A cool thing about Drupal is that you can modify and add to the core offering. Think of D7 and D8 as basic buildings, and modules as all the things you add to buildings to make them more useful.

It’s great to have a nice solid framework, but you need plumbing, electric, appliances and furniture to actually live in the building. Here’s a list of our favorite add-ons...our kitchen sink, if you will.

A number of modules that were popular in Drupal 7 have made their way into the core of Drupal 8. By the way, here at Zivtech we created our own installation profile, Bear, that has all of these modules already baked in, so you don’t have to rack your brain deciding which ones to choose. Which modules are best for Drupal development?

1. Administration Menu

admin_menu

The administration menu is one of the most basic and useful Drupal modules for Drupal 7 and below. It displays all admin links in a CSS/JS-based menu at the top of each page. This saves time for site administrators and helps those who come to Drupal from another CMS. For Drupal 8, the Admin_menu is essentially in the core as Admin Toolbar.

2. Environment Indicator

environment_indicator

This module displays which site environment you're currently working on (Dev, Staging, Production) in your administration menu/toolbar. It adds a colored bar to each environment to clearly indicate which one you’re working in. It can also display information about the git branch the environment is on. This can be crucial for ensuring that no mistakes are made from making a change on the wrong environment when developing a site.

To configure for Drupal 8, watch this helpful video.

3. Inline Entity Form

inline_entity_form

Using an entity reference is common in Drupal. Use it when you are creating an entity that’s dependent on another entity. It’s frequently applied in ecommerce. But you can also use it with a larger category and its subcategories, like an event and its location, or a thumb drive and the various sizes on offer. Check out this useful video.

An alpha version for Drupal 8 has just been released.

4. Module Filter

module_filter

This module does exactly as it says - it filters modules, but does so automatically as you type, rather than requiring you to submit a search and reload the page. This is useful when working with a large site that has a lot of modules on the module administration page. This module has also been incorporated into the Drupal 8 core, so if you're using the newest version of Drupal, you already have this function.

5. Chosen

chosen

Chosen uses JS to make your select lists much easier to use. Instead of scrolling through a select list to find what you're looking for or struggling to figure out how to make multiple selections, Chosen makes your lists readable, allows you to search through your select list, and makes multiple selections intuitive and simple.