Drupal 7 includes the new Field API which provides "CCK functionality" in core. The Field API supports attaching custom data fields to nodes, users, remote data objects, and any other type of entity. This session introduces the Field API for module developers and shows how it differs from Drupal 6's "hook_nodeapi" approach.
Drupal's basic node structure works well for presenting articles, but sometimes clients want to embed images, video, or other block-like items in the middle of the text, such as top rated comments or a snippet of interesting text from that article.
One focus of Drupal 7 has been to empower module developers and theme developers to more easily achieve the look the want for their final output. We added hook_page_alter() where a themer or module developer can alter any part of the page just before it is rendered. At this point, the page is still a raw array that can be easily manipulated.
Ever walk up to a door and pull on the handle, only to discover the door is push-only? Do you really know how to operate your clock-radio? Doors may be pretty, clocks may look cool, but when we have to actually use them, the measure of their design changes.
Same with websites. A website may be pretty at first blush, but can you find what you're looking for? Can you do what you want to do? Can you even figure out what you're supposed to do?
Write a web service interface in ten lines. Import legacy HTML from a couple dozen lines of code. Get the content outline from an ODT document in 130 characters of code. Mash up five web services in a single module. This is what QueryPath makes possible.
There are hundreds of XML-based APIs, ranging from simple RESTful tools (like Twitter's XML API) to complex SPARQL-based semantic web endpoints (like DBPedia). The new QueryPath library makes it easy to write code that takes advantage of such web services.
