Installing Drupal Modules

Drupal Modules

A Drupal module is simply a collection of files containing a set of routines written in PHP. Drupal modules are of three types: Core, Contributed and Customised.

Core - Approved by the core Drupal developers
Contributed - Written by the Drupal community
Customised - Created by web site developers suiting individual requirements

Pre-installation tips:

1) Download a module only from a trusted source.
2) Create backups before installing add-ons.
3) When downloading a module for Drupal 6.x, 5.x, or 4.7.x, install it on a website that runs respectively Drupal 6.x, 5.x, or 4.7.x, otherwise it will not work correctly.
 

How to install Drupal modules?

Following is a step-by-step process to install a Drupal module:
 

 1. Selecting Module - Access the Drupal modules directory available at http://drupal.org/project/modules

 Find the one relevant to your requirements and download the source code for Free and unzip the files.
 

 2. Copying Module - Now comes the all important part of where to place the modules you just downloaded. As a best practice it is always advisable to segregate Drupal’s core built-in codes and the customized codes. Therefore, for this very reason copy the Drupal module to the centralized Drupal directory which houses the customized codes and is located at /sites/all/modules
 

 The illustration in this post shows how the Global Redirect module has been copied to the correct destination (the green box) and not under the red box as is a common practice.

3. Enabling Module – Go to Administer – Site Building – Modules, navigate to the module which you have installed, check the ‘Enabled’ box next to your module and click ‘Save Configuration’ to complete the process.