Required Drupal Modules

Just wanted to drop a quick line about the two modules that I think should be the first to be installed in any new Drupal installation.

First up is Nice Menus.  When having to navigate the administration menu, it is nice to be able to use the simple fly-out menu rather than click a link and wait for a page to load just so I can click another link.  On production sites, I often only have this available to the administrator, but it is a nice time-saver.

UPDATE: I don't know how I missed this, but there is the Administration Menu module which looks promising.  I still like Nice Menus, but Admin menu is simple and at the top where it doesn't interfere with the rest of the page.  Either option is definitely a must for administrating a site!

The next module, which I think should really be a part of Drupal core, is Permission Select.  If you have multiple site administrators or moderators, you need to grant them blocks of permissions.  Actually, user 1 (the user created during Drupal installation) really shouldn't be used except for deep administration, leading to the necessity to create an 'administrator' role where most if not all permissions are granted to users.  By default, this means going through and selecting every checkbox in the permissions page.  Permission Select simplifies this by allowing you to select or deselect all checkboxes, or all of them in a group.  Extremely handy!