Customer Reviews

Drupal For Dummies

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Drupal for Dummies is an excellent introduction to Drupal. Ms. Beighley's writing style is refreshingly clear and concise. This is the third book on Drupal that I have read in the past few weeks, and I wish it had been my first. While I cannot judge this book from the perspective of someone with no previous exposure to Drupal, I did find it to be well-written and an excellent review of material I have read elsewhere. I was pleased that the author includes instructions on backing up a Drupal website, as this information was lacking in the first Drupal book I read. (See my review of Sams Teach Yourself Drupal in 24 Hours)

I have installed Drupal on my desktop computer using first BitNami, and then WAMP, and ran into complications that sent me to the Drupal forums for solutions. At one point in reading Drupal for Dummies, I thought the book to be perhaps a little too optimistic, but then Ms. Beighley did point out that the reader may need to seek help elsewhere to overcome difficulties with installing Drupal. For a localhost installation, the author recommends XAMPP. I wonder if I could have avoided problems if I had tried XAMPP first.

I should disclose that I did not do the hands-on exercises in the book. I read Drupal for Dummies after working through several chapters of Using Drupal so I didn't feel the need to repeat procedures that I had already done. I did, however, read all of the exercises in Drupal for Dummies and found them to be very well presented.

A book cannot be both concise (and cheap) and comprehensive. Drupal for Dummies is concise. If you decide that you are serious about pursuing web development with Drupal, Drupal for Dummies will not be the only Drupal book you will buy, but it is an excellent introduction and a real bargain.

Drupal for Dummies is a great introduction to one of the most powerful and popular PHP based frameworks/systems out there!

This book really helps a non-programmer or non-web developer go from having an idea about a web site to ACTUALLY having a real, functioning, and useful web site. And it does it in a very clear, clean, and plain-English sort of way.

I really recommend this book to anyone that's been 'too scared' to dive into web development or anyone that thinks doing 'real' websites is too technical and hard.

Well, maybe no coding is required, but to actually get a Drupal site up and running requires a healthy amount of web literacy. Check out the table of contents. I'm an experienced web applications developer and realized right away that installing Drupal successfully was not for the faint of heart. Do you know the distinction between a local machine and a remote host? Have you ever edited an Apache configuration file? Do you have any idea of what an Apache web server is?

The author guides you down the installation of Drupal on a very particular web provider at a particular point in time and took screen shots. She tells you that other installs will be different and will require some know how and maybe a call to the help desk. Well duh? If you do not know what the words mean in her book then you will be spending a lot of time reading FAQ's and asking for help. Installing the database? Setting up users and access rights? That sounds pretty advanced to me!

Still - I gave it 4 stars because the book is a good overview and quick start for those with enough web savvy to conceptually understand what is going on. She also has lots of good tips for dealing with spam and user authentication. I'm not returning the book!

Essential reading if you are starting out with Drupal. I have several books on drupal that are somewhat meaningless without the foundation this book offers. Buy it!

When I first started to look at Drupal I downloaded volumes of information about from how to install and use. The book makes it simple by taking out all the unecessary info and enabling you to get started sooner.

The book is written with Drupal version 6.12 in mind. I couldn't find this information anywhere on the Amazon page. Version six is the latest version but some folks still use five. Version seven will be out some time 2010. This book should be OK for any 6.x version but probably won't be as helpful with 7.x when it comes out.

This is typical of what the Dummies books used to be known for: wordy fluff without much meat.

Granted, this book will get you barely into the minimums of Drupal - with the burden of a lot of cutesy, superfluous words. It takes 46 pages to finish the install of Drupal. But, all the time, you are being praised for your heroic achievements!

This book is not for me. It doesn't go beyond the barest basics. Others, with virtually no experience in any of the underpinnings of web design might find the baby talk approach helpful. Of course, why a person of such limited experience would choose to undertake Drupal first is a tough question. Drupal is only a content management system. You still need to know at least some HTML, CSS, PHP and so on. On the whole, my advice would be to look at other books before plunking down the cash for this one.

Jerry

Drupal for Dummies cleared up a lot of grey areas for me. Very good step by step writing even my baby daughter could follow (I'm sure).
I can see myself graduating towards the development of this web design tool thanks to the foundation set by this book. Thanks.

If you want to get off the ground fast with Drupal this is the book for you. It's clear and concise. The only short coming is the screen snapshots are too hard to read. If you are running the software along with reading the book, this is not a serious drawback. This is a starter book. You will need another book to continue on.

First off, I have never really been a fan of the whole "for dummies" franchise. I sort of felt insulted having to read one...

This book is the first of several I bought in order to learn Drupal and since I knew nothing about it, I believed the reviews others had given. I am glad I listened to those reviews, because this book literally walks you through the installation and then on through setup and into design. None of the other books spent any time on the installation, but this book provides plenty of details and a walk-through. After that, it uses some good examples to introduce the reader to as many parts of the CMS as possible without going into too much detail. For what it is, this book is a good entry level guide to Drupal and will familiarize you with the terms, setup, and layout as well as get you started with some basic theming.