Customer Reviews

Building Websites with Microsoft Content Management Server: A fast-paced and practical tutorial guide for C# developers starting out with MCMS 2002

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Book is laid out very well. Plenty of practical examples which you can try as you read the book and implement a demo site. Goes far beyond any other book in explaining the CMS PAPI (Publishing API). Only grouse: It is written in C# which seems to be the norm for most CMS sites but in my implementation I use VB.Net although translating to vb.net is very easy.
I've interacted with the Authors (Stefan Gossner and Mei Ying) through the microsoft.public.cmserver.general news group for several of my problems and they are very knowledgable in the CMS product. I dont know them personally though! If you want to learn CMS2002 in detail this book is worth the buy.

This is a great book, which would help you start out with no experience in MCMS. The book has all the examples that you need to perform basic tasks and as well as complicated tasks. This book is straightforward and extremely helpful in tapping into both the Publishing API and as well as Deployment API.
Even if your experience is short, this book will help you starting out with installing, creating templates(explains them pretty well),establishing placeholders, creating postings, and everything else that you need to know to start and continue to work in MCMS. So far this is the best starter book that I have found. I also bought the Advanced MCMS book based on the positive experience that I had with this book.

Using code samples from this book, I was able to make our CMS deployment (my first foray into .NET programming) in less than a month. This book includes some great controls that are necessary for good site design and maintenance, and has an excellent breakdown of base control properties. There's plenty in here to get one started with CMS design.
I'm very much looking forward to the sequel to this book in Nov 2005.

This book is THE book to get if you are learning MCMS. It is comprehensive and thorough. Stefan is the guru or all things MCMS. He always knows the answer and his answers are always right. There is no better authority on MCMCs.

I agree with the other reviewers that this is just about the best book you could ask for as a developer just getting started with MCMS 2002. However, if you want to take advantage of new technologies like .NET 2.0, SQL Server 2005 and Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, you'll also want Lim Mei Ying and Stefan Gosner's other MCMS collaboration: Enhancing Microsoft Content Management Server with ASP.NET 2.0 (ISBN: 1904811523). That book--basically a seven-chapter appendix to this one--is brand-new and will save you a lot of time getting these newer technologies working with MCMS 2002. In fact, I'd say read that first--it will keep you out of some of the rabbit holes this book's examples take you down.

You'll also want to check the publisher's website (packtpub.com) as this book has significant errata and code downloads (though some files referenced in the book are not present in the downloads).

If you are new to MCMS development, you learn that there are a few key players. Stefan is a key contact at Microsoft on this product. What I found is that this book is an easy-read, and gives the tutorials and comprehensive help to get you going quickly. You can build solutions based solely on the knowledge of this book, and will learn enough to run with MCMS' API.

I found this to be the "read" that I hand to all new developers who join up with me at my client. There are other books out there, and maybe this is not the most comprehensive, but its hands-on and serves as a full lifecycle reference, 3-4 months down the road. There are thoughts in this book on most anything you'd tackle using MCMS. My book definitely has some wear-n-tear.

What I liked most about this book - unlike many technology books - is that it isn't merely based on "dry" theoretical stuff, but rather walks you through setting up a full sample website from scratch and thereby covers all the essential steps for configuring MCMS and development in .NET. The book is sprinkled with tips & tricks as well as answers to frequently asked questions from the MCMS newsgroup, so you'll know how to avoid running into problems or solve them if/when they occur. After you've gone through this book, you will know how to install MCMS, configure MCMS, set up a channel structure, debug template files, understand the publishing workflow, know how channel rendering scripts and default postings work, build navigation controls, build custom placeholder controls, build custom placeholder definitions, understand the PAPI, extend the workflow, implement forms authentication, caching, deployment, SSL. You'll be up and running with MCMS in no time.