Customer Reviews

Beginning Joomla! Web Site Development (Wrox Programmer to Programmer)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I've used Joomla and Mambo since the early days. Throughout the years I've picked up quite a bit of a working knowledge of Joomla, though there were always things in and about Joomla that I couldn't explain. Cory's book takes a user all the way from installing Joomla for the first time through advanced Joomla tricks, all without being wordy or overly-in-depth.

Other Joomla books lose my attention too quickly because they either teach you the skills through lengthy exercises or through multiple paragraphs-worth of details. Cory does a good job of laying out practical advice and straight-forward techniques that are considered best practices for anyone who utilizes Joomla professionally or as a hobby.

This book won't replace the Joomla API manuals sitting on my shelf, but I have dog-eared and highlighted more in this book than in any other Joomla book I own. It has really helped me round out my knowledge of the 'little things' about Joomla and has helped explain some of the Joomla quirks I've always wondered about. It is highly recommended for new and advanced Joomla users alike.

As a Web developer, I've had a chance to work with many proprietary and open source CMS systems. When I decided to advance my knowledge of Joomla 1.5, I picked up a copy of this book. Cory does a great job of explaining each component of Joomla and best practices when working in this CMS framework. I particularly like the "Try it out" and "How it works" sections of each chapter. Overall an easy to follow book to learn the ins and outs of Joomla and highly recommend for anyone looking to learn Joomla.

I'm very technical, but was not familiar with Joomla. I wanted something to get me going quickly. Reading this book was much easier for me than trying to read the info scattered around [...] and on the net. It introduces you to the key Joomla terminology and topics in a useful order. It was great at getting me going quickly, and it gave me enough info to then start experimenting with the joomla admin tool. Once I did that I could really start grasping the concepts. It is a well written book to get you going quickly. Don't expect this book to teach you advanced techniques for Joomla. It is exactly what the title says, "Beginning Joomla".

I came at Joomla with a lot of "technical" experience,... just not a lot with Joomla. I found this book was a great "quick step" to getting started.
One of the problems with Joomla is that it isn't the most intuitive CMS. This book gets you up and running quickly with easy to follow steps.
Take in mind that this book isn't super deep. It is just enough to get you up and running quickly. If you are looking to get deeper, I suggest that you may want to check out "Professional Joomla!" by Dan Rahmel.
If you want to get into using Joomla quickly, then check out this book!

This book is probably good for a beginner who is already a tech-oriented person. I'm not. I hoped this book would help me learn to refine, update and manage our agency's site that was preliminarily constructed by our national office. If you're not a tech person, but have been handed even minor responsibilities about working with the structure of a Joomla site...this book isn't going to help you do the job. It assumes the reader already has a working knowledge/understanding of this type of stuff...not so in my case. If all you have to do is load articles, media, etc., the book's fine because there really isn't much to figure out when it comes to adding content to a site.

I have play around with joomla for a long time but I had always the feeling that I was missing something from the whole picture of using it.

This book makes you feel that you really know the concept behind each feature of joomla. Short and essential descriptions of everything keeps you alive in reading this book. You never feel tired of it's it's verbosity.

Must be read from everyone even the ones who think they have a basic knowledge og joomla. This is a deeper view of what is and how to use joomla.

I would like to see a book for advanced joomla (extensions development etc) from the same author

This book is very well organized and reads very much like a textbook for a course called "A Survey of Joomla!, the Content Organizer." Complete with review points at the end of each chapter with questions (and answers in one of the Appendices), this book gives all the basics of Joomla! but I fear it might be a bit offputting for some less rigorously technically-oriented and less-detailed folks. But then, that's what Joomla! is about, detailed organization. Once you get a little further into the book though, it reveals how you can extend and free up Joomla! by creating one's own template. Providing a good example website that we can all relate to is another good move. This book can also serve as a reference to fall back on when forgetting a point or two during hands-on ventures or after viewing an online how-to video. Joomla! can be daunting to a person not oriented to the way it handles content. That's where this book really helps -- reorienting a persons thinking toward this highly-extendable CMS. The price for this book too is a bargain. You get a lot of information per buck unlike many other books in the $20 and up range. Not having color in the book doesn't bother me at all. It still shows you the screens and what you need to know -- when you log on to Joomla! you'll get the color.

This Author is just an ordinary blogger he should not write a book at all. All the examples are very elementary and misleading on how to make drop-down menu on chapter 10: Advanced Tips and Tricks(he'll just trick you). Drop-down menu is accomplished by using javascript framework like mootools in joomla!. I'm glad that I tossed this book and bought other better books that taught me all the real Advanced Tips and Tricks.

What a disappointment!

I've been developing websites for years, mainly using MS Front Page 2003, but only as an WYSIWYG editor (no extensions) and tweaking the HTML just a little as needed. That's my perspective. Now perhaps the other reviewers, all of whom gave this book 4 star ratings, had very different backgrounds and expected whatever it is that this book delivers.

But for me, this book was of no value. It gave me no understanding as to how Joomla does the job. It gave me no clues as to how to design web pages, how to get done through Joomla what I've done with Front Page.

Hopefully there is such a book out there.