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3.2. Concept: Additional Tools
There are several additional tools available that help you create sites faster, more accurately and with less effort.
- Drush
- See below for more about Drush.
- Git
- Git is a version control system you can use to track changes made to files within your entire site, or files relating only to the module or theme that you are using. Git makes it possible to try out changes, and if necessary, revert to a previous version. It can be used as well to track changes in the configuration files and synchronize the configuration of different sites. Git has become the standard for web development projects.
- Composer
- See below for more about Composer.
- Devel
- The contributed Devel module helps with development tasks such as debugging and inspecting code, analyzing database queries, and generating dummy content.
Drush is a command-line tool for building and maintaining sites, providing an alternative to using the administrative interface for many operations. Many site builders and maintainers prefer to use Drush whenever possible, and consider the time spent installing and learning to use Drush to be a good investment. Reasons to consider using Drush:
- Drush provides a large number of commands for tasks such as installing the base software, modules, and themes; updating software; performing database operations, including copying and querying; resetting passwords; and clearing the cache. Some contributed modules and themes also define Drush commands.
- Doing administrative tasks using Drush is typically faster and less tedious than performing the same tasks through the administrative interface.
- Since Drush is a command-line interface, you can write scripts that combine Drush commands and other commands on the server, to automate more complicated tasks.
- Drush provides additional functionality not available via the administrative interface; for example, running database queries.
If you want to use Drush, you will need to have command-line terminal access to the server where your website will be hosted, and you will need to have a compatible version of the Drush tool installed on that server. Check the Drush website for installation instructions and version compatibility. There is also documentation on the available Drush commands on that site.
Composer is a tool for managing PHP dependencies, where the developer specifies what version of each external library is needed, and Composer manages the process of downloading and installing the libraries.
The core software is a primary user of Composer, because it makes use of several externally-developed software libraries, which must be downloaded and installed in order for the core software to work. When you install the core software, you either need to download an archive that contains compatible versions of the external libraries, or you need to run Composer to download the external libraries after the initial download.
Some contributed modules also make use of externally-developed software libraries; for example, a Facebook integration module might require Facebook’s integration library to be installed for the module to work, and a geographical module might make use of a standard library of geographical functions. To install a module with external dependencies, you will need to run Composer.
In addition to the site builder tools mentioned above, the following tools are useful for module and theme developers.
- Drupal Console
- Drupal Console is a command-line tool that generates boilerplate code and interacts with a Drupal site. It can generate, for example, block or form code, install modules and themes, and create dummy content. Drupal Console makes use of the Symfony Console.
- Coder
- Coder is a command-line tool that checks if your modules and themes comply with coding standards and other best practices. It can also fix coding standard violations.
- Firebug
- Firebug is a Firefox plugin that allows viewing, editing, debugging, and monitoring CSS, HTML, and JavaScript in a separate browser window. The contributed Drupal for Firebug module displays Drupal debugging and SQL query information in the Firebug window.
Source file: install-tools.asciidoc
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