4 Must Have Modules to Start Learning Drupal

New to Drupal? Confuse what are the best modules to install? You've come to the right link then. In this article, i've created a list of 4 drupal modules to help you start using drupal.

For those who don't know yet, Drupal is a Content Management System (CMS). Wikipedia says: "A content management system (CMS) is a program used to create a framework for the content of a Web site." Besides it's core, the strength of drupal lies within the modules which are contributed by the community.

1. Pathauto

Drupal has the ability to create friendly URLs out of the box with its Path module. So, instead of having a post like example.com/node/123, you can have a more human readable and of course SEO friendly URL such as example.com/article/
4-must-have-modules. But you will have to manually create those aliases, and its a real pain in the a** if you have lots of posts or pages. This is when Pathauto comes in handy. It will automatically create those aliases for you.

You can also customize it to whatever you want your URLs look like because the aliases are based upon a "pattern" system which the administrator can control.

You can download Version 5.x-2.1 for Drupal 5 HERE. Important! It requires Token to be installed first. The latest pathauto for Drupal 6 is still in development as I write this article. But you can directly download it HERE or visit the Pathauto Project Page.

Tips: Remember to enable Clean URLs for best result.

2. WYSIWYG Editor

It ain't a CMS if it ain't has a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) Editor. Well, by default Drupal does have a built-in Editor, but its just a simple text area. It doesn't mean that its bad. Instead I'd say this is great because we have the freedom to choose our own preferred Editor. Not everyone needs a bulky editor, sometimes we only need some simple HTML codes just to put links or images in our posts. The good news is, there are plenty of editors to choose. I'm not going to tell you which one suits best, instead I'll give you some recommended editors to help you choose your own. Not to forget, you can always browse any modules related to filter/editor HERE.

- TinyMCE WYSIWYG Editor

TinyMCE is one of the most feature-complete editor and it is the commonly used on many CMSs. If you are familiar with Joomla, then this is the best editor for you because its the same editor used in Joomla. You will have to download the official TinyMCE and module partially.

Download TinyMCE Module.
Download TinyMCE

- BUEditor

Personally, this is the best Editor in Drupal, I'm using it right now. It's not really a WYSIWYG as you can see from the screenshot. BUEditor basically only help you to put HTML/bbcode/PHP codes instead of writing them manually. But I can create as many buttons as I want, which means I can put only my preferred codes/buttons to the editor. In the end, I like it because I will have cleaner codes than using standard WYSIWYG.

Here are some BUEditor features quoted from the project page:

• Editor interface and button functionality are completely customizable through administration pages.
• It supports role based editor interfaces.
• It's possible to create image or text buttons.
• Buttons can be customized to generate code snippets, html tags, bbcode tags etc.

Download BUEditor

- FCKeditor

FCKeditor is also one of the most feature-complete WYSIWYG editor. If you want a bulky editor just like standard desktop word processor, I really recommend using this one. The newest version has a nice javascript pop-up when we are uploading or inserting images/links. Just like TinyMCE, you will need to download the official FCKeditor partially from the module.

Download FCKeditor Module
Download FCKeditor

3. Views

The views module can provide you flexible method to control the output of your nodes/content. i.e. By using Views you can filter the output of a certain node just like the one found on MediaSastra.com. It uses Table View to control the layout, and filters the output based on a node called "Work" which is included in a vocabulary called "Genre" and sort them based on the time creation.
This is one of the most powerful module in Drupal and I encourage you to play with it a lot. The above is only one simple example, but you should at least understand that the amount of flexibilities are endless.
Download Views Module

4. Content Construction Kit (CCK)

The Content Construction Kit allows you create and customize Drupal's content fields. I can put as many fields as I want on any content types. As yo can see from the screenshot, the field types can be vary. You may put URL field, Text field or even Adsense Code. The output of that screenshot can be seen HERE. Now, that is only a rough example of the use of CCK. And the good news is you can actually theme the output by using a module called Contemplate. So you will have a nice looking end result. Also, Views module can work together with CCK. A live example can be seen HERE.

Download CCK Module
Download Contemplate

Hope you'll find this article useful enough to get you start learning Drupal. Feel free to ask if you have any questions.