Module a Day with Andrew Riley

I'm trying out changing the podcast over to a screencast to save time typing up notes and give more to the user (by actually seeing what I'm talking about.) Please note, this is far more "from the hip" than the podcast used to be so who knows what I'm going to say. P.S. I'm still creating the audio podcast, it just comes from the screencast. 082-google_analytics.mp3

Module Link: http://drupal.org/project/better_formats The Better Formats module allows you define default input formats as well as change settings around the display of the input formats group on the node pages. Who: Technical and non-technical users When: Use this module when you want to define a default input filter per role. Where: Once the module is enabled you can modify the settings at /admin/settings/filters/defaults. Be sure order the formats/roles in the order you want. Why: It's not fun to have one default format for an entire site regardless of roles. This module allows you to create a better user experience by providing an intelligent default of input filters per role.   Theme song "i dunno" by grapes. module-a-day_podcast-0081.mp3

Module Link: http://drupal.org/project/nodequeue The Nodequeue module allows you to classify nodes in a FIFO queue that does not use Taxonomy. Who: Technical and non-technical users When: Use this module when you want to classify nodes into a logical group that will kick out older nodes when the logical group fills up. Where: You can configure your queues at /admin/content/nodequeue and add nodes to the queues on this page or the individual nodes. Why: It's nice to have an alternative method to group your nodes especially when you can limit the size of that group.   Theme song "i dunno" by grapes. module-a-day_podcast-0080.mp3

Module Link: http://drupal.org/project/nodewords The Nodewords module inserts meta tags into your document head. Who: Technical and non-technical users When: Use this module when you want to include keywords, descriptions and other meta tags in your head. All non-intranet sites should use this for SEO at a minimum. Where: You can configure the module at /admin/content/nodewords but you'll need to adjust the settings per content type. When you edit a node, if you have the correct permissions, you can set the values for the individual meta tags. Why: Meta tags are a very important aspect of your site and Drupal does not offer tags other than a default title tag. This module takes care of adding quite a few different types of meta tags.   Theme song "i dunno" by grapes. module-a-day_podcast-0079.mp3

Module Link: http://drupal.org/project/typogrify The Typogrify module modifies the output of your text fields to do things like style all capitol words and change out quotes. Who: Technical and non-technical users When: Use this module when you care a lot about proper text treatments in your content. Where: You can enable the features of this module by enabling it for your input filters. Why: The web has become lazy with things like quotes and various font treatments. This module makes them act in a proper manor while not hassling you.   Theme song "i dunno" by grapes. module-a-day_podcast-0077.mp3

Module Link: http://drupal.org/project/context The Context module provides an alternate way to assign blocks to your pages. Who: Technical users When: Use this module when you need more flexibility than what the traditional blocks module offers or you want to export your settings to features. Where: You can find your contexts at /admin/build/context Why: The default Drupal assignment for blocks is great for simple sites and beginning users but eventually you'll run into limitations with the block module. Context allows you to get around most of those limitations while only increasing the complexity slightly.   Theme song "i dunno" by grapes. module-a-day_podcast-0075.mp3

Module Link: http://drupal.org/project/sitedir_migrate The Site Directory Migrate module allows you to rename your directory in /sites in a multi-site install without breaking links to your filesystem. Who: Technical users When: Use this module when you run a multi-site install and you need to change the domain name that your site is listed under. Where: You can run the migration at /admin/settings/sitedir_migrate or in Drush Why: Drupal links files to /sites/{sitename}/files by default. If you need to change your site name these links will now be broken. This module fixes those broken links.   Theme song "i dunno" by grapes. module-a-day_podcast-0074.mp3

Module Link: http://drupal.org/project/stylestripper The Style Stripper module allows you to choose exactly which CSS files are loaded for you site (including CSS covered by other modules). Who: Technical users When: Use this module when you want to stop a specific module from loading it's CSS files. Where: You can modify the settings at dmin/build/themes/stylestripper Why: Sometimes a module's default CSS will cause issues with your theme. Use this module to stop the initial CSS from loading so you don't have to fight it in your theme's CSS file.   Theme song "i dunno" by grapes. module-a-day_podcast-0073.mp3

Module Link: http://drupal.org/project/url_alter The URL Alter module allows module authors to easily re-write both incoming and outgoing URLs without having to resort to writing their own custom_url_rewrite. Who: Module authors only When: Use this module when you need to change how links are going to be displayed (example: http://example.com/sites/default/files/example.jpg to be http://example.s3.amazonaws.com/example.jpg) and how Drupal reads incoming links. Where: 99.9% of the interface of this module is done through PHP but it does offer an admin panel at admin/settings/url-alter so you can try out your own re-writes. Why: Most modules that require custom url rewriting ask the user to modify their settings.php which is pretty bad. This module makes it so you can modify those paths in your module without having the user do anything other than enable your module.   Theme song "i dunno" by grapes. module-a-day_podcast-0072.mp3

Module Link: http://drupal.org/project/semantic_cck The Semantic CCK module allows you to modify the HTML tags and classes that wrap your CCK fields Who: Technical users When: Use this module when you don't want to use the default markup provided by CCK. Where: You can modify the settings for your CCK fields by editing the CCK field and then scrolling to the bottom of the edit page. Why: CCK has a specific way of displaying your fields but some times it's easier (and more semantically correct) to change the tags and classes for those fields without creating a template file.   Theme song "i dunno" by grapes. module-a-day_podcast-0071.mp3