15 Awesome Drupal 8 Modules You Should Be Using…

 

1. Webform:

 

In order to create some engaging-forms for your users to submit, ‘Webform’ stands to be the module Drupal has. Along with which it includes many different, interesting hands like different possible input-types, exporting-options, an interface to build e-mail handlers and multi-step forms. For the purpose of interaction, there's JavaScript, for handling sales we have Commerce, and Webform can handle the rest of the needs.

 

Benefits: High-level of flexibility. Clean and Easy to use interface, with the most crucial-options exposed in the UI (and a customer property override field in the form of YAML for the rest).   Drawbacks: The module stands as More difficult to operate (as compared).  Takes long to master than other modules.

 

  

2. GraphQL:

 

GraphQL holds-up the position as one of the technologies which allows the users to fetch content from their Drupal’s website and hand it off to any of their front-end applications. The biggest strength of GraphQL is that it gives the requesting-application the authority to directly ask for required things from the Drupal-website (rather than the website declaring what is available and what is not).

 

Benefits: The module has ‘Auto-caching’ feature which makes it more feasible for speedy-results. It automatically minimises the time taken to request the data (asked for) by grouping the queries together.    Drawbacks:  Drupal-version of GraphQL is currently limited on the grounds of functionality (it will mainly be used to fetch data rather than create a full-fledged application).

 

3. Paragraphs Previewer:

 

This module is an author-friendly extension which basically allows the non-developers to bring-up balanced content to their site (as per their requirement). By pre-defining more complex-elements, the extension easily allows the content to be added as individual-paragraphs. Instead of having to write HTML in a WYSIWYG field, the module allows you to combine several different fields into a custom reusable element with drag-and-drop functionality.

 

Benefits: Infinite nesting option in the module. Makes content-editing more user-friendly and easy with ‘Add a Quote’ and ‘Add a pop-up’ like-buttons and more of such engaging buttons. The module combines multiple-fields into complex elements for better end-results.   Drawbacks: Everything for this module needs to be set up by the developer.

 

4. Paragraphs Library:

 

For precisely managing the smaller-pieces of your content on your website, Drupal’s Paragraphs Library is the module you can definitely rely on. With this module, you can also create a database of paragraphs, and then reuse them with a specific field all across the website. This is basically as same as the entity-reference, however, a single Paragraph’s item takes less effort to configure, and there are additional features that make this a better version.  

 

Benefits: The module fits the best for saving time (quick results). Fully customisable interface. It breaks down the content into reusable components for later beneficial purposes.   Drawbacks: All the library items are stored in one place, which might complicate the interface. Sometimes it takes time to be understood and also to understand the chain of connections that end up rendering the content (as it abstracts it away with an additional-step).

 

5. Rabbit Hole:

 

Once you are with Drupal, there are many different content entities to manage. This not only includes individual posts, but also includes different categories and content entities which don't need to be visible to the visitors of the site. Nevertheless, Drupal automatically creates URLs to those entities, leading to some empty / incomplete looking pages that only host partial content which in reality is only utilised somewhere else. ‘Rabbit Hole’ allows you to easily create redirecting or blocking behaviour that makes this content inaccessible for the visitors and making your site so much cleaner.

 

Benefits: Allows you to easily create redirecting or say blocking behaviour for smoother user-experience. Provides easy-to-use functionality with several overrides that a developer will want on almost every Drupal installation in order to gain some best end-results.   Drawbacks: It takes additional setup time (i.e. time consuming; in theory), if the content isn't having any linkage to anywhere on your site, neither the crawlers nor the users will ever be able to find it.

 

6. Display Suite + Display Suite Switch View Mode:

 

‘Display Suite’ stands to be the resourceful Display-module, which stays connected with the layout of your Drupal-site. It allows you to arrange the flow of your content with easy-to-go templates. By simply dragging and dropping fields in different regions of a page, you can easily create the layout as per your requirements and needs.

 

Benefits: High level of flexibility. It adds different classes to individual regions and the template-wrapper through Drupal user interface.   Drawbacks: The module still has a few minor UI and functionality - bugs.

 

7. Pathauto & Redirect:

 

As an alternative to manually managing and arranging every URL that you generate, this can be a time-saving module and can be precisely efficient as the extension will follow a pattern that you set in the creation of the new URLs. So basically, this module allows you to bulk-generate URLs based on specific rules and regulations about your page and is the fastest and the right way to take care of all your URLs.

