Drupal Modules To Improve Your Site Structure

When we look at a website, we do like the appearance and the content at times. But I wonder, how many of us think how a nice and well-developed website is created. Today, creating websites and managing them has become easy with content management systems (CMS). But there are certain things which we often forget as web developers that one CMS might work well for one website but that does not mean that it will work the same with another one. So, we need to be carefull while selecting a content management system for a website development project. Today, most website developers prefer to use open source content management system like Drupal. However, there are many issues to handle while creating a website using the CMS.

You may get surprised to read that even using one of the most user-friendly CMS can have issues to handle. Yes! There are but if handles properly you will get the best possible outcome.

One of the initial hurdles when building a website using Drupal CMS is the first setup and configuration. However, if you follow certain modules as mentioned below then the task of web content management will become easier than your expectation.

Background

I would recomment you to use a Acquia Drupa, a free installation package from Drupal for your website. It has numerous handy modules. Start with the easy one. You will get result. You can do modification as per your project needs. So, the theme is popular among most Drupal developers.

Now, come to Drupal modules which are needed not only to develop your website but also to improve the site quality. I have divided the modules in the following categories:

• Content Management

• Content Edititing

• Multimedia Content

• Site Administration

• Tools for Drupal Developers

Content Management

A well managed content can affect a website's rank. You can easily enhance the way website owners create, present and manage their website content through various modules.

One of the modules are Content Construction Kit (CCK) and it is an important module for custom content configuration. This particular module permits you to add all sorts of content with additional fields to every existing ones. For example, if your website requires a blog or an events area, Content Construction Kit can help you develop a completely fresh type of website content.

Some of the additional modules in this segment include:

• Location

• Phone Number

• Email

Multiblock is another module which is used for larger websites. This is used as blocks. Using it, your block list will become cluttered and will start to make things confusing.

Trigger is one of the Drupal's core module. It is one of the most powerful modules and deserves props. It allows developers to fire actions based on various events that often take place on your website.

Pathologic is used to deal with relative URLs linking to web pages within your own website. This particular module creates a filter which is used to correct URL paths that would generally have a tendency to blow up and break. So, no more worries and using Pathologic you can avoid broken-link issues.

Content Editing

One of the greatest way to make website content management easier is the use of Graphical user interfaces (GUIs). It is also essential to use Rich-Text-Editing module to set-up unique and correct content for a website. Some of the popular content editor or checker used by Drupal developers are TinyMCE and CKEditor.

Multimedia Content

Apart from text content, as a website ownwer you might also want to add streaming audio or video in your web content pages or even provide Excel spreadsheet or PDF file for your readers to download. In order to do all these aactivies you may use the following modules:

• Embedded Media Field

• IMCE

Site Administration

Peopel often say that is not easy to navigate a site built using Drupal content management system. This is true to some extent. However, if you can use specific modules then navigating a website will be mere fun. Some of the modules are as follows:

Administration Menu – It comes with normal features which you get with Acquia Drupal. It gives you a beautiful horizontal navigation bar at the top of your website pages which can be use to navigate the admin interface with ease.

Content Access – It is a must have for websites with all kinds of customized permissions. This exceptionally user-friendly module will help developers as well as site owners to restrict access of web content.

Tools for Developers

There are many tools which Drupal developers can use while creating a website. It is not necessary to use all the tools at the same time. Your selection of tools may vary from one project to another. Some of the widely used tools include :

1. Features – This module will help you create your own customizable features and combine them to use in more than one projects.

2. IE CSS Optimizer – Using Drupa themes, you can easy optimize your web content using this module.

3. Devel – It is a great resourse for Drupal web development. Using it, you can generate dummy web content for all content types.

So, with so many modules with you I am sure you will be able to improve you website content. If you still have queries you are most welcome to contact Drupal developers.