nodeapi cck

I'm getting ramped up with Drupal and finding it tricky fitting the 'key in the lock' for hooks. One area we're running into trouble is CCK. It's a really useful module for creating custom node types but there doesn't seem to be an easy way to hook node actions.

We need to be able to send email or populate tables, etcetera if a nodes are hit or forms are submitted. Using mytheme_myformid_submit() on a CCK node kept the CCK handler from picking up the form. Assigning a function with hook_form_alter also failed.