There are a number of Drupal contributed modules that we'll be using throughout the book, which we should install and configure now. Some of these modules are requirements and dependencies of the Feeds module that we'll be using for our migration processes in the first six chapters. The installation and configuration of each of these modules will be outlined in this section.
The Administration Menu module provides a helpful administration toolbar for the Drupal admin interface. By default core Drupal enables a core module called Toolbar. In this section we'll disable Toolbar, and then install and configure the Administration Menu module:
Go to your core modules admin screen and uncheck the Toolbar module to disable it. Then save your module configuration. This will remove the default black admin toolbar in the header of your site.
Download the latest 7.x stable version of the Administration Menu module from its project page at http://drupal.org/project/admin_menu/. The current version is 7.x-3.0-rc3.
Install this module, as you would do for any Drupal contributed module, to your
/sites/all/modules/contribdirectory.Enable the following modules in the Administration fieldset of your module's screen:
Administration Development tools
Administration menu
Administration menu Toolbar style
Refresh your module's page and you should now see the black Administration horizontal drop-down menu appear in your site's header area, as shown in the following screenshot:
The Chaos Tool Suite (CTools) module is a requirement of the Feeds, Feeds Tamper, and Views modules (all installed later in this chapter); so let's go ahead and install it now to get this requirement out of the way. To install CTools, follow these steps:
CTools can be downloaded from http://drupal.org/project/ctools. The latest version is 7.x-1.2.
Install it as you would any Drupal contributed module.
Once CTools is installed, load your module's admin screen and enable the Chaos Tools core module under the Chaos Tool Suite module fieldset.
The core module is the only one you'll need for now and the default installed configuration is fine. You do not need to make any additional configurations.
We won't be using the Views module extensively in this book or for our migration processes, but Views is an indispensable Drupal module and you'll most likely want to use it to create lists of content on your site. It's also required by the Feeds News module, so let's install it now:
Download the latest version of Views from http://drupal.org/project/views/. The latest version is 7.x-3.5.
Install it as you would any Drupal contributed module.
Once Views is installed, load your module's admin screen and enable the Views and Views UI modules and save your modules' configuration.
To access the Views administration interface once you enable the module, you can go to Structure | Views from your admin menu or go to
admin/structure/views.No additional configuration needs to take place now.
The Job Scheduler module is required by the Feeds and Feeds Tamper modules, so let's install it now:
Download the latest version of Job Scheduler from http://drupal.org/project/job_scheduler. This is an alpha version of the module at version 7.x-2.0-alpha3 at the time of this book's writing.
Install it as you would any Drupal contributed module.
Once installed, load your module's admin screen and enable the Job Scheduler and Job Scheduler Trigger modules.
The Job Scheduler module is basically an API that we're loading into our Drupal site that provides many helper functions for Drupal developers. We do not need to actually configure the module. Feeds and Feeds Tamper will both hook into the module on their own.
The Features module is a powerful Drupal module that allows you to package and save your Drupal configurations including content types and Feed importers into code. This means you can build a content type and then save your entire content type's configuration as a module. Then you can take this Features module and install it on another site. Then enable it and you'll have your entire content type on that other Drupal website. This module is extremely helpful if you have a development or staging site and you want to move a content type from the staging site to a production site without having to rebuild the type. You can just install and enable the module.
The Features module is also required by the Feeds News module, as Feeds News hooks into Features to create an example Feature module. So we'll install it for that purpose but we'll also be using the Features module extensively in Chapter 6, Packaging Content Types and Feeds Importers, when we will create features modules for our content type and Feeds importer configurations.
Download the latest version of Features from http://drupal.org/project/features. The latest version of the module is 7.x-1.0.
Install it as you would any Drupal contributed module.
Once installed, load your module's admin screen and enable the Features module.
The configuration screen for Features is located at Structure | Features via the admin menu or by going to
admin/structure/features.We will not be configuring or adding any Features in this chapter but we will be returning to this module in Chapter 6, Packaging Content Types and Feeds Importers.
We've completed installing our required modules. We can now move on to installing and configuring the Feeds and Feeds Tamper modules. These are the modules we'll be using to import our migrated content.