Adding the first modules

When downloading Drupal, only the core-modules are available. In order to extend, build or enhance Drupals functionality, you need to install contributed modules.

Contributed modules come in all kinds and shapes. Some will add a twitter-button at the end of your blog, other modules are designed to help you to make a backup of your database. Some are really simple in use, some add complex possibilities to Drupal.

When adding a module it's Best Practice to do this on a test-site first, even to take the site offline and to make a backup. Especially when you deal with modules you don't know yet. But since this is probably a test-site, and you deal with well-known modules, this doesn't matter for now.

The choice of what modules you install first is mine. There are numerous discussions on the Internet about it, but I made my choice based on the amount of people using them, how well they are developed, if they are rather simple in use and if can you apply them to almost every kind of website

Where to find the modules

You find lists, download-links and information of (almost) all of the contributed modules (a contributed module is a module that doesn't come with the core-installation) on drupal.org.

When you open Modules on drupal.org, you see a list of them, sorted by usage statistics. Interesting, because it tells you something about the quality of and the need for the module. You're also able to sort them by title, creation date, last release or recent activity by clicking on the links in the 'Sort by' box on the right.

You also can search for a module or look into categories and there is a link to the alphabetical list of projects (where project=modules).

Notice the 'Filter by compatibility'. The 6.x stands for modules which are compatible with Drupal 6.x. Always download a module that is compatible with the version of Drupal that you have installed!

There are also the download-links in the list. Some of them have a green background, other a red. The ones with the green background are stable, the red background shows versions that are in some development-stage.

The modules in detail

In the lists there is a short explanation about the module, but to see all the details you have to click on the title of the module. Together with the explanation, you find links to the documentation, usage statistics, pending patches and much more.

All that gives you a welth of information. Does it work on its own, or does it need another module or program. Is there another module that serves you better? Are there any critical bugs? It's very important (and fun, I think) to go through all of this before installing a new module.

The first modules to install

This is my list of modules I should install on my site to start with. The links in the list will bring you to the page of the module on drupal.org. Read the information on the site and start downloading them. Of course, look for the right version (the latest stable version for 6.x).

• pathauto: With path (a core-module) you can make nice paths to content manually. With pathauto this goes automatically. The module depends on token, so this module needs to be downloaded also
• poormanscron: It will let cron run on a regular base. Cron indexes the sit for searchand controls the performance of drupal. Without this module, you have to run cron manually.
• tagadelic: With your core-module taxonomy, you're able to categorize content with tags. Tagadelic shows them in a nice way
• token: Needed to install pathauto
• backup and migrate: A great module for making backups of your database, and to help you to migrate the database to another site.
• mollom: A very good spam-filter you'll need whenever there is interaction between your site and a user (comments, membership, ...). The module connects with mollom.com
• imce: To upload pictures and files easily. It works well together with fckeditor, the last one on my list.
• fckeditor: a WYSIWYG-editor. Makes it easy to create pages or blogposts in HTML. Important: to make it function, you also have to download the latest version of FCKeditor_zip also.

Installation of the modules

After all this downloading, you should have 9 files now: 8 with the extension tar.gz (pathauto, poormanscron, tagadelic, token, backup and migrate, mollom, imce and fckeditor) and 1 .zip (FCKeditor). Extracting the tar.gz-files gives you 8 folders (you can use 7-zip to extract them). Leave the .zip-file as it is to avoid confusion.

Installing the modules in Drupal is very simple: you just drag the extracted folders (not only the content) into the right directory of your Drupal-installation. Drupal will notice that they're there automatically.

The right place is your_site/sites/all/modules (replace your_site with the right path). If the directory 'modules' doesn't exists you have to make it (most propably it won't on this stage. On your computer you probably know how to make an extra directory. On the web you can do it with an FTP-client like FileZilla). So, after you've dragged these folders to the right place, you should see them nicely under your_site/sites/all/modules.

What about FCKEditor_zip

It's time now to extract this file too. After extraction you have another folder named fckeditor. This folder needs to replace the folder called fckeditor inside your_site/sites/all/modules/fckeditor. So, after doing that, you should have your_site/sites/all/modules/fckeditor/fckeditor, with inside the content of the zip-folder.

Enable the modules

The folders are downloaded, extracted and put in the right spot. so, Drupal should recognize them already. And remember, after installation we need to enable them by going to Administer>>Site building>>Modules on your site (make sure WampServer is running if you installed the site on your own computer!). The new modules should appear on the list. Enable them. If a module needs another module, and it's not there, or not enabled, Drupal will tell you by writing missing in the description of the module.

Save configuration.

Set permissions for the modules

go to Administer>>User management>>Permissions. Those modules NOT listed on the permission-page don't need settings. (IMCE doesn't need settings for permissions for example). Leave the settings as they are for the moment. You, as 1st-user has permission to do anything you want, we can change permissions if we want when we go life.

Configure the modules

go to Administer, and choose the label BY MODULE next to BY TASK. Most of the modules you enabled will be listed here, if not there are no permissions to set or configuration to do.

The standard settings of most of the modules will be ok, and as we go through them I'll mention only the settings we need to change. but it's a good idea to look at all the settings yourself to familiarise yourself with the modules.

Pathauto

We can configure Pathauto to make the paths we want by changing the Automated alias settings (go to 'URL aliases' under Path, and go to the label on the right).

Look for example to 'Node path settings', and you see that the default path is 'content/[title-raw]'. That means that every page of story that you make will get a path looking like my_site/content/title, where my_site needs to be replaced with the path to your site and where the title will be the title you gave to the page of story.

[title-raw] comes from the replacement-patterns (under Node path settings).

You understand that with Pathauto you get a powerfull instrument for making nice paths automatically, ideal for SEO (for SEO it's also best to keep the title close to the beginning of the path)

Poormanscron

The settings should be ok.

Tagadelic

The settings should be ok.

Token

No settings

Backup and migrate

The settings should be ok

Mollom

For Mollom we need access-keys from the Mollom-website. Under the configuration-settngs of Mollom, right at the bottom, we see 'Mollom access keys'. You get them after you sign up for an account in Mollom.com.

IMCE

The basic settings are fine for the moment.

FCKeditor

We want FCKeditor to work together with the IMCE-module for uploading files or pictures. To configure the editor to do so, we need to change the default-settings by clicking 'edit', and to go to File browser type and change it to IMCE.

To take advantage of the possibilities of the editor, we'll also have to change the standard input format of Drupal to Full HTML. go to Administer>>Site configuration>>Input formats, and change the default to Full HTML.

To see how the editor looks like, Go to 'create content' (the link in your navigation-menu), choose Page, and you will see under body a screen with a lot of buttons. That's FCKeditor in action.

• Go back to 'Welcome to your new Drupal website'
• Go further to 'Adding a theme'