Most popular Drupal modules and Jody's opinions about them as presented at Drupaldelphia

1. Top Modules
One Woman’s Notes on Drupal’s Most Enabled
Contributed Modules

2. Jody Hamilton
• Owner, Lead Developer at Zivtech
• Drupal architect, developer, themer, site-
builder, project manager, teacher and
student
• Jody Lynn on drupal.org

3. Top Modules Meta-data
• Source: http://drupal.org/project/Modules
which relies on core Update Status module
• See also http://drupal.org/project/usage
• Please interrupt with short corrections and
confusions only (no long questions)

4. 1 Views
MUST HAVE
• “Drupal without Views is like a room
without a Teddy”

5. 2 CCK
MUST HAVE
• Enable everything but content_permissions
• Most of it is in core for D7

6. 3&4 Pathauto & Token
MUST HAVE
• Want to make your URL’s consistent and
SEO’d while doing nothing?
• Token is in core for D7

7. 5 Admin_menu
MUST HAVE
• See also: D7’s Toolbar module, and Young
Hahn’s Admin module
• Use all modules by sun: http://drupal.org/
user/54136

8. 6 Filefield
MUST HAVE
• Use it, not core Upload
• In core for D7
• Use anything by quicksketch: http://
drupal.org/user/35821

9. 7 Imagefield
MUST HAVE
• Use it, not Image module
• In core for D7
• Use anything by quicksketch: http://
drupal.org/user/35821

10. 8 ImageAPI
API
• Requirement for imagecache
• In core for D7
• Set it to use GD2

11. 9 IMCE
HAS ITS PLACE
• Handy inline image/file browser for
wysiwygs
• In D7 should be replaced by Media module
• Also try Insert module

12. 10 ImageCache
MUST HAVE
• Alters (and caches) any image
• In core for D7

13. 11 Date
OFTEN NEEDED
• A CCK field for dates
• Includes date_popup
• Event module is deprecated

14. 12 Google Analytics
OFTEN NEEDED
• Plug and play
• Slows down page loads

15. 13 Webform
OFTEN NEEDED
• The 3.0 branch is especially awesome
• Study its project page to understand
appropriate uses

16. 14 Poormanscron
BEGINNERS ONLY
• In core for D7

17. 15 Image
DEPRECATED
• An inflexible ancestor to the gallery
building systems of imagefield, imagecache
and views
• Used by those enchanted by its namespace
or running legacy sites

18. 16 Advanced Help
MUST HAVE
• The help system for Views and CCK
• Secret location of the Views development
docs

19. 17 CAPTCHA
OFTEN NEEDED
• SPAM prevention
• Mollom is better maintained but is a paid
service for larger sites

20. 18 WYSIWYG
MUST HAVE
• Integrates with many common wysiwyg
libraries
• Unifies Drupal wysiwyg integration to
prevent code duplication

21. 20 Nodewords
SEO
• Used for SEO purposes

22. 21 Lightbox2
SOMETIMES NEEDED
• The current best of breed.
• Pops up images in modal overlays,
integrates seamlessly with major modules.

23. 22 CTools
API
• A requirement for Panels.
• Useful for developers: exportables, modal
dialogs, etc.

24. 23 Link
MUST HAVE
• A CCK field for URLs.

25. 24 Backup and Migrate
SOMETIMES NEEDED
• Makes database backups simple
• Rarely used by experts

26. 25 XML Sitemap
SOMETIMES NEEDED
• Useful for SEO purposes

27. 26 Panels
SOMETIMES NEEDED
• Powerful page layout
• Alternative to block system
• See also: Context module

28. 27 Devel
MUST HAVE
• Tools for developers and themers
• dpm(), devel degerate, ddebug_backtrace(),
devel_node_access, devel/php, devel/
phpinfo, devel/switch/[username]
• Disable on production sites

29. 28 jQuery_update
SOMETIMES NEEDED
• A dependency of some other jQuery
modules

30. 29 Content Taxonomy
WTF?
• Gives you more options with taxonomy
features
• Adds complexity to taxonomy data storage

31. 30 Calendar
Sometimes Needed
• A views plugin for displaying dates as a
calendar
• Notoriously buggy and breakable

32. 31 Global Redirect
SEO
• A plug and play SEO helper

33. 32 jQuery UI
Sometimes Needed
• A dependency of other jQuery modules
• Just a wrapper around the jQuery UI
(which you still have to download)

34. 33 Contemplate
Beginners Only
• A module for doing theme template work
• A tool for beginners that mostly makes
their life harder while scratching the
immediate itch

35. 34 Voting API
API
• A dependency of voting modules (e.g.
Fivestar)

36. 35 Page Title
SEO
• A module for people who are concerned
with the title at the top of the browser

37. 36 Nice Menus
SOMETIMES NEEDED
• THE module for drop-down navigation
• You have to be pretty CSS-savvy to get it to
look right with your theme

38. 37 Transliteration
MUST HAVE
• Cleans up the filenames of your users’
uploads
• Prevents headaches

39. 38 Print
MUST HAVE
• Creates links for print, PDF download, and
e-mail versions of your content
• Great book module integration

40. IMCE Wysiwyg
39
Bridge
HAS ITS PLACE
• Needed if you use IMCE and Wysiwyg
• You really should be using Wysiwyg module
if you’re using a wysiwyg...

