45 Modules in 45 Minutes: The Best Modules You're Not Using

Published September 2, 2009

I recently presented a talk at DrupalCon Paris titled, "45 Modules in 45 Minutes: The Best Modules You're Not Using".

I hand-picked 45 modules that were not among the top 100 most downloaded modules from Drupal.org for the period of June 21 - August 16, 2009.

Here's a quick snippet from the presentation:

What did I miss? Do you have a favorite lesser-known module or two? Post your in the comments below.

UPDATE: The entire video is now available on archive.org

Comments

Good list, Mike. Here are my under-appreciated favorites:

  • Views attach lets you embed a View in the content of a given node type—very handy for photo galleries. (See Photo galleries with Views Attach.)
  • Views Custom Field lets you add (duh) a custom field to your Views—markup, PHP, or row number. It's one of my theming mainstays.
  • Menu Settings per Content Type lets you define which content types display menu settings on node edit screens, for when some belong in a menu (like pages) and some don't (like blog posts). It's a common sense module.
  • Menu Trails lets you create sensible breadcrumb patterns per content type by defining where they would be if they were in the menu system. (Kind of the pathauto of breadcrumbs, I suppose.) Custom Breadcrumbs attempts to solve the same problem a little differently.
  • FileField Podcaster bears mention as arguably the best module for podcasting with Drupal. It's more philosophically "Drupalish" than Audio module (it's based on CCK and Views), and it's more active than the iTunes module. Plus there's a really nice screencast on setting it up.
  • Views Natural Sort fills a small but sometimes important need to sort views "naturally" by ignoring articles like "The" and "A".
  • External Links uses jQuery to add an icon next to hyperlinks that point off-site. It's a small module, but it's nicely done, and I use it on almost every site.

Was very nice presentation.
I would say that in general you did not miss much.
Perhaps if we talk more depth about the use, for example what modules for a social site, what to use for media and publishing sites, etc.
Maybe we will see more of this series?

after all, thank you for such effort.
Regards,
Osama
eLamsa

Good job on your presentation/slides and thanks for sharing them. In regards to theming, you might want to have a look at the Skinr module:

http://drupal.org/project/skinr

It aims to help make theming a little more modular by allowing people to define and reuse styles covering the functionality of Block Theme and Block Class modules and more. From the module description page:

"Skinr's main purpose is to allow the theme to define a set of reusable and modular CSS styles, and to make those styles available in Drupal's UI. Skinr was developed for themers to allow them to tap into the power of Drupal's modularity and apply those same principals to theme development."

Thanks again!

Hi Michael, Thanks for putting together this presentation and publishing your slides and audio online. I wasn't able to attend this particular session at Drupalcon and I'm in the middle of writing an article for a design publication, so this definitely helps!

[...] recently presented 45 Modules in 45 Minutes: The Best Modules You're Not Using at DrupalCon Paris. Here's a tip using one of the forty-five modules in my [...]

Thanks Mike! That was an amazing presentation. Very organized & very straight to the point. I wasn't at DrupalCon Paris but with the stuff you've posted here at drupaleasy.com (BTW Nice Site. My 1st time here) & all the stuff available at archive.org, I feel like I didn't miss too much. Hope to hook up with you guys & all your stuff in the nearest future. Great to see more excellent Drupal shops strutting their stuff on the webosphere in grand style. Lagos, Nigeria.

Submitted by ChillPill (not verified) on Fri, 10/02/2009 - 23:23

[...] Iedere Drupal-ontwikkelaar kent CCK en Views, maar in deze sessies passeerden 45 andere modules de revue die veel minder bekend zijn, maar toch de moeite waard. Better Messages, HTML Purifier, Image Resize Filter, Table Wizard, Persistent Login, Automated Logout, Taxonomy Breadcrumb, Taxonomy Image – ik kende ze allemaal nog niet, maar sommige ga ik zeker gebruiken. » presentatie en videobeelden: drupaleasy.com/45 [...]

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