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By fitness trainer on
Wow, there are over five hundred modules to choose from -- that's more than all the Pokémon in the world!
I'm curious, though...what kind of a performance drag obtains with the installation, never mind enablement (or is there a difference there, from a resource-management POV), of a lot of modules?
I have quite a couple that will ever serve only a single webpage -- namely, the two chat modules -- plus some that will see very limited action, like Lightbox2 and PageEar. But does Drupal have to devote resources to loading them all when a site is accessed? I mean, I know that Lightbox allows one to choose which pages get its JavaScript loaded in (PageEar also offers such a choice when used in conjunction with the Conditions module), but how about the others...are they only called and loaded into memory, etc., as needed, or are they somehow all loaded in, waiting in the wings, like? Or does that differ among different modules?
Comments
Just as an aside, if you're
Just as an aside, if you're having trouble choosing modules, go to
http://drupalmodules.com/
In terms of performance- how many modules you can handle depends on how much memory you have, how much traffic, and what kinds of queries you're running.
I'm not sure how much response you'll get here. This kind of general question can sometimes just float into the ether.
Since you're interested in optimizing performance, you should check out and join the relevant Drupal Group on g.d.o, and find like-minds to talk with. I bet this question has been asked already in one of those groups related to performance.
A quick Google search yielded these groups:
http://groups.drupal.org/high-performance
http://groups.drupal.org/coding-standards-and-performance-optimization
... and related questions
http://groups.drupal.org/node/7398
http://groups.drupal.org/node/2414
But you may find more!
Thanks, Heather!
Okay, cool...I have no visitors yet 'cause my site is still under (heavy!) construction but I was just concerned for the future, especially as might regards my webhost. My question is real general and, even, vague because I have no idea about server operations and don't know whether my site might get bogged down by a lot of modules due to maybe not enough server "rights" or what....
In addition to what heather
In addition to what heather notes, there also is the throttle module, which works brilliantly. Using cache also helps. FYI, if a module is not enabled, the only impact on the drupal core is that it recognizes the entry in the relevant directory, as far as I know, to wit: if you have an obsolete module installed, and it is not enabled, update status appears not to recognize it.
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Yep!
I was excited to read David Mercer's report on those modules in his nice Create Powerful and Robust Websites with Drupal 6, but because my site is not ready for prime time yet and has no visitors (except for a certain vindictive troll from these forums offended by my characterization of Drupal documentation!), I haven't enabled them yet.
Interesting, your observation about obsolete modules not being recognized by status updates if not enabled.
fair question
It's a valid concern, and there are answers, but the results certainly do vary.
But the good news is that D6 totally revised the module and library-loading system so that as much as possible only modules that are directly active on the page get loaded. The rest just sit there taking up disk space - which does not affect performance or anything.
This is a great approach, and was significantly harder to code than just plugging everything in.
If you stick 20 javascript widgets on every web page and try to turn it into MySpace, you will hurt your site. But heaps of the other utilities are only active in cases where you will see them.
It varies a lot with the class of module. Some need to touch every node, some only ever load when you request a special URL, many others are only ever activated for admins. It depends, but they need to be looked at individually.
Well-coded ones (yeah, like lightbox) will behave. Intensive ones (like, um, glossary) could trigger a bit of overhead, but caching will hopefully catch that.
I'm not aware of any with outstanding performance problems, but possible optimizations are identified and fixed through the issue queues every day.
fitnesstrainer, although I find your posts entertaining, in a painful sort of way, please try to use better topic titles. Yeah, you made me look, but I came in here in a bad mood because of it.
.dan.
if you are asking a question you think should be documented, please provide a link to the handbook where you think the answer should be found.
| http://www.coders.co.nz/ |
.dan. is the New Zealand Drupal Developer working on Government Web Standards
Well...
There is no pleasure without pain, so if you're entertained, even if only in a perverse way, consider it all par for the course! I wasn't simply being flippant with the title, though: Drupal modules really do feel like Pokémon to me! Each critter with its own unique powers...I'm tempted to collect 'em all! ;-)
But thanks for the overview of Drupal, uh, mechanics, or architecture or whatever that's called. It's really interesting. Now I'm even hoping to author a module myself one day!! Something silly and useless but painfully ticklish, like Super Advanced Automated Happy Forum Title Generator Plus Deluxe! ;-) I see good ol' Packt Publishing has Learning Drupal 6 Module Development out...and Drupal 6 Themes to come...wow!