Beginning Drupal 8

Pathauto
Chapter 11 ■ Drupal Modules
One of the key elements of successful search engine optimization is providing URLs on your site that are
meaningful. By default, Drupal 8 out-of-the-box URLs look something like http://localhost/node/1.
Search engines have no idea what “node/1” means, nor what the content associated with that page may be
about, just by looking at the URL. Humans visiting the site may also have a difficult time navigating around
to pages that are not linked or accessible by a menu, as http://localhost/node/2487, for example, is not
very intuitive. Fortunately, we have the Pathauto module, which creates an “alias URL” to the node being
created, and the alias URL takes the form of the title of the node with hyphens used to separate words, and
all words are made lowercase. Using http://localhost/node/2487 as an example, if that node has a title
of “Special deals of the month,” the URL as generated by Pathauto would be http://localhost/specialdeals-month
(Pathauto removes common words like “the” and “of” from titles when generating URLs). The
alias URL becomes the primary path used by Drupal when that page is rendered, and is significantly more
user- and SEO-friendly than the http://localhost/node/2487 version.
Webform
The Webform module provides a simple-to-use interface for creating online forms. You can use online
forms to capture virtually any type of information you can think of that would come from a form that a
site visitor might fill out. Examples of forms could be an employment application, an information request
form, or an event registration form. There are virtually no limits as to what types of forms you can create
using the Webform module. The module extends beyond its ability to create and render forms by providing
a mechanism for e-mailing a predefined person the results when someone enters information on a form,
a tool for generating reports against the information that is captured on forms, and a tool for exporting
information entered in forms to an Excel spreadsheet.
Backup and Migrate
The Backup and Migrate module automates the task of backing up the information that is stored in your
Drupal database based on a schedule that you define (every 12 hours, every 24 hours, and so on). Backup
and Migrate also provides the ability to manually back up the database (in real time) by simply clicking a
button. You can also restore a backup by selecting a previous backup and by clicking a Restore button. Many
Drupal administrators sleep better at night knowing that their site is being backed up automatically.
Date
The Date module provides a set of tools for creating and using dates on your site, such as a pop-up calendar
for selecting a date.
Library
The Library module is the common denominator for all modules that integrate with external libraries. While
not sexy by any stretch of the word, Library is one of those must-have modules if you use modules that call
on, for example, external JavaScript libraries.
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