Drupal/C3/Finding-and-Evaluating-Modules/English-timed
From Script | Spoken-Tutorial
| Time | Narration |
| 00:01 | Welcome to the Spoken tutorial on Finding and Evaluating Modules. |
| 00:07 | In this tutorial, we will learn to:
Search for a module and Evaluate a module. |
| 00:15 | To record this tutorial, I am using
Ubuntu Linux Operating System Drupal 8 and Firefox Web browser. You can use any web browser as per your choice. |
| 00:29 | Earlier in the series, we’ve talked about extending a website through Modules. |
| 00:34 | And, we have covered some of the Modules that come with Drupal. |
| 00:38 | We’ve even installed the Module devel earlier in the course. |
| 00:43 | But, now we’ll understand how to evaluate and find great Modules. |
| 00:48 | Let’s go to drupal.org/project/modules. |
| 00:53 | There are almost 18,000 Modules available for Drupal here. |
| 00:58 | Please note that a Drupal Module only works with the version of Drupal that it’s intended for. |
| 01:05 | So, we have to update the Core compatibility to the version of Drupal we’re using. |
| 01:12 | This tutorial has been recorded before the release of Drupal 8.
If we look for Drupal 8, we see only 1,000 Modules that match our search. |
| 01:23 | For this demo, I’ll switch back to Drupal 7, in order to show you some great things about Modules. |
| 01:30 | Click Search. And, there are 11,000 Modules for Drupal 7. That’s a huge difference. |
| 01:38 | With time, we will see the number of Drupal 8 Modules rapidly increase. |
| 01:42 | Meanwhile, let’s learn how to evaluate good Modules. |
| 01:47 | On this page, let us filter on the Core compatibility of the version of Drupal we are using.
The list is sorted by Most installed or Most popular. |
| 01:59 | Chaos tool suite or ctools and Views are the all time popular Modules of Drupal. |
| 02:07 | Let’s click on Views. |
| 02:09 | There’s a simple 3-step approach to evaluating a good Module. |
| 02:14 | Suppose, we go to the licensing bureau to get a new license to drive or register a car. |
| 02:21 | In most US states, it’s called the dmv or the Department of Motor Vehicles.
So, we’ll keep that in mind 'd m' and 'v'. |
| 02:34 | 'd' stands for documentation, 'm' stands for maintainers and 'v' stands for versions. |
| 02:42 | Look at the information given under the Project Information and Downloads. |
| 02:48 | Let’s start with 'd'. Views is the second most popular Module of all time. |
| 02:53 | In fact, it’s being incorporated into Drupal 8 and we’ve actually used Views a lot, in this course. |
| 03:02 | There is no other shortcut in open source to understand whether a Module is right or not, except to read the documentation. |
| 03:11 | Always, read the documentation to know what a Module does. |
| 03:16 | Read the documentation to know what the issues are. |
| 03:20 | How do we know there’s help available?
Read the documentation. |
| 03:25 | Once we install a Module, we should read the documentation to know which parts to turn on. |
| 03:32 | Reading the documentation is extremely important. |
| 03:36 | Please note, in open source, there is no-one to sue if a Module destroys your site. |
| 03:42 | You have to read the documentation and determine whether the Module is compatible with what you’ve done on your site already. |
| 03:50 | So, I can’t emphasize it enough. Read all of this information by clicking on-
this Documentation link The issue queue And the bug reports |
| 04:01 | to find out what is in this Module. So, that’s the 'd'. |
| 04:06 | The 'm' stands for maintainers. |
| 04:09 | This particular Module was started by merlinofchaos. |
| 04:13 | Now, when we click on his name, it takes us to his Drupal profile. |
| 04:19 | Later in the course, we will learn how to have our own Drupal profile. |
| 04:24 | Here, we see that Earl Miles is a big contributor to the Drupal Project - over 6300 commits.
And, he is the main creator of Chaos tools and Views. |
| 04:36 | There are a number of other maintainers for this particular Module. |
| 04:42 | With Modules-
you might see just one person maintaining it or you might see a group of people maintaining a Module. |
| 04:50 | Both are ok. |
| 04:53 | But say, a Module happens to be mission-critical, and the maintainer is unable to continue with it. Then we might be in trouble. |
| 05:00 | So, that’s something to consider. |
| 05:03 | Finally at the bottom, is the Project information and the Versions or our 'v'. |
| 05:09 | The maintenance status of 'v' is, right now, seeking co-maintainers. We need not worry. |
| 05:15 | Views has already been incorporated into Drupal 8. So, they’re probably just looking for some help there. |
| 05:24 | It’s "under active development". |
| 05:27 | It’s on almost a million sites. And the stats show 7 point 6 million downloads already. |
| 05:35 | Now, this is important. If a Project says “abandoned” or “I’ve given up”, then avoid using that Module. |
| 05:42 | You won’t see that very often, however. |
| 05:46 | Always use the Version of the Module that is the same as the Version of your Drupal installation. |
| 05:52 | There is no Drupal 8 version here because Views is already in core. |
| 05:57 | But, if I was installing this on a Drupal 7 site, I would not click on this link. |
| 06:04 | It will take us to a node that gives detailed information about this Module. |
| 06:09 | Instead, right-click on the tar or the zip and click on Copy Link. |
| 06:15 | This was mentioned earlier when we installed devel. |
| 06:19 | How do we determine if a Module is right for us? |
| 06:23 | As simple as d m v. |
| 06:26 | One of the frequently asked questions is- How does one find a Module? |
| 06:31 | One option is to go todurpal [dot] org slash project slash modules. |
| 06:37 | And filter by Core compatibility - Categories, of which there are many. |
| 06:42 | Otherwise, it is impossible to find Modules that we need at drupal [dot] org. |
| 06:48 | If you are good at it, you will be able to find them. But new users might get confused with the number of Modules listed there. |
| 06:57 | Again the question will be - which Module is right for me? |
| 07:02 | Google is your friend! |
| 07:04 | If we’re looking for a Drupal Module with a Date field then just type: "drupal module date". |
| 07:10 | And, the first thing that comes up is the Date Module. |
| 07:13 | We know that because the URL is drupal [dot] org slash project slash date. |
| 07:20 | What if we need a Rating system? |
| 07:23 | Type: "drupal module rating system". |
| 07:26 | Now, we get 2 options here-
The Fivestar Rating Module or The Star Rating Module. |
| 07:34 | So, we have 2 Modules that we can look at, to determine which one might be better for us. |
| 07:42 | What about if we need a webform? |
| 07:45 | Again type: "drupal module webform". |
| 07:48 | And, we get a project named Webform. |
| 07:52 | This is probably the best way to find Modules, for beginners. |
| 07:57 | Drupal module and a description of what we need our Module to do. |
| 08:02 | I hope that’s been helpful. Remember, to find Modules, Google is your friend. |
| 08:08 | And, to understand which Module is best for you, remember d m and v. |
| 08:14 | With this, we come to the end of this tutorial. |
| 08:18 | Let us summarize.
In this tutorial, we have learnt to: Search for a module and Evaluate a module. |
| 08:29 | This video is adapted from Acquia and OSTraining and revised by Spoken Tutorial Project, IIT Bombay. |
| 08:38 | The video at this link summarizes the Spoken Tutorial project. Please download and watch it. |
| 08:45 | The Spoken Tutorial Project team conducts workshops and gives certificates. For more details, please write to us. |
| 08:52 | Spoken Tutorial Project is funded by NMEICT, Ministry of Human Resource Development and NVLI, Ministry of Culture, Government of India. |
| 09:03 | This is Vanessa Varkey, signing off. Thanks for joining. |
