Drupal 7 - Now in beta!

This week, Drupal 7 was officially released as a beta 1. This is exciting news for anyone in the Drupal community, as it means that the next version of the best CMS around (ok, we are a little biased!) is almost ready for prime time.

For those who don't keep up with all of the minor changes and updates that took place as the critical bugs were squashed in getting to beta, here is just a smattering of new features/changes that are in Drupal 7:

• Totally rewritten database layer that takes advantage of the PHP 5 PDO abstraction layer. Translation? Big speed increases can be expected.
• Improved password hashes, as well as rate limiting to help prevent brute force password attacks. Drupal already has a pretty rock solid security system in place thanks to core features and some best practices for module development, but this takes things a step further.
• An increased emphasis on usability. One of the criticisms of Drupal has always been that it is a bit hard out of the box to jump right into, at least without downloading a bunch of must-have modules. In Drupal 7 though, CCK is almost fully integrated into core, which means making content types will be much, much easier. There is also a default admin theme (appropriately named Seven) that will make content editing easier, and quite a few little implementations for admins that let you quickly access and edit the contents of blocks, nodes, comments, etc. via a couple of clicks. This is a HUGE step forward for Drupal and something that new users will appreciate without a doubt.
• Major improvements to the theme() hook. If you are a Drupal themer like us, you can now use the theme() hook in two different ways, as a preprocess and a process. It's a little technical so check out the documentation here.
• A ton of other changes that will surely make Drupal easier and better. For the full list, see CHANGELOG.TXT here

Overall, Drupal 7 looks to be an exciting improvement. At Hot Sauce, we will be testing it out and putting it through its paces before rolling it out on any production sites (as should you - beta shouldn't be used for a live site!) but hopefully with increased testing and user interest, Drupal 7 will quickly roll from beta into a full release!