Since the previous status update, there have been a number of additional improvements, including:

1. Numerous installer improvements, including the ability to import translations for enabled modules automatically in the installer and the ability to specify numerous settings at install time (administrator (user number 1) credentials, clean URLs, timezone).
2. Automatically importing translation files for modules and themes, when installing modules or enabling themes, as well as when adding a new language.
3. Numerous usability improvements, including various installer improvements, the ability to remember anonymous comment posters, etc. It's great to see that the mega usability thread yielded some good patches.
4. The user status module and the HTML corrector module are now in core.
5. A vastly improved file management system, which associates files with users rather than nodes, so that files can be re-used among posts and various preview bugs are taken care of.
6. A completely reworked database abstraction layer for table creation. This makes it far easier to port Drupal to other database backends, such as Oracle and SQLite.
7. A JavaScript aggregator to complement the CSS aggregator feature in Drupal 5.
8. Right-to-left (RTL) CSS files for built-in modules, so themes supporting right-to-left displays can work easily with Drupal 6. RTL CSS support for some built-in themes is already done.

Due to the exciting developments in the past four weeks and the rapid pace that the developers are currently funneling in those improvements, I have decided to extend the code freeze until July 1, 2007. This way, the current waves of innovation won't be stifled, and it will help give us another four weeks to put in even more great improvements.

The following are areas of particular interest to the core maintainers and will receive our top priority when reviewing:

• Usability patches that help lower the Drupal learning curve and make it easier for site administrators to do their jobs are crucial. I'd like to see us pay more attention to this! Check this thread if you're looking for things to work on ...
• Internationalization patches. This is a killer feature for Drupal 6, and we want it to really shine. If you care about Drupal's internationalization features, please take part in the testing and reviewing of Drupal's i18n patches.
• Patches that improve performance of Drupal get very high priority.
• Fixes and improvements to the Form API and menu system are likewise very important, as they affect all of core.
• Important new features, such as getting the actions module, the module update notification module, the OpenID client module or the outliner into core. Also, I'm still hopeful that we can get some CCK improvements into core but so far that hasn't happened yet.

If you're interested in helping with these efforts to make Drupal 6 the best release yet, please see the patch spotlight for more detailed information on how you can help and which specific patches to focus on.

Keep in mind that we don't release a new major Drupal version very often. Features or improvements that don't make it into Drupal 6, might have to wait 9 months or more before they can make it into core.