Beginning Drupal 8

Chapter 11 ■ Drupal Modules
Drupal’s module administration page is divided into sections, with each section focused on a particular
module or group of modules. The modules that are delivered as part of Drupal core can be found in the Core
section of the listing. For demonstration purposes, we are going to enable a core module that, by default,
is not enabled by the Drupal install process: the Aggregator module. As you can see from Figure 11-8, the
Aggregator module is not checked as enabled (the check box to the left of the module name indicates
whether a module is enabled or not). To enable the module, check the box immediately to the left of the
module name and scroll to the bottom of the page. Click the “Save configuration” button to enable the
module so that it can be used on your new site.
After clicking the Save configuration button, Drupal will then redisplay the module administration
page with the “successful configuration” message at the top of the page. The Aggregator module is now
ready for use.
Upgrading a Module
Drupal modules are often updated with fixes to bugs and new additional features. Drupal 8, fortunately,
tells you when a new version of a module has been released, and provides a mechanism for automatically
updating that module to the latest version. To view all of the available updates, simply click the Update tab at
the top of the module administration page (see Figure 11-8), or click the Reports link in the secondary menu
(under Manage) and click the “Available updates” link (see Figure 11-9).
Figure 11-9. Reports page
■■Note
There may be cases where you don’t want to upgrade a module; for example, a case where an
upgrade to one module breaks another related module. I suggest that before you perform an update, you review
the forums on Drupal.org to check to see if anyone has reported problems.
Uninstalling a Module
There may be cases where you install a module and it’s just not what you thought it would be, or it causes
problems on your site. On the module administration page you will find an Uninstall tab at the top of the
page. Clicking that tab reveals a list of modules that have the capability to automatically uninstall themselves
(see Figure 11-10). To uninstall a module check the box next to that module and click the Uninstall button at
the bottom of the page.
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