Drupal developer toolkit

Drupal modules

Devel - The development block has links to reset menus and clear cache I use often. The nicely formatted debugging functions like dvr() are nice, but I have been using Zend Debugger more often for things like that (see PDT below).
Reroute Email - More than once, I have accidentally emailed people from a development site and confused the end users with URLs referencing a localhost domain. This intercepts all properly implemented outgoing mail.
Coder - Not only does it check for good code formatting, it finds functions you should or shouldn't be using and security flaws if you happen to get sloppy.
Demonstration site - It was intended for demo sites you could mess up intentionally and then just reset. I find it helpful for testing a change to my local install of a live site that I know is buggy, so I can re-do it over and over without having to reinstall - I just refresh the site from a list of demo snapshots.
Simpletest - I thought automated testing in Drupal was dumb when I first heard about it, but I confess I have written tests, changed a module, and found out I broke the module by running the test. I do believe I have saved myself from a moderate amount of "D'oh!" moments because of simpletest.

Firefox addons

Web Developer - CSS Style Information and View Generated Source are my favorite parts of this.
Firebug - People keep telling me I should have this installed, but in 2 years I haven't found a good use for it, then again I'm not a Javascript fan.
YSlow - Just informational speed updates when activating some of Drupal core's optimizing through aggregated Javascript and CSS.
Greasemonkey - I have used this most often for automating checkbox clicking tasks like activating lots of modules after an upgrade.
split pannel - Useful for a split screen when upgrading views from Views 1 to Views 2.

Development tools

PDT with the debugger working
A decent visual diff program. I have been reasonably happy with SmartSynchronize, Meld, and WinMerge depending on your operating system.
An easy way to submit patches back to module maintainers. I use CrossVC to make patch files against cvs.drupal.org in the proper format.
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Submitted by deekayen on Fri, 02/13/2009 - 1:09am

» deekayen's blog · Printer-friendly version · Send to friend Topics: Drupal

SVN repository for devel type module

Submitted by Grugnog (not verified) on Sat, 02/14/2009 - 10:31am.

Hi All,

At CivicActions we maintain a handy repository of development modules that you are welcome to use:

https://svn.civicactions.net/repos/drupal/5/sites-all/ https://svn.civicactions.net/repos/drupal/6/sites-all/

Just "svn co" these urls (fro Drupal 5 or 6 as appropriate) into your sites/all/modules directory and you are done. Run "svn up" from time to pull down any updates. We use stable versions where available.

Thanks!

- Owen

Alternative to Reroute_mail

Submitted by Florian Loretan (not verified) on Fri, 02/13/2009 - 5:43pm.

Setting the SMTP Library to "Log only" in the devel.module settings also keeps e-mails from getting sent (they just get logged in watchdog). It might be less powerful than reroute_mail, but it doesn't require a separate module.

Journal

Submitted by sun (not verified) on Fri, 02/13/2009 - 8:47am.

I would add Journal module to this list, if you happen to work in a team or you are completely handing over the site to someone else after you're done.

And of course, I too would consider Administration menu as so trivial that I would even forget to list it here.

Smashmagazine's Toolbox

Submitted by Wim Mostrey (not verified) on Fri, 02/13/2009 - 5:08am.

I think this is a great addition to Smashmagazin's Drupal Deeloper's Toolbox which does list the important api.drupal.org but doesn't cover important modules such as devel, coder or simpletest.