Drupal is a great piece of software and the true power in it lies in the open source community of developers building and enhancing the core features with regular updates and possibly more so the even larger community of module developers who custom create solutions for common problems and needs amongst the Drupal community.
While building out some projects with Drupal recently I came up with my favorite list of must have modules for community oriented websites and I thought to share them here. To begin with you’ll want to enable the full package of core modules including Comments, Blogs, Forums and Profile. Remember this is for community websites where you’ll have members sign up and join your website to interact with your site content and other members. You can’t do that so well without these core features enabled. There are also a number of great modules any Drupal site could use such as CCK for content creation and Views for properly formatted content display. These are not required for a community website although I find it hard to build out a nice site without them but that’s all covered in our last article.
These Drupal Modules make developing a robust community easier and more user friendly and should be considered must have for great websites.
Advanced Forum and the suggested contributed modules are must have for anyone developing forums on Drupal for a number of reasons but most of all is the ease of styling and modifications of the core forum module. Advanced Forum is about the only forum specific module that does much of anything except for maybe Forum Access which is not truly necessary if you understand how to use Roles and Permissions properly.
DiscussThis is a super cool module which should actually be a part of core if you ask me. It replicates existing behavior in the Drupal Blog It feature by allowing you to add links under select Content Types which create a forum topic for discussion of the article. It does lack over the built in Blog it function which actually propagates article content and title but it makes a best effort at carrying on discussions about site content.
Facebook Socials is a must have for any site hoping to tap into the social network powerhouse where a hit website can make or break you. By allowing your site readers to syndicate your content on the world largest social media destination you are tapping into one of the largest communities online and a potential for unlimited website traffic and member sign ups.
Gmap / Location Gmap is a mapping module which requires the Location Module so thaty the two can be used to provide address lookup and GPS location for Node Types and Users. The included Gmap Macro allows you to build a unique map of Node and User Locations which are great for finding out where your community members live and play.
IMCE is an excellent file upload tool which helps facilitate proper file sharing of everything from text files and pictures to music and movie files. The built in file browser helps community users upload and share content with other site members which is of course a great way for friends and relationships to build.
Twitter is the micro blogging sensation and social network powerhouse for people with 140 characters worth of attention span that has taken the web by storm. I understand even the President of The United States and the President of Russia communicate via private tweets these days. Letting your community members syndicate their site input makes for a great marketing tool
User Relationships and User Points are modules suggested for use by the makers of Advanced Forum which are so cool you could use them as stand alone modules without the cool styling effects of Advanced Forum. User Points is a cool tool for building community content by paying points for site interaction including points for each image, blog post and forum topic submitted. User Relationships are great for letting members become friends and is managed similar to BuddyList as used in most other forums or communities.
Zina is not necessary for all community sites but it is an excellent music sharing module and a must have for any community based on entertainment or media. the built in MP3 player offers podcasting support and is an excellent tool for the music website developer.
There are of course a zillion great Drupal modules and you might have some sugggestions for those that I have missed but these include what I would call core features for community based websites.
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