Drupal caters for all kinds of sites, but for this example we will assume that it will be a simple brochure ware/information site.
I won’t be dealing with the actual set up of the site. That will follow in a future article. The main focus is to identify modules that work well with one another and makes our live easier. There are many ways to skin a cat, we just found this way to be the least painful.
Drupal
Right now Drupal 7.14 is the newest release so we will be using that.
3rd party modules to install:
Admin with Admin tools
http://drupal.org/project/admin/
http://drupal.org/project/admin_tools/
This is a nice menu to have, and even thought we use the toolbar that comes with the admin theme: seven, we sometimes use both, so nice to get to clear your caches and theme registry quickly, or run a cron.
Backup and Migrate
http://drupal.org/project/backup_migrate
Essential to have on any Drupal site. Never do an update or introduce new functionality/DB changes before you used this.
Chaos tool suite (ctools)
http://drupal.org/project/ctools
One of those great “behind the scenes” API modules, no configuration etc. required. Lots of other modules we use require this.
Devel
http://drupal.org/project/devel
More for developers, helps a lot in getting those crucial database values, speeding up development time. We normally use this only during the production phase and on our staging sites.
Entity API
http://drupal.org/project/entity
API module, other modules we use require this.
Field Group
http://drupal.org/project/field_group
FieldGroup will, as the name implies, group fields together. Always nice to keep the backend tidy too!
Libraries API
http://drupal.org/project/libraries/
The common denominator for all Drupal modules/profiles/themes that integrate with external libraries.
Module Filter
http://drupal.org/project/module_filter
The module page can get long, this helps.
Panels
http://drupal.org/project/panels
The Panels module allows a site administrator to create customized layouts for multiple uses.
Pathauto
http://drupal.org/project/pathauto
Makes pretty URL’s.
Superfish
http://drupal.org/project/superfish
Superfish integrates jQuery Superfish plugin with your Drupal menus.
Taxonomy menu
http://drupal.org/project/taxonomy_menu/
Transform any of your taxonomy vocabularies into existing menus easily!
Taxonomy Menu Trails
http://drupal.org/project/taxonomy_menu_trails
You need this module if you have a nested menu tree with taxonomy terms.
Token
http://drupal.org/project/token
Tokens are small bits of text that can be placed into larger documents via simple placeholders, like %site-name or [user].
Views
http://drupal.org/project/views
Must have. Enough said. What makes Drupal in our view.
Views Slideshow
http://drupal.org/project/views_slideshow/
Make pretty slides.
Webform
http://drupal.org/project/webform
Webform is the module for making surveys in Drupal.
When it comes to image and file uploads there are a few different routes we like to use and may consist of the following modules:
Case1:
Here we want a proper file manager and will be re-using a lot of the images/files that we have uploaded before. Bit of overkill for really small sites.
IMCE
http://drupal.org/project/imce
IMCE is an image/file uploader and browser that supports personal directories and quota.
FileField Sources
http://drupal.org/project/filefield_sources/
Handy little module when it comes to managing your images from your file upload field.
IMCE Wysiwyg bridge
http://drupal.org/project/imce_wysiwyg
Case2:
Here we want a proper file manager and will be re-using a lot of the images/files that we have uploaded before. Bit of overkill for really small sites.
IMCE
http://drupal.org/project/imce
IMCE is an image/file uploader and browser that supports personal directories and quota.
IMCE for FileField
http://drupal.org/project/imce_filefield
IMCE for FileField allows users to select files from IMCE File Browser.
IMCE Wysiwyg bridge
http://drupal.org/project/imce_wysiwyg
Case 3:
Handles media files very well, need to include and manage a lot of videos etc.
Media
http://drupal.org/project/media
Great potential, but just not ready for production we feel in certain cases.
Embedded Media Field
http://drupal.org/project/emfield
Media: YouTube
http://drupal.org/project/media_youtube
Provides support for the YouTube video provider for Embedded Media Field.
Case 4.
Got some cool options but UI is bad and it doesn't integrate with fields at all.
Image Picker
http://drupal.org/project/imagepicker
The Image Picker module is an image upload feature modeled after the image upload currently built into Wordpress but with a few improvements.
File Picker
http://drupal.org/project/filepicker
File Picker is a tool to help you upload, browse and add links to files in your nodes.
Like I said before, there are many ways to get your Drupal site to look and perform great. If you have any other modules you use, please send us a link and we will add it gladly!
