Building Websites with ExpressionEngine 2 [Paperback]

Leonard Murphy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 21, 2010

This book is a clear and enjoyable tutorial packed with carefully explained steps for constructing a small business website, and information for applying the skills learned to your everyday work with ExpressionEngine. If you have familiarity with building websites using HTML/CSS or with software such as DreamWeaver or other content management systems such as Drupal, WordPress, Joomla!, or Plone, then ExpressionEngine may be what you are looking for. This book is suitable for anyone who wants to develop a fully featured web presence with a simple and straightforward tool. No prior knowledge of content management systems, PHP or ExpressionEngine is assumed. A basic understanding of HTML is necessary to follow the examples.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Leonard Murphy

Leonard Murphy was one of the earliest adopters of ExpressionEngine when it was first released in 2004, and was the author of a series of free tutorials that helped other new users to see what ExpressionEngine had to offer. The tutorials were a hit, and over the years, ExpressionEngine became more and more popular, so in 2008 Leonard expanded his tutorials into the first edition of Building Websites with ExpressionEngine. Two years later, with the release of ExpressionEngine 2, Leonard is back with a completely revised new edition.

Leonard started his career in the UK, graduating from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. In 2004, he moved to the United States and currently works for Summit Credit Union (a not-for-profit financial institution headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin). He also provides consulting and technical support for small business websites.

Product Details

• Paperback: 328 pages
• Publisher: Packt Publishing (September 21, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1849690502
• ISBN-13: 978-1849690508
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,209,225 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Review of Building Websites with ExpressionEngine 2, November 23, 2010

By 

Jeremy Gimbel (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Building Websites with ExpressionEngine 2 (Paperback)

I recently read through Building Websites with ExpressionEngine 2, by Leonard Murphy.

As one of the first books out to cover the relatively recently released ExpressionEngine 2, I was eager to get my hands on it. I've found before that reading through books, such as Michael Boyink's, Building an ExpressionEngine 2 Site for Small Business, has been instrumental in developing a set of standards to use as I develop sites in ExpressionEngine 2.

In case you aren't familiar with the product, ExpressionEngine 2, released in July of this year, is the latest release of EllisLab's flagship content management system. The tool is extremely powerful, and is a top choice of web designers and developers for site-building projects that might otherwise resort the such CMSs as WordPress, Drupal, Joomla and the like. While ExpressionEngine isn't free, and many of it's top addons are commercial as well, they come with professional support, which more than makes up for the initial cost outset when you run into a bind along the way. ExpressionEngine allows you to work with your content in an entirely different way than other content management systems, completely separating it from the design, and this has led to a very active and dedicated fan-base.

With the power and flexibility of a complex and mature tool, such as ExpressionEngine, comes the challenge of working efficiently. In a wide-open playing field, one must set his or her own rules and standards, so that it's easy to go back to a site you worked on several months ago and still know how it works. This has been the topic of sessions at the EECI conferences, such this one by Leevi Graham.

It's in this area also, that I've found books such as Building Websites with ExpressionEngine 2 immensely helpful. Murphy's new book is a good choice for the beginning ExpressionEngine user. It covers all the basics for a user who needs a little hand-holding. I appreciate that it also goes beyond the basics, with a chapter about implementing ExpressionEngine's powerful membership features, both for control panel administration, and front-end site membership.

As any developer familiar with ExpressionEngine will tell you, one of the greatest features of the tool is its ability to be extended through add-ons. There's a huge library of them available at Devot:ee, the ExpressionEngine community site, and it becomes a vital part of the development workflow to find appropriate add-ons for a given project. The end of the book includes an overview of several popular ExpressionEngine add-ons, which is fantastic. It's extremely important to get a firm grasp of the available add-ons before really digging into ExpressionEngine.

While this book certainly isn't the one for you if you're already a seasoned ExpressionEngine user, I think any new user will find its contents valuable as they begin using the tool.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well organised and a good introduction, January 10, 2011

By 

MikeJohnson - See all my reviews

This review is from: Building Websites with ExpressionEngine 2 (Paperback)

We've recently moved over to building our sites in EE2 and found this book to be a great reference source for updating our workflow. There are some subtle changes in EE2 which this book covers well. The work throughs on using popular extensions are really useful, and for a tech manual it's easy to read. Highly recommended.