want to chase 
HEAD, the Updating Modules page is now broken down by unstable release 
so you can make changes incrementally: http://drupal.org/node/224333.

One thing there is *not* in this release is a lot of major usability 
enhancements. I'd really like to see this change over the next couple of 
unstable releases. Drupal 7's API is shaping up nicely, and we're 
getting tons of patches in that enable new things for our developers as 
well as clean up silly crap that's been annoying us collectively for a 
long time. But I'd like to get some focus on real "Wow-factor" things 
for our end users, too... and sooner than later so we can test them 
ahead of release and make sure they actually /do/ make things easier to 
use. :)

The Usability team has identified 3 top usability issues to focus on at 
http://groups.drupal.org/node/7074. If any of you out there have "make 
Drupal 7 kick ass" as one of their todos, they would really appreciate 
help on how to break down these major issues into smaller, actionable 
items, and need some folks to write and test patches to get them 
addressed. There are also a number of smaller, more bite-sized issues 
that would be nice improvements, and new features that would make Drupal 
easier to use.

http://groups.drupal.org/patch-spotlight is where this sort of "bubbling 
up" of important issues is being organized.

Since UNSTABLE-1 was released on the 1st, and UNSTABLE-2 on the 12th, 
let's shoot for UNSTABLE-3 to be towards the end of the month, hopefully 
with some nice usability improvements in addition to more goodies for 
developers.

Looking forward to reviewing and committing your patches! :)

-Angie