Adding Contributed Modules

Summary

The repository of contributed Drupal modules is vast and diverse in scope. Installing and configuring Drupal modules tends to follow a common pattern that includes moving files into the modules folder on the web server, possibly updating the database schema, and enabling the module from the admin/modules screen. Modules usually have a settings page, which can be accessed via administer ➤ settings.

In this chapter, you learned how to install, configure, and use some useful modules: TinyMCE, Image, Image Assist, Flexinode, Event, Location, Organic Groups, Spam, Database Administration, and Devel.

In this and the previous chapters, you’ve learned how Drupal sites work and what you can do with them. In the next chapter, you will dive into the world of theming your Drupal site so that you can control how every element looks and make your site a visual masterpiece.

Based on an abstract theme layer, Drupal’s theme system allows you to access and control the HTML that is created without needing to modify the source code for modules or core files. This is not only good software architecture, but it also opens the door for sophisticated usage such as running multiple sites (each with their own theme) off a common codebase. Running multiple Drupal sites is covered in Chapter 6.