Customer Reviews

ExpressionEngine 2: A Quick-Start Guide

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

 

 

I picked up Ryan's book after reading his free online edition of "Chapter 5: Making the Pages." Because that chapter perfectly answered my question, it seemed the rest of the book would be useful too. And, it was!

Ryan's book covers installation and basic concepts, and provides an introduction to some of Expression Engines new advanced features as well. The book takes readers through an example setup that is sufficiently detailed: The coding techniques he shows, while basic (which is exactly what you want in a Quick Start Guide), are also very good examples of how to properly write code. The book is written so that you don't have to read the whole thing, either, something he explains in the opening "How to Read This Book."

I highly recommend this book for people looking to get started using Expression Engine 2.0. This new EE (major) release is really well done and worth looking at as an alternative when considering a publishing platform. Ryan's book will help you get started quickly, the right way.

This was my first EE2 book as a newbie developer. It certainly does what it says- it quickly gets you going with the basics of EE, and it keeps things simple enough so you can follow without scratching your head too much.

Negatives:
- Buggy code samples. Silver lining: I learned a lot about EE's inner workings!
- Hard to read/scan because there's so much prose. Quite frustrating at times- a better structure would help
- Errors in the text, and it looks like it wasn't proof read or built with a structure in mind

All in all it's a good book and does what it sets out to but you'll need more than this to master the basics. If you want more read Michael Boyink's EE2 book.

ExpressionEngine2: A Quick-Start Guide covers all aspects of ExpressionEngine2, from installation to familiar and little-known options. Any library catering to website developers will find this a fine guide, offering a quick way of mastering ExpressionEngine2 and teaching the skills needed to create and manipulate templates, optimize a site's performance, and more.

I bought the book used on purpose and so I am satisfied with the condition it came in. I wasn't expecting all the pages to smell of smoke, but all in all I am happy with the condition and it was shipped to me quickly. I had a small question on the tracking code and received a quick response from the seller and the issue was resolved. I would buy from them again.