Splat | WiseTome.com

As of Drupal 5, there are six core required modules (Block, Filter, Node, System, User, Watchdog) and around 23 supplied modules that are usually not activated.

The required core modules are - well - required. They cannot even be turned off - so we need not bother learning about them unless we are into custom module development. The other 23 modules are worth looking into, and they usually will supply most of the basic extended functionality you might need.

Help - This module can be turned off, but by default it is turned on and it handles the online help functionality for the various other features of your Drupal website.

Legacy - If you are starting fresh with a Drupal installation - ignore this. This module is provided for backward functionality.

Drupal - This is a module that registers to a central server. With this enabled, all the different Drupal powered websites in the internet, become a sort of ’super-website’ in terms of user base. It lets a user of one website log in to another Drupal powered website. This is generally disabled by default.

Locale - This allowed for using multiple localization UI files that would translate the UI to specific languages.

Contact - This provides the essential contact page. I believe every site must have this, and I enable it for every site I setup using Drupal.

Profile - This module is not so important for a single user website. But if community is involved, then you will want to store more information about your users. The Profile modules lets you define custom fields for the user.

Path - The module allows you to rename the URLs. By default, the URLs would be <yoursite.com>/?q=node/<number>. If you had switched on clean URLs, then it would be, <yoursite.com>/node/<number>. With the Path module, you can rename the URL for any node - <yoursite.com>/<anything-you-want>. (This module combined with the Pathauto module, become a versatile combo that I use for every Drupal powered site).

Comment - This module turns on the commenting system. It can have various setups of who can post comments, and where they end up in the moderation queue.

Poll - This allows you to create polls in your website.

Search - This module starts indexing all your content internally, and provides a versatile search option to search any type of content with in your site.

Ping - This pings other sites whenever new nodes (content) is created in your site.

Blog, Blog API - These two modules are a must have for a site that is setup to run multiple blogs by multiple users. The API module allows you to hook up offline applications to post to their blogs.

Aggregator - This allows you to show links or briefs from feeds (RSS or Atom)

Taxonomy - This module is the gem of Drupal. It requires a write up in itself, but for now, we will leave it by saying that it lets you organize all the content on your site any way you want.

Menu - This allows you to create multiple menus, that can have internal or external links.

Book - This modules allows you to setup hierarchical content like a book.

Forum - This allows you to create forums native to Drupal in your website. It uses a combination of the Forum type of content along with the Comment module to create forums. (Thus, Comment module must be turned on before you enable this module).

Color - This is a fancy module introduced in version 5. This allows for colors to be picked up for things like themes, from a neat color palette.

Statistics - The module collects different statistics like page views and referring sites and logs it.

Throttle - This is a life saver when you run huge sites. It allows you to control access to different parts of your website to specific groups of user, when the site is under load.

Tracker - This is useful in a community website. It allows for tracking of newly created content on the basis of a particular user.

Upload - This module allows users to upload and attach files to the content (node) they create.

Here we looked at the supplied modules of Drupal 5. They are quite sufficient for most of the needs, and configuring them allows for most of what is required. Other than these modules, there is a huge base of third party modules that can be used to further extend the functionality of the website.