As you probably know, Drupal modules are essential components of the Drupal CMS. Their role is to add extra functionality to your website which can make it as powerful as you wish. If you are new to website creating, it can be hard to choose between different Drupal 7 modules.
We have asked our web development team to name the most interesting ones and popular Drupal modules which are must-haves as well.
Here is the list of the essential Drupal 7 modules that will add compelling functionalities to your website and make it more powerful.
#1 Drupal Chaos Tools
Why this tool?
Dev team comment: required for other modules to work more simplified.
This is the most popular and powerful module for Drupal 7. At the moment, this module has 8 million downloads and it is used on 900 thousand websites.
In short, you need this tool to simplify development and to be able to implement other plugins and modules more easily.
#2 Views Drupal 7 Module
Why this module?
Dev team comment: Easy CRUD pages for content
This is another vital module for building websites in Drupal, as well as the most popular one along with the Chaos Tool Suite.
The Views is a Drupal 7 module that enables the content to be displayed in an easy way. It provides you with the possibility to show every website field and any type of display. For example, this module will make it much easier to build a Slideshow on the website.
#3 Views Bulk Operations (VBO)
Dev comment: Shortens the time for coding and saves servers from going down
By adding this module to the website or platform, you can augment the previous one (Views) which allows you to execute bulk operations on the displayed rows. In addition, this module saves the website from reaching the PHP limits
#4 CKeditor
Why this Drupal module?
Dev team comment: Rich text editor a la “What you see is what you get” which means that any text you write in the edit page will be shown live.
As described, this HTML text editor brings many powerful editing functions. It is very fast and doesn’t require any kind of installation on your computer.
CKEditor is a worldwide popular Drupal 7 module that already has a place on many websites and applications around the world. Websites of companies such as Adobe, Microsoft, Oracle, Citi, Disney, and Siemens, to name a few, are t using this module.
#5 Pathauto Drupal 7 Module
Why this tool?
Dev team comment: Automatically generates URL/path aliases for all kinds of content
If you want to rank your website on search engines as you desire, clean and understandable URLs are essential.
Pathauto is the right module for that. Once installed, Pathauto automatically creates understandable and clean URLs for various components of your Drupal website.
Just keep in mind that in order to function correctly, before you add Pathauto, you need to install Token and Chaos Tools modules.
#6 XML sitemap
Why this module?
Dev team comment: Helps search engines to more intelligently crawl a website and keep the results up to date
Again, to fulfil the website’s SEO requirements you need an XML sitemap if you want to make your website search engine friendly.
This module automatically generates a sitemap and keeps your site results up to date with sitemap.org standards.
#7 Google Analytics Module
Why this module?
Dev team comment: Regardless of the type of websites, this is a must-have tool given it’s the most popular traffic tracking tool for websites.
This module for Drupal projects helps you to add and edit the Google Analytics code into your site directly. In short, this module saves your time finding the pages and the places to put the tracking code in.
#8 Entity API
Why this module?
Dev team comment: It provides a unified manner of handling entities and their properties by extending Drupal core’s entity API.
In short, this module expands the API further by adding support for saving and deleting entities and many other improvements.
#9 IMCE Module
Why this Drupal 7 module?
Dev team comment: This is an image/file uploader and browser that supports personal directories and user quotes.
This module is simple yet effective. It allows basic operations such as upload and delete, but it can also perform resize and preview of the images and many other important operations.
#10 Mime Mail Drupal Module
Why this module for Drupal projects?
Dev team comment: This module allows you to receive HTML email, and it can also be used with other Drupal modules.
Once the mail is received, this module functionality accepts an HTML message body, mime-encodes it and then displays it as a full message.
Also, If the HTML has embedded graphics, these graphics are MIME-encoded and included as a message attachment which is also the work of this module.
In addition, we have listed other effective Drupal 7 modules that you can take into account when working on Drupal projects.
- Field collection
This module provides a field-collection field to which any number of fields can be attached. However, this module is not approved by the official Drupal Security team but is properly tested by the Drupal community, therefore, it is safe to use.
- Scheduler
Scheduler gives a content editor the ability to schedule nodes that are going to be published and unpublished at specified dates and times in the future.
- Reroute
This module intercepts all outgoing emails from a Drupal site and reroutes them to a predefined configurable email address.
What’s next?
Among these functions, Drupal 7 offers loads of other perpetual modules that can spice up any website. If you are a developer, professional advice can help you to avoid unnecessary Drupal modules that can put a burden on website resources and make them slow. So, if you are still indecisive or feel that you need help to choose the proper module for Drupal websites, don’t hesitate to ask us for recommendations. We will gladly help you. Also, learn more about Drupal 7 end of life.
How can we help?
If you are creating a website for your business or developing your business project on Drupal CMS, you certainly need professional developers who love working with Drupal. A devoted development team is always checking whether the chosen modules are tested and is always upgrading Drupal security features and Drupal SEO modules.
Do you want to learn more about Drupal?
Check out our blog and explore why Drupal is the best government CMS.
Get in touch with our team of Drupal experts who can help you choose the right modules for your website.
In the end, choosing the right development team will save your time and effort and can help you with digital business consulting.
