Planning and Managing Drupal Projects

Choosing modules

Modules are one of the things that make Drupal terrific; however, they’re also one of the things that makes Drupal frustrating to many people who are just discovering it. Knowing which module to choose, or which one is needed for a specific project, can be a challenge. And sometimes, a module that seems to be exactly what you need will end up causing more trouble than it fixes—either through refusing to play nice with other modules that you’ve installed, or through messy code that causes major cross-browser issues (hello, Facebook Social Plugins).

That said, there are many modules that are incredibly useful when working with Drupal. Some, such as Block Class (drupal.org/project/block_class) and Pathauto/Token (drupal.org/project/pathauto; drupal.org/project/token) are so useful that I install them by default on any new installation. Others, such as View Reference (drupal.org/project/view_reference), I install whenever I need that specific functionality.

So many modules. How do I choose?

There’s no specific science to choosing the right Drupal module for a given project. However, the more sites you build, the more you’ll begin to notice that specific modules become common for a given project. As you experiment, you’ll also get better at weeding out the modules that aren’t terribly good from the ones that are rock solid. Some things to keep in mind when choosing modules for your project:

• When possible, fewer modules is generally better. Bear in mind that every module ...