I've spent a bit of time looking at the CCK UI for D7 and it has some real pain points. For starters, all content types have custom fields, yet upon submitting the basics (title and publishing options), we send users back to the listing of content types vs. port them into fields. I could go on, and gladly will if you call me out on it. For now, I want to focus on how I've tried to make it better. It's lofty, and probably still needs some tweaks, but I think it's a huge improvement.

To begin, I went about tackling this UI with some guiding principles in mind:

1. Use existing interaction models. Drupal already has too many models, so the last thing I wanted to do was add a new one.
2. Don't remove functionality (even if I think its bad). Id rather first focus on streamlining whats there.

With that in mind, I designed a solution based on Form builder, and the newly built way of managing machine names.

Thus far, feedback has been good, but people often miss my approach to setting instance level fields vs. field level settings, so take note when I cover the "properties" tab. Additionally, I've been asked, "where are the fields coming from?" The library of fields gets created as you build content types. For example, if you're building an "event" content type, and you add a "location" field, that field will then be in your library and accessible to other content types.

I'd love to hear your feedback: