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What You Should Know About Drupal Contrib Modules

June 19, 2009

What You Should Know About Drupal Contrib Modules

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You should know....

Views, Panels, and CCK are the foundation of all modern Drupal sites -- They do all most of the work for you

  • tip: Reality check -- build as much of a site as you can using JUST contrib and core. Make sure your first question is "How can I implement this with existing modules like views, CCK and panels? Then, and only then, once you establish a gap, produce custom code. Custom code should only be used if you can prove that you were not able to use Views and CCK to create the equivalent functionality.
  • tip: Learn how views export module works. It's bundled with views and allows you to literally turn your views into "versionable code".
  • tip: Panels and blocks are a powerful combination. Learn it.
  • see: Listing of "Essential Drupal Modules"
  • see: Panels Video Tutorial from Oregon state Univ.
  • see: Views + CCK Tutorial

Static nodes can be exported using the node_export module

CCK types can be exported and imported with content_copy module, ships with CCK

i18n + views is the easiest way to build a multilingual site

  • tip: Use the views language filters to build language aware views

Image module is one of the longest running, and best supported modules ever

  • tip: If you're not using image module to handle your uploaded images, think again.

imagecache module is the long-run simplest way to handle multiple image sizes

  • tip: Sure, there's a little configuration pain up front but your site will be extremely flexible

That pathauto is almost always the easiest SEO win

logintoboggan module solves 80% of the registration related requests from the client

admin_menu module makes administering and building Drupal sites easier and faster It is more attractive that simplemenu (and more logical and Acquia supported!)

You should know....

Views, Panels, and CCK are the foundation of all modern Drupal sites -- They do all most of the work for you

  • tip: Reality check -- build as much of a site as you can using JUST contrib and core. Make sure your first question is "How can I implement this with existing modules like views, CCK and panels? Then, and only then, once you establish a gap, produce custom code. Custom code should only be used if you can prove that you were not able to use Views and CCK to create the equivalent functionality.
  • tip: Learn how views export module works. It's bundled with views and allows you to literally turn your views into "versionable code".
  • tip: Panels and blocks are a powerful combination. Learn it.
  • see: Listing of "Essential Drupal Modules"
  • see: Panels Video Tutorial from Oregon state Univ.
  • see: Views + CCK Tutorial

Static nodes can be exported using the node_export module

CCK types can be exported and imported with content_copy module, ships with CCK

i18n + views is the easiest way to build a multilingual site

  • tip: Use the views language filters to build language aware views

Image module is one of the longest running, and best supported modules ever

  • tip: If you're not using image module to handle your uploaded images, think again.

imagecache module is the long-run simplest way to handle multiple image sizes

  • tip: Sure, there's a little configuration pain up front but your site will be extremely flexible

That pathauto is almost always the easiest SEO win

logintoboggan module solves 80% of the registration related requests from the client

admin_menu module makes administering and building Drupal sites easier and faster It is more attractive that simplemenu (and more logical and Acquia supported!)