Drupal 6 Modules You Didn't Know You Were Missing
Logging and Alerts
What it does: Sends you an email when the watchdog logs critical alerts (you can configure just how dramatic an error has to be before you hear about it).
Why you need it: Ignorance is bliss. Unfortunately, if one of your sites is having a meltdown, chances are you’ll hear about it sooner or later. If you’re the first to know, you may even be able to put out the fire before anyone else knows it ever happened.
Offline Reminder
What it does: Sends you an email when a site has been in offline mode for more than 2 hours (or whatever amount of time you configure it for).
Why you need it: It’s only a matter of time before you get distracted in middle of doing some module upgrades and forget to put a site back online (we learned this one the hard way). If you’re lucky, you’ll notice the small message saying the site is offline before the client finds out their site has been offline for the past few weeks. If you’re smart, you’ll use this module.
Backup and Migrate
What it does: Allows you to export a database with 2 clicks
Why you need it: We always assumed this module was definitely not a secret, but it is conspicuously missing from the Acquia Drupal distribution. Seriously? There are so many reasons you’d want a quick and easy database dump: a backup, for example, before you do anything risky like module updates or manually fiddling with the database tables, or a migration of a site from anywhere to anywhere else. Maybe there’s a better way to do a DB dump that no one’s told us about…
Path Redirect
What it does: Adds a redirect when the URL for a page changes
Why you need it: If you’re rebuilding a site, you’d be a fool not to use this module. If the URLs change at all (which they undoubtedly will), the old ones will break and all your inbound links and search engine ranking for those pages will go down the tubes. But this module is not just useful for complete site overhauls; it’s also a day-to-day workhorse. If the URL of a page changes at any point (for example, if you’re using pathauto and you change the page title), path redirect will automatically redirect the old link to the new one without you lifting a finger.
Global Redirect
What it does: Makes sure that every page is only visible at the one, best URL possible.
Why you need it: Having two URLs for one page is about as useful as having two street addresses for one house. Granted, human visitors will likely never notice, but search engines may think you have two different pages with the same content. At best, you’re search ranking will suffer. The search engines could also think you’re trying to pull a fast one and decide to sandbox your site. Install this module and forget about it.
Clickheat
What it does: Creates a heatmap of any or all of the pages on your site based on where users are clicking.
Why you need it: While Google analytics has an “overlay” feature that ostensibly does what Clickheat does, it’s vastly inferior. In addition to being disgracefully buggy, the GA overlay only shows which links users are clicking on; it doesn’t tell you, for example, if users are trying to click on something that’s not a link, or what part of a linked image they’re clicking on. Additionally, Clickheat is extremely configurable (the Google Analytics version offers no configuration whatsoever) and also has sweet color-coding that makes the heatmaps easier to read. Consider it a no-brainer.
Post new comment