Drupal Modules

I've rewritten Module Finder to support searching for keywords in any order. This means you're no longer restricted to finding exact phrases. Queries that used to turn up empty now come back with useful results.

For example, a title search for admin menu used to turn up nothing, because that exact phrase wasn't in any module title. Now you'll get exactly what you're looking for.

Another example: A search for wysiwyg images now turns up a list of relevant modules, whereas before you wouldn't get any hits.

I've also added support for "quotes", which allow you to search for exact phrases (similar to the old search behavior). You can even mix phrases with normal keywords.

The snippet algorithm was also rewritten from scratch to produce more relevant excerpts, especially when searching for multiple keywords.

Additionally, I've changed the way rating graphs are cached, which should result in faster page loads and less bandwidth usage.

If you discover any bugs, please report them in the forum.

Update June 20th: I've made a small change that effectively doubles performance. Enjoy :)

Most module pages now have a link to CVS instructions, for those of you who like that kind of thing. Additionally, project page links now display the project's short_name for easy cut and pasting.

In other news, DrupalModules.com now serves gzip'd pages. This means less bytes to download and faster page loads. In particular, Module Finder now uses about 60% less bandwidth, so those of you with slower connections should really see an improvement.

I also rewrote most of the SQL dealing with how downloads are counted, and fixed a few bugs. Overall, the site should be running faster than ever :)

Module Finder now sorts modules by popularity, increasing result usefulness significantly. You'll find what you're looking for faster, and with less typing! Try a search for "cck" or "wysiwyg" to see the new sorting in action.

Also, Module Finder now defaults to "title contains" mode, rather than "title starts with". This was a popular request, and it works well with the new sorting algorithm. Enjoy :)

PS: This month marks the one year anniversary of DrupalModules.com. Thanks to everyone for their support along the way, especially those of you who've written reviews, linked to the site, reported bugs, or made donations.

We're now serving more than half a million page views a month! If you'd like to help me cover server costs, consider signing up for Drupal hosting.

It's now possible to link to Module Finder search results!

What does this mean for you? Now you can bookmark your favorite search options, quickly share search results with others, and more!

Here are a few ways you can create links:

Search module titles: http://drupalmodules.com/m?title=views
Search module descriptions: http://drupalmodules.com/m?body=blocks

It's also a great way to save your favorite search options in bookmark form:

Default to Drupal 5.x modules: http://drupalmodules.com/m?v=5.x
Default to "starts with" mode: http://drupalmodules.com/m?s=starts+with

Of course, you can combine options to get complex searches like this.

Additionally, there's a new [Link] option on the Module Finder interface. It's an easy way to turn your current search results into a link. Clicking [Link] will update the URL in your address bar, or you can just right click it and copy the URL for easy cut and pasting.

You might have noticed a whole bunch of strange categories showing up in Module Finder over the last few days. This was due to the recent enabling of free-tagging on Drupal.org.

Unfortunately, most of the tags created apply to too few (or too many) modules to be of any use. For the time being, I've removed the offending categories, and modified my update script to ignore them.

Thanks to erikfreelock for notifying me of the problem.

I've also fixed a long-outstanding bug that caused the words "was this review helpful? bbbaaa" to appear in the "latest reviews" block.

Finally, I've added Drupal 7.x to the Module Finder search options. There's only a handful of modules available, but I felt it was time to include it.