Slides: http://www.slideshare.net/merlinofchaos/the-chaos-tools-suite

This is the modal test module. You can create the .info file that goes with it.
<?php
/**
* Implementation of hook_menu().
*/
function modal_test_menu() {
$items = array();

$items['modal_test'] = array(
'title' => 'Modal test',
'access callback' => TRUE,
'page callback' => 'modal_test_page',
);

$items['modal_test/form'] = array(
'title' => 'AJAX modal dialog',
'access callback' => TRUE,
'page callback' => 'modal_test_popup',
'type' => MENU_CALLBACK,
);

Apparently I've been sort of ignoring an increased friction between Drupal designers and developers the last few days. Not that I don't know it's there, I'm right up in the forefront of that friction, feeling fairly regularly told what to do by people who I feel aren't fully informed as to why I created things the way I did. And most often I don't react well to this, and I cause more friction than I really should. But this isn't just about me. That friction is there and it's all around.

I turned off comments on yesterday's post because it doesn't need to turn into a flame-war or a love-fest, and I apologize to all who feel the burning need to comment and cannot. I'll go ahead and leave comments on this post open, but I will aggressively delete comments that bait, flame, or are simply "I love you, man" comments. I'm not looking for flames, nor an ego-boost here. I've got a gripe and I needed to get that off my chest or I would continue burning with it for days.

It's that time, and Panels 3 is finally getting close to beta. I have two major pieces of work to finish up (a proper preview widget and the upgrade path from Panels 5) and then I will release the first beta. I expect the first beta to be relatively unstable in terms of the features being buggy, but finally the API should be more or less stable, other than last minute fixes to get everything consistent with each other.

It seems I don't update this blog nearly as much as I once did, but as always, these things are cyclical. Soon enough I'll have both something to say, the time to say it, and the inspiration to put it into words. Until that time happens, however, I leave you this: Tomorrow morning I am going to DrupalCon DC. I have no presentations to give, this time, so for a change I am simply going as an attendee and more or less to be social. I'll be in the area for about a week after the con, so I won't be returning home until the 14th. Hopefully the place won't burn down in the meantime.

Tomorrow I get on a plane to fly to New Orleans to enjoy a few days before the Do It With Drupal seminar, where I'll be speaking about Views and hoping not to embarass myself too much. And try to figure out how I'm going to get all the work done that I have to do before the end of the year. Still, I've never been to New Orleans, so it should be fun.

Completely by happenstance, I just discovered that they very first commit for Views was three years ago today. Technically Views is either a little older or a little younger than that, depending upon how you look at it; about a week before I had posted the code to a forum post on drupal.org to request comments, though the code itself was hosted on my server and that particular setup has long since been changed to something else.

Packt Publishing has recently been holding their annual CMS Awards which are determined by a combination of public voting and private judging. This year they introduced a new category, allowing community members from each CMS to vote for an "MVP" to honor those who the community believes should be recognized as providing the most valuable contributions to the project.

I can imagine that there were many choices in the voting, as we have a large community full of some very dedicated people who spend every day furthering the cause of Drupal, but at the end of the voting I was selected as Drupal's MVP, on the strength of the Views module combined with the other things I do. (Also mentioned here)

I am extremely honored to get this award, but I want to make sure that this does not diminish the hardworking contributions of dozens of others who make Drupal what it is. Everyone knows Dries Buytaert, of course, who has spent the last 7 or 8 years of his life making Drupal what it is and is looking to continue to do so as long as it remains viable. And everyone knows Angela Byron, AKA webchick, who was recently honored for her contributions and they are richly deserved! But there are also people like, and forgive me for dropping out an incomplete list, but Jeff Eaton, Karoly Negyesi, Derek Wright, Addison Berry, Greg Knaddison, Nathaniel Catchpole, Daniel Kudwien, Michelle Cox, Kieran Lal, Steven Peck, Gerhard Killesreiter, Narayan Newton and I could go on but I don't have all day to write this who are contributing a great deal of their time and energy into Drupal and their contributions are vital for the functioning of this ecosystem.

I'm honored to receive this award, but it's very important to remember that there isn't, really, a single Most Valuable Person in our community, but there are a lot of very valuable people in this community. I thank everyone who voted for me, and I thank everyone in the community who have made the way of life I currently lead even possible. Drupal is built upon the strength of this community, and I'm proud to be a part of it.

I don't normally make political statements on this blog, but this issue is so important I feel like I should.