I migrated my SVN repository to Git yesterday and moved the XBBCode project to GitHub Drupal.org yesterday. The git migration should make it much easier to manage multiple branches for different Drupal core versions, and also make it much easier for others to contribute in case anyone is interested.

I'm happy to announce that my extensible BBCode module XBBCode is now ported to Drupal 7. I last worked on (and wrote about) this module in April while writing a new parsing engine for it.

As I concluded in the first part, one problem remains with the strict "inner-tag-first" evaluation of code (which roughly equates to a Left-Right-Root traversal of the code tree). Namely, some tags, like [nocode], require that further code inside them is not parsed.

The Problem

If you read the code of my Extensible BBCode module for [[Drupal]], you'll notice that my tag parsing algorithm is kind of complex. In two steps, the tags are first "paired" (inserting a matching ID into the opening and closing tag) and then "rendered", all by an evaluated regular expression that calls another function. The process certainly ensures that all tags are balanced - and it even allows some tags to be rendered before others are, regardless of nesting.

The seventh version of Drupal has greatly improved the installation process once more. Among other changes, the installer has become more user-friendly, but the best part is under the hood, and somewhat less obvious. It is now much easier than ever to install Drupal using a PHP script that runs in the console, rather than the interactive web installer.

Since I have not yet seen a detailed documentation of this feature, here is a guide.

I've spent a few more days improving and cleaning up the new version.

One thing I have managed to make loads better is the handler settings form: Instead of a table with simple checkboxes and weight selection elements, the form now uses tablesort and tabledrag. The extra space is used to display the tag description,

(Note: Due to a bug in core most of the cool stuff will not work without applying a core patch.)

Well, as you can see, the NaNoWriMo didn't really work out. Astonishingly, it turns out that a day has only twenty-four hours.

However, I have managed to devote an afternoon this weekend to porting my XBBCode module. This is particularly interesting if you are from Spiderweb, because XBBCode for Drupal 7 is one of the steps on the roadmap to the new Pied Piper Project and the new Blades Forge.

A few days ago, Michelle blogged to announce Author Pane (a glue module) and took that occasion to complain about the circumstances that made it necessary.

This is just a notice of a bugfix update to XBBCode, my light-weight stack-based parser for customizable and extensible BBCode in Drupal.

I have been developing the module for two years now and using it on this blog for almost as long (see earlier posts), so I've had lots of time to work out most of the bugs.