Media file handling has been the multi-headed Hydra of Drupal. For every head we conquer, two more appear in its place. This has resulted in a plethora of modules that each address part of the problem, while creating new problems, when we consider the lack of a unifying API for resource handling.

Here to help solve some of these problems, by creating a usable API, supporting all the major media modules, and by harnessing the creative efforts of some great multimedia developers, is Drupal's newest multimedia offering, the Media module, a File Browser for the Internet!

The latest effort, launched this January with the ongoing Media Sprint, has been to unify development with a crack-team of multimedia developers, including Arthur Foelsche (arthurf), Darrel O'Pry (dopry), Andrew Morton (drewish), Roger López, Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg (Alex UA). Aaron Winborn (aaron), and many others.

This summer, we have Jon Stacey (jmstacey) pushing development through the Google Summer of Code (GSOC). He's busy with the Drupal 7 version of the module; we hope that Drupal 6 development can be concurrent, to allow for a speedy adoption once complete.

The Media module creates a unified file resource browser for attaching multimedia to a site's content. The Media module itself offers an API to create a GUI that allows editors to browse files and other resources, both locally (from the site's file system) and externally (from external sources, including YouTube, Brightcove, Flickr, Amazon S3, FTP, a CDN, and more). The included Resource module backports future patches from Drupal 7 that offer the power of PHP Stream Wrappers to Drupal.

For this session, we'll have a live demo of the current state of development. We'll also review the road map for future development, and take questions and comments from the audience.

Aaron Winborn is a developer with Advomatic, the author of Drupal Multimedia and co-maintainer of several multimedia modules, including Embedded Media Field, Views Slideshow, and the upcoming Media module.