Contributed modules extend Drupal's functionality without code changes. The main source is Drupal.org, which hosts thousands of free, GPL-licensed modules. Modules should be chosen based on usage stats, issues, and reviews. They are installed by downloading, extracting, and placing them in sites/all/modules. Enabling modules on the Modules page activates their functionality. Popular modules include Views for listings, Rules for workflows, Pathauto/Token for SEO-friendly URLs, and Panels for custom page structures.

1. Contributions
What are they & how to find them

2. Contributed modules
● Contributed or third party modules extend Drupal
features without the need of altering any code.
● It is possible to code new modules following the
guidelines to achieve (almost) any feature needed.
● There are thousands of contributed modules
distributed under GPL license available in
Drupal.org and other sources that can be used and
adapt.

3. Where to find contrib modules
● The vast majority of the Drupal community is in
drupal.org, that's the main source of modules and
themes for extending your Drupal sites.
● There are few exceptions, and very few non-free
modules distributed.
● A very useful resource is drupalmodules.com which
is fed by drupal main repository and provides a
friendlier interface for finding contributions.

4. How to choose contributed modules
Occasionally you will find modules that apparently
look the same or cover the same needs.
● Usage stats: http://drupal.org/project/usage/views
● Issue queues:
http://drupal.org/project/issues/views?status=All&categories=All
● Similar Module Review:
http://groups.drupal.org/similar-module-review

5. Installing contributed modules
● Download from the official page.
● Uncompress
● Copy the directory in our application folder, for
example sites/all/modules

6. Enabling contributed modules
● Access with a privileged user to the site, and go
to the “Modules” page.
● Select the module or modules to enable.
● Save configuration.

7. Main contributed modules
Views
● Views provides a flexible and powerful interface to
display information listings to the users.
● Allows site builders to generate listings of content,
users, image galleries, custom searches and many
more without changing a single line of code.
● 601,638 sites can't be wrong

8. Views use cases
● Any kind of content listing, dynamic or static, of any
kind of entity and might or might no need sorting and
filtering capabilities.
● Image galleries, carousels, slideshows, rotating
banners...
● Custom searches.
● Content export in RSS, XML, JSON, etc.
● Many more: maps, graphs, web services...

9. Why you should use Views
● Generate listings easily without coding, “black box”
effect.
● Reuse of Views, completely or partially.
● Out of the box full integration with fields, panels, and
almost any other component.
● Exposed filters.
● Diferent display types for different content
typologoies.
● Documentation and support.

10. Reasons to NOT use Views
● Projects in high demand of absolute contol of the
data retrieved and code executed.
● Query optimization.
● Version control, auditory...
● Hard to use

11. Views extensions
Views provides a complete API which facilitates an
massive ecosystem of modules extending Views
features such as extra display options, data
structure modifications, etc.
Views Bonus, Views Tabs, Views Slideshow,
Views Accordion, Views attach,
Views Datasource, Views Popup

12. Main contributed modules
Rules
● Rules provides a way for site builders to build
actions and conditions to react on a given set of
events.
● Allows to configure and change business workflows
with less effort.
● Rules can be encapsulated and embedded so they
could be reused by others.

13. Main contributed modules
Pathauto & Token
● Pathauto is used for generating semantic urls
automatically. It uses replacement rules based in
tokens.
● Token provides the replacement chains for replacing
path values but also to generate any kind of string
based in system variables and many other context
information such as fields, taxonomies...

14. Main contributed modules
Entity Reference
● Entity Reference provides a way to relate entities
(i.e. Users with Content) creating a bridge field to
store the information.
● It provides out of the box integration with Views,
Rules and many more.
● Other alternatives to relate content and entities are
Relation or References.

15. Main contributed modules:
Panels
● Panels enables the creation of page structures from
the user inteface.
● You can include a wide range of elements inside
panels, such as views, fields, blocks...
● Eases the design of pages with complex structures
and allows building prototypes in a faster way.

16. Main contributed modules
SEO
Drupal tends to be SEO friendly by default, but there
are a number of modules that enhace and improve
this capabilities:
● Xmlsitemap Provides a XML map for search
engines.
● MetaTags Allows to add meta tags to content.
● Redirect Helps to create redirections from the
interface

17. Main contrib modules
W YSIW YG
Drupal doesn't ship with a visual editor for content
out of the box so every site must decide their
preference (if any).
● WYSIWYG module provides a standard way to
integrate a high number of editors.
● Supported editors: CKEditor, FCKeditor, jWysiwyg,
markItUp, NicEdit, openWYSIWYG, TinyMCE,
Whizzywig, WYMeditor, YUI editor and many more.

18. Other contributed modules
● Devel – helps development
● Internationalization – Multilingual support
● Flag – 'flags' content
● Backup and Migrate
● Multimedia
● Media
● Embedded media field