41. 40 Tagadelic
SOMETIMES NEEDED
• Handy tagcloud creation

42. 41 Phone
SOMETIMES NEEDED
• CCK field for phone numbers
• See also: generic text field
• Needed when phone numbers you store
are programmatically used

43. 42 Email
SOMETIMES NEEDED
• CCK field for e-mail addresses
• Needs to get more popular than Phone...

44. 43 widgEditor
SKEWED STATS
• Don’t use wysiwyg modules other than
Wysiwyg
• Odd spike in its usage statistics

45. 44 Menu Toggle
SKEWED STATS
• Odd spike in its usage statistics, matching
widgEditor

46. 45 Emfield
SOMETIMES NEEDED
• The best way to embed external video and
audio (a type of CCK field)
• Will be deprecated by media module (D7)

47. 46 Views Slideshow
SOMETIMES NEEDED
• Most commonly used rotation module, but
there are many others

48. 47 i18n
SOMETIMES NEEDED
• Support for translating content

49. 48 Site map
SOMETIMES NEEDED
• Displays all your menus and RSS feeds

50. 49 Ubercart
SOMETIMES NEEDED
• The best open source e-commerce
software available?

51. 50 Fivestar
SOMETIMES NEEDED
• A well-written module for ratings

52. 51 Simplenews
NOT RECOMMENDED
• Send e-mail blasts from your Drupal site
• Not a good idea unless your mailing list will
always be small

53. 52 Auto Node Title
SOMETIMES NEEDED
• Create automatic titles for nodes based
with your own logic

54. 53 Image Assist
DEPRECATED
• Uses (deprecated) image module to add
images into node bodies
• Try Insert module instead

55. 54 Location
SOMETIMES NEEDED
• A notoriously buggy messed-up module
that collects address data, geocodes and
supports views proximity searching

56. 55 “GMap Module”
SOMETIMES NEEDED
• Location module’s partner in buggy module
hell
• See also: Open Layers

57. 56 LoginToboggon
SOMETIMES NEEDED
• Provides some handy features for
simplifying user registrations/logins

58. 57 Path Redirect
SOMETIMES NEEDED
• Works much like Pathauto
• Handy for redirecting legacy URLs into a
new site

59. 58 Rules
SOMETIMES NEEDED
• Slick trigger-based actions to build site logic
without coding
• Makes core trigger module embarrassed to
exist

60. Views Bulk
59
Operations
SOMETIMES NEEDED
• Cool views plugin for building bulk action
forms with views (think admin/content/
node)

61. 60 External Links
SOMETIMES NEEDED
• Adds icons to external links and/or open
them in new window

62. 61 DHTML Menu
SOMETIMES NEEDED
• Open and close nested menu trees
• Seems to confuse most users more than
help them

63. 62 Thickbox
DEPRECATED
• It worked nicely, but the jquery script it
wraps is deprecated
• Try lightbox2 or colorbox

64. 63 Mollom
SOMETIMES NEEDED
• Smart spam prevention
• Requires subscription for larger sites
• See also: captcha

65. 64 Better Formats
MUST HAVE
• Define different default formats per role
and other features
• A win for both security and usability
• Some features are in D7

66. 65 CK Editor
DEPRECATED
• See Wysiwyg module...

67. 66 SWFTools
SOMETIMES NEEDED
• Use Flash to display audio/video filefields

68. 67 Content Profile
MUST HAVE
• Use CCK fields for user profile fields
• Much better than core profile and user
images
• Users can have fields in D7

69. 68 getId3()
API
• Get metadata from files
• Filefield can use this

70. 69 Update Status
DEPRECATED
• In core as of D6

71. 70 Author Pane
SOMETIMES NEEDED
• Used by Advanced Forum and Advanced
Profile Kit

72. 71 Mime Mail
SOMETIMES NEEDED
• Send HTML email from your site

73. 72 Content Access
SOMETIMES NEEDED
• A node access module to customize view
access per content type
• Can also work on a per-node basis for
view/edit/delete permissions

74. 73 jQuery Plugins
API
• A dependency other modules can ask for
to try to reuse jQuery plugins
• jQ looks more useful

75. 74 Menu Block
SOMETIMES NEEDED
• Gives you blocks for subsections of your
menu, so you can show a section of
navigation in context

76. 75 Organic Groups
SOMETIMES NEEDED
• It powers groups.drupal.org
• It’s used for all kinds of group systems and
sub-sites, most them not at all organic

77. 76 Views Bonus Pack
DEPRECATED
• Used to provide audio playlists and grid
views in D5
• Still provides CVS export functionality

78. 77 Scheduler
SOMETIMES NEEDED
• Schedules publishing and unpublishing of
nodes
• Workflow can do the same and more

79. 78 Messaging
API
• System for sending messages through
abstract means (email, SMS, twitter, etc)
• Used by Notifications (content
subscriptions)

80. 79 Taxonomy Menu
SOMETIMES NEEDED
• If you need a vocabulary to be a menu...

81. 80 Event
DEPRECATED
• See date and calendar.