There are plenty Drupal modules that offer ways to upload new files and to attach them to nodes. There's the core upload module, the image module that creates an image content type, filefield that creates a CCK field, ... The options are much more limited when it comes to re-using already uploaded files. You could use a nodereference field or image_attach to link image nodes, or a WYSIWYG plug-in like IMCE, or the WebFM module, and that about covers it.

For a current project in Drupal 6 I was looking for a CCK widget that allowed me to upload new files as well as easily access existing files. Drupal 5 has the asset module and Drupal 7 will have the wonderful media module but for Drupal 6 the options are very limited. After a lot of searching I came across the FileField Sources module. It enhances the filefield module (that allows you to upload new files) by adding a way to import files by url and by adding an autocomplete field to search for existing files. One of its most interesting features for me was the bridge with IMCE. All in all these three extra options allow for an incredible flexibility in file management. And because the selected file eventually ends up in a filefield field it can be plugged into the multitude of modules that support it, such as media mover for instance.

Todays marks the release of Asset 1.0 for Drupal 5 and the first development release for Drupal 6. Many thanks go out to Rue89 and their complete dev team with Damien Cirotteau as their tech lead. They upgraded the module to Drupal 6 and contributed it all back to the community. Thank you!

Please note that the current dev version is pre-alpha and is more a starting point for people who want to jump in and help coding than for actual use. You can get the stable D5 and dev D6 version on the asset module project page.

The last few weeks have been truly amazing. A while ago Udo Gerhards was so generous to post a new module to the asset issue queue that allows integration with lightbox2. The module was written for imagecache1, which asset support back then. Not much later Owen Barton of CivicActions fame posted a patch to the asset module to support imagecache2. Now last week Schroedhelm (who has only been a d.o member for a week) posted a patch to Udo's module to also work with imagecache2. I'm so grateful for these efforts, this makes being a module maintainer an extraordinary experience.

I'm proud to announce Asset RC1. The most notable changes are integration with the media mover module, more usability improvements to the asset wizard and a lot of improvements to the asset_import module. This now allows for an easy migration from the upload or image module for instance. With the first release candidate out the door, I'll start porting the module to Drupal 6.

*Update* Beta 2 was missing a critical function, which was quickly fixed and beta 3 was released. The bug list keeps declining and after beta 4 we will probably see the first release candidate. So, what was fixed in beta 3?

A couple of busy days have passed since FOSDEM and its Drupal Track. This marked my first FOSDEM and I must say I was impressed by how many people showed up. This was the first Drupal Track and at times the room was really packed. I was also pleasantly surprised by the professionalism of the organizers and the Krimson team: not one presentation started too late and there were close to no technical issues with the presenations. There was a great synergy both inside and outside of the devroom, with interesting presentations and after-talks. Rob Douglass got my attention with his talk on Apache Solr Search Integration, I'll be sure to check that out.

For those interested, below you will find the video recording of my presentation on the asset module as well as the slides.

This is the first official release after the huge amount of features were added and contributed with the launch of amnesty.org. All these changes were committed to the dev version to be tested by the community. I'm very grateful for the people that jumped in to identify, report and track down bugs, some of which were trivial and two of which were critical. I would especially like to thank Yves Chedemois who sent in over a dozen of bug reports and provided patches for most of them as well. This is the kind of work that is really invaluable and that makes module development so much more pleasant and rewarding.

So what's happening next? Well first of all go download alpha 3! Keep reporting bugs and requesting features. From now on I'll be releasing more often so there won't be month-long gaps between official releases. I'll also be spending time to work with Roger Lopez on the rewrite of the module, the new GUI and of course the Drupal 6 release.

I'll see you all on Sunday!