 

Benefits: It helps for bulk URL generation and updates for the same. Redirect automatically generates 301's when a page has its URL changed which gives a positive impact to the user.   Drawbacks: For multilingual URL support i.e. when it comes to multilingual aspects, Pathauto can be considered as a bit unstable or say less usable.

 

8. Field Group:

 

This is the module which helps to clean-up different types of modules. It allows you to group similar fields into tabs which inturn makes it easier for users or say readers to visualize and deal with the content on the page. 

 

Benefits: It makes the flow of editing easier and more feasible for the content-editors.   Drawbacks: It stays to be time-consuming. It has this bug -  where it doesn't notify you that you didn't fill in a required field that's in a different tab.

 

9. AdvAgg:

 

This module basically holds up the position of speeding-up the loading time of different pages on your site. It takes care of most of your optimisation needs for a site by minimalizing the CSS and JavaScript. Along with which It reduces the number of files your server has to deliver, as well as their sizes.

 

Benefits: Improves the speed of your site.   Drawbacks: Some more advanced options can break the site or say affects the site negatively (this is usually due to poorly written JavaScript / CSS).

 

10.  MMenu:

 

It is among the leading Drupal’s  menu-modules and also stands as a cost-effective plugin. This module allows you to set up a mobile off-screen menu which appears at the click of a button. 

 

Benefits: Easy to use and offers a bunch of good and engaging, utilizable features. One can easily combine two-different menu entities at a time (as per the requirements).   Drawbacks: Requires a library to be kept constantly up-to-date and installed in a space separate from that of  the modules.

 

11.  Twig Tweak (Theming):

 

With high level of flexibility of creating different layouts which would otherwise be very tedious to create with Drupal-UI, this module allows you to print blocks within the content-region.

 

Benefits: The module makes difficult-layouts, the simplest and the easiest ones.   Drawbacks: Need some additional parameters in order to print the required blocks that have been disabled, which sometimes make it difficult to find.

 

12.  Coffee:

 

This module in general allows you to navigate the admin-area with your keyboard. With the simple keyboard shortcuts like (alt + D) or (alt + shift + D) depending on your internet browser and your needs, with this module you will be able to search for the page you are looking to visit.

 

Benefits: Allows you to navigate through your keyboard, which is always faster than the mouse (saves time).   Drawbacks: This particular module has specific pool’s interests i.e. subjective in nature. One might like to use it and some other person won’t find it that usable.

 

13.  Copy Prevention:

 

In order to prevent anonymous person to directly copy the content from your site, this module works as the best helping hand. It basically stops the acts of plagiarism of your content through different ways like Switch off selecting text, Disable copying to clipboard, Disable right mouse button for all site content, etc...

 

Benefits: Helps to stop the acts of copying your original content in the market.   Drawbacks: Technically-savvy people can always copy the content (they require) from any public Drupal website.

 

14.  Nagios:

 

This module precisely integrates Drupal into the Nagios-monitoring-system which basically provides instant insights into the Nagios of aspects/questions like; is your Drupal-core up-to-date or not, Are the settings of the site correct or not, etc...  

 

Benefits: Helps to maintain different safety aspects of Drupal.   Drawbacks: As per now no major drawbacks are attached with this particular module.

 

15. Devel:

 

It stays to be a powerful and popular module for the web-developers who are looking for some tools to make the process of debugging a bit more agile and efficient. The module basically a has bunch of tools with functions with which any developer would find it easier to act on activities such as the ability to create dummy-users, nodes and taxonomy terms, cache effectiveness, Views, database queries, etc… 

 

Benefits: Makes the process of debugging more efficient.   Drawbacks: Some bugs while working on the module.

 

There you go! Hope this will help a lot for your next Drupal’s website and yes, always keep in mind our(AddWeb Solution’s) saying that,  “Investments in different companies or say different platforms for all your tech-cravings are always subjects to market risks, choose wisely & live happy”. Cheers! 

 

Concluding essence: 

Your search for Expert Drupal Development Services India ends here. With a collective efforts of (Expert Drupal Developers India) more than 5000 man-hours under our umbrella, we offer Professional Custom Drupal Development Services India with a proven track. AddWeb can be considered as the one who quickly adapts the latest trends and technology with Drupal to provide a complete satisfactory web design service solution to their clients.