Drupal 7 contains features for which site administrators have been clamoring for years, including support for fields, an improved administration interface, better database support, improved theming, and more. You could of course make a laborious search on sites, blogs, and many online tutorials that would promise to update you about every new feature, but there's an even better way to know all about Drupal 7's new features: Drupal 7 First Look is the first and only book that covers all of the fantastic new features in Drupal 7 in depth and covers the process of upgrading your Drupal 6 site to Drupal 7. If you've used Drupal 6 and want to use Drupal 7, you need this book.

Drupal 7 First Look takes an in-depth look into all of the major new features in Drupal 7 so you can quickly take full advantage of Drupal 7. It also assists you in upgrading your site to Drupal 7. Some of the new features in Drupal 7 include:

• Fields API, based on Drupal 6 CCK, which allows you to easily build your own content types
• Improved user interface for administering your website
• Built-in support for working with images and files
• Improved security for the site and users of the site
• Completely rewritten database layer DBTNG to make working with the database easier and more secure.
• Improved API for custom module development and user interface theming

This book is your one-stop shop to know and utilize all of the major new features of Drupal 7

What you will learn from this book

• Automatically process images and attach them to your content
• Explore the new administration interface and figure out where all of your favorite tools are to be found in the new layout
• Utilize the new Drupal 7 Fields API functionality, which incorporates functionality from CCK into Drupal core
• Check out the new security features for Drupal 7
• Learn about the RDF support in Drupal 7
• Get in depth information on DBTNG including examples of working with DBTNG
• Install Drupal 7 and create installation profiles for Drupal 7
• Explore the new methods available to themers and upgrade your Drupal 6 themes to Drupal 7
• Upgrade modules to Drupal 7 and take advantage of the new Drupal 7 API for module developers

Approach

This hands-on guide takes a look at the main functional areas of Drupal that have significant new features. It explains these new features and how to use them, drawing attention to significant differences from how things used to behave, and giving the reader an idea of the kind of consequences these changes will bring to them.

Who this book is written for

Drupal 7 First Look is written for site administrators, themers, and developers who have some experience with Drupal 6 (or even Drupal 5) and want to upgrade their sites, themes, or modules to Drupal 7 or just learn more about Drupal 7. No programming experience is required, but several code examples are covered for readers that want more in-depth information about building themes and modules.