6 essential Drupal modules for your website

We have selected a list of essential modules for your Drupal website.  After years of experience in Drupal, we can assure you that if you have these installed from the start, you will save yourself many unnecessary headaches.

Essential modules for Drupal

Views

This module is one of the essentials for whatever website you are developing in Drupal.  Without a doubt, it is a must if you want the option to create displays with data and lists in an agile and organized way.

Its principal function is the ability to customize from queries to your databases, where entities’ information are saved.

Thanks to its friendly user interface, you will be able to select the origin of the data, the fields to show, the conditions to filter, the ordering, and other functions.  Therefore, you will save time and effort by not having to manually search in SQL and include them in PHP code.

Devel

When you try to work in Drupal, Devel becomes one of your best resources.  This module provides a complete toolbox to facilitate easy programing work for the developers as well as the site administrators.

Devel will allow you to accelerate the development of your web or module through the automatic management of certain content.  It has a series of submodules that can generate node, taxonomy terms, users, etc.  This becomes very useful when you need more than 500 nodes to try a function.  Additionally, you can use it to execute PHP code in the Drupal environment and try different roles in the site.

Another useful function of Devel is the scrubbing option that it offers.  Using different dsm() and dpm() functions, you will be able to print matrices, objects, and everything necessary to obtain an encompassing view of what is being executed.

It can also be used without an IDE extension and in remote development configurations.

You will not be overwhelmed if you are just starting in the Drupal universe because it is so easy to use; you only have to name the functions dpm or KPR in place of whatever Drupal code base and you will get results.  

Features

The module “features” is synonymous to “save time” as it allows you to capture and manage Drupal elements through an intuitive and simple user interface, especially if you are just beginning to familiarize yourself with this CMS.

Thanks to this resource, you will have the ability to export the features of your site to a customized module that you will then be able to use as any other module.  This means that you can choose a feature of your site and return to create it in another part of the site without needing to go back and manually repeat the process from scratch.

Add to any

In the 2.0 environment that we currently operate in, it is essential to allows users that visit the site to share the content on their social profiles.  To facilitate the maximum functionality to the public, “Add to any” allows the addition of social network buttons within the content of your site.

One of the advantages of this mode is that it permits the configuration of many effects that will make sure the icons have an attractive and original design.

jQuery update

jQuery update will allow you to update the jQuery version of you site beyond the default core settings.

These are some examples of the updates that you can carry out in every version of Drupal.

• Drupal 5 to jQuery 1.2.6

• Drupal 6 to jQuery 1.3.2

• Drupal 7 to jQuery 1.5.x, 1.7.x, 1.8.x, 1.9.x, 1.10.x, 2.1.x and jQuery UI 1.10.2

Additionally, you will be able to discriminate between said versions through administration themes and portal themes.

Panels

With Panels, you will be able to create personalized designs beginning with creating personalized layouts thanks to a drag and drop system that makes the task of designing more visual and intuitive.

When integrated with the other systems it will give you the possibility of creating nodes, destination pages, and even override the system pages.  

These 6 modules will make your development experience in Drupal more efficient.  Have you used any of them? What other modules would you add to our list of essentials?