Each time I build a new Drupal 7 site, I get the chance to try out multiple modules to address a particular problem. Some of these work out, some of these do not.

Below is a list of modules that I consider to be essential and should be installed by default when you begin building a site.

• Module Filter – The modules list page can become quite big when dealing with a fairly large site or even just a dev site meant for testing new and various modules being considered. What this module aims to accomplish is the ability to quickly find the module you are looking for without having to rely on the browsers search feature which more times than not shows you the module name in the ‘Required by’ or ‘Depends on’ sections of the various modules or even some other location on the page like a menu item.
• Pathauto – The Pathauto module automatically generates URL/path aliases for various kinds of content (nodes, taxonomy terms, users) without requiring the user to manually specify the path alias. This allows you to have URL aliases like /category/my-node-title instead of /node/123. The aliases are based upon a “pattern” system that uses tokens which the administrator can change.
• Redirect – Common API for loading, saving, and deleting redirects, Case-insensitive redirect matching with a hook to allow other modules to narrow-down the candidate redirects, Redirect counter and last used timestamp, with automatic cleanup of inactive redirects, Integration with Drupal’s page cache to optimize redirects and performance, Complete individual redirect access API and Views API integration.
• Views – Using the Views module, you can fetch content from the database of your site and present it to the user as lists, posts, galleries, tables, maps, graphs, menu items, blocks, reports, forum posts etc. Different content types including nodes, users, and other bundles can be displayed.
• Views Bulk Operations – This module augments Views by allowing bulk operations to be executed on the displayed rows. It does so by showing a checkbox in front of each node, and adding a select box containing operations that can be applied. Drupal Core or Rules actions can be used.
• Admin Views – Filter all administrative views via AJAX, Perform any kind of bulk/mass operations on items in administrative views, Filter content by title, node type, author, published status, and/or vocabulary, Filter comments by title, author, node title, or published status, Filter users by name, ban/blocked status, or user roles.
• Field Group – Fieldgroup will, as the name implies, group fields together. All fieldable entities will have the possibility to add groups to wrap their fields together. Fieldgroup comes with default HTML wrappers like vertical tabs, horizontal tabs, accordions, fieldsets or div wrappers.

More to come…