In a previous post, I talked about pimping the CCK ui. In that post a first patch was made available for CCK, however after a long debate, we decided to commit our code as a separate module on d.o, available at http://drupal.org/project/nd. After a very short development cycle, we're proud to release the first public beta version. Features included are:

• Separated the UI for fields and displays: the order of fields isn't done anymore on the fields overview screen, they are now available on the display screen for every build mode. If you want control over the node edit form, I recommend the excellent nodeform columns module.
• Node regions: every field can be dropped in its own region.
• Custom build modes: that's right, create as many build modes you like via the interface or via hook_nd_build_modes().
• Views row plugin: create lists and use one of the standard or custom build modes.
• hook_nd_extra_display_fields(): define custom fields. The module itself defines title, author, links, body and taxonomy so far. You can implement your own hook for more fields.
• Exclude build modes from rendering and use the node template instead.
• Override core search results page to use node display rendering.

As you can see, lots of fine goodies, but a screencast will explain more than a thousands words. Look at this video to discover the power of this module. We also would like to invite you all to test the beta version and submit bugs, features and/or patches. Happy Node Build Mode building!