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The BETA 2 is already more than a half year old - so a new BETA release is really long overdue. So I've worked hard during last days to get a next BETA out of the door - finally it's there!

Of course there were a lot of improvements and bug fixes since BETA 2, so let me mention only the most notable ones:

• added support for an edit tab at the users page: either on the top level or as secondary tab below the "Edit" tab.
• added an extension module for integration at the registration page
• made theming with content profile easier and added content profile docs for themers
• added the possibility for admins to add content profile nodes for other users
• basic support for translated profiles with the help of the "content translation" module
• added Views integration
• added rules integration with support of upgrading from nodeprofile workflow-ng rules.
• by Gundalo and Michelle: added Panels integration
• added more usage help and hints to the README

Let's have a closer look at some points of these...

Theming with content profile

When you have a "profile-as-nodes" you probably want to use some profile information stored in your profile content in some of your themes, e.g. to show some additional information about the author of a forum post. To do so, you previously had to manually load the profile node in your theme and output the right data at the right place - yeah and not forget to properly check your data...
This cried for improvements, so I tackled this problem. We need to be able to easily access the data of the created profiles, where it should be already properly prepared for use in a template so you haven't to check it yourself. Yes and we should do that fast.. So just loading all profile data and putting it into $user is really no option.

I'm really happy to announce that Content Profile is going to be the common base module for "profiles-as-nodes" solutions in drupal 6.x! After a long discussion discussion about the bio 6.x port, I already thought my efforts to join bio and node profile development were for nothing. But then the discussion continued and we were able to agree on a common base module, which avoids unnecessary code duplication and provides an API on which further extension modules may rely on. The people from FunnyMonkey started working on it and agreed with me on continuing my previous work on this topic: Content Profile :) So now as we have a decision we can concentrate on coding..

Quite a long time ago I started the discussion about the future of the profile as nodes solutions out there (link). There was a lot of input to the discussion and most people (including me) agreed on variante 2 "build upon a small base module". This means we build a small, well tested simple profile-as-node solution, which can be further extended by other modules. So I had started developing content profile and invited others to join in - but unfortunately no one did. Now after some discussion it looks like there will be a 6.x bio version - introducing the imho unnecessary duplicity again. As an affect code like views integartion, user register integration and so on has to be written twice - once for each solution. But in my opinion the worst is that further extension modules, which want to build extended functionality on top of "profile as nodes" can't support all solutions by building upon a single module - they would have to build support for each solution on its own. Don't mentioned that they can't rely on a unique API to do so. So what I'm going to do now?

Some time ago I started a discussion about the profiles as nodes modules in drupal 6 (link). I'd like to see node profile and the bio module merged into one superior module!