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Must have Drupal modules

Drupal provides a great foundation out of the box, but it is hard to imagine any site that wouldn’t benefit from a few third-party modules for added features. There are several modules that are must haves for any site, no matter how big or small.

Views

Views is a module that provides a flexible interface for Drupal site builders to control how listings of nodes are presented. More specifically, it’s a smart query builder that can build the query you need to display what you want, in a list, table, or full node display. For example, if you wanted a page listing all stories in a particular category, a table displaying sortable job postings grouped by location, or a block listing only blog posts with comments, you would create a “view”. Many other modules use Views as a basis for their functionality.

CCK - Content Construction Kit

The Content Construction Kit allows you to create your own Drupal content types with custom fields in your web browser, going beyond simple stories, pages, and blogs. There are also dozens of CCK add-ons for things like images, zip codes, dates, and media, which allow you to easily drop in new field types to your content types, handling all formatting and validation. For example, you might want a “Course” content type that included fields for a room number, duration, and the instructor’s photo.

Pathauto

Pathauto is a module that will automatically create path aliases for several kinds of content, including nodes, categories, and users without actually having to specify the aliases manually. These aliases are based on a "pattern" system that’s controlled by the administrator. You can use this to put dates in your blog post URLs, or add a SKU number to the end of your product node URLs. The Token module is required for Pathauto.

Panels 2

Panels is a module that divides any pages you choose into incredibly configurable layouts ready to drop in bits of content. Used with Views, this is an amazingly powerful way to create custom layouts. You can drop in views, blocks, pages, and pull things from user profiles. It had a drag-and-drop interface and even has features like rounded corners on your panel panes. You gotta try it! Views, CCK, Pathautho, and Panels 2 are the real “core that isn’t in core,” as far as we’re concerned. If you’re building a simple site with just static pages, blog posts, and discussion forums, you can probably make do without them. But as soon as you want to add a list of popular posts to the sidebar, add a bio to the footer of stories, or automatically create keyword-rich paths for your posts, you’ll start wishing they were there!

Spam

The Spam Module provides tools that help deal spam content or comments that may get posted to your site. Very useful, as it can unpublish or delete the spam automatically, and is highly configurable. Must have for any site that allows user comments.

WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) Editor

This is a tough one. As a developer who has implemented dozens of Drupal sites, I’ve seen the kinds of problems that WYSIWYG editors can cause with creating incorrect code. However, they are a must-have for many site administrators and contributors who don’t know HTML and want a feature-rich editor where they can add text formatting and content easily. You most likely will want one, and there are several integrated with Drupal to choose from. TinyMCE and FCK Editor are the two most popular WYSIWYG modules right now. They are roughly equivalent in terms of features and quality, but you should check them both out to see if one has a feature you need in particular.

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