[development] Field UI effort

[Yves Chedemois]

While Field API has been in core for a couple months now, the UI 
currently remains in contrib (CCK HEAD)

There is a strong demand to have a Field UI shipped with core.
- better experience with an out of the box drupal setup
- makes it easier to unify features to 'X as field' (node body, file 
uploads...) without having to keep the existing core UI in parallel with 
the contrib Field UI.
- quoted from Dries' blogpost in 
http://buytaert.net/drupal-7-fields-in-core-status-update-and-next-steps:
it's "a strategic necessity because it enables more people to test, 
benchmark and experiment with what we have built so far" (true for field 
API, but also for the UI itself)

This will not happen without a design and coding community effort.
The current CCK HEAD, albeit "globally working", is more or less a 
direct port of the D6 CCK UI, which is frankly not on par with the 
coolness expected from the D7UX work. The Field UI, whether in core or 
contrib, will end up as a fair part of the 'drupal experience'.

I clearly won't have the bandwidth to lead that effort myself, but I 
will of course provide help and feedback.
To get the ball rolling, I posted an UI-oriented summary of  the Field 
API at http://groups.drupal.org/node/23545
Discussion takes place in http://groups.drupal.org/node/23282 - or is 
there any other place more inline with the D7UX habits ?

Yched