Updates on Google Summer of Code - Drupal Usability Improvements

Just got back from a chat with Konstantin Käfer, the astute student behind the Admin Usability Improvements project for Drupal (which is graciously sponsored by the Google Summer of Code).

Konstantin's goal: introduce drag-and-drop capability to Drupal administration to make it easier to tweak. Imagine administering taxonomy by using drag and drop. Providing this feature will save all of us harrassed content managers the tedious task of clicking, clicking, clicking and typing weights -- just to alter the order of a list.

Konstantin gave me a preview of drag-and-drop capability using cross-browser javascripting. The demo was still rough but it worked. I showed it to my wife, who is a novice Drupal user. She was impressed too and realized the power of these deceivingly "simple" improvements.

It seems like a trivial task to do, but it will result to very impressive results that will wow non-techie users. Drupal 4.7 is already making waves for being the most user-friendly version of Drupal so far. But wait till you see the fruits of the Admin Usability Improvements project.