Joomla! 1.6: A User's Guide: Building a Successful Joomla! Powered Website (3rd Edition) [Paperback]

Barrie M. North (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 21, 2011 | ISBN-10: 0132487063 | ISBN-13: 978-0132487061 | Edition: 3

Praise for Previous Edition of Joomla!: A User’s Guide

 

“A complete guide to the powerful features of Joomla! 1.5, this book takes a holistic approach to building a Joomla!-powered website–from the CMS itself to its many extensions, search engine optimization, and even building your own tableless template. The novice reader is eased into the subject and confidently guided through the basic principles and on to the more advanced features. This guide empowers the user not only to build a professional website but to also to make it a success.”

–Russell Walker, CEO, Netshine Software Limited (Joomla! Development Consultancy)

 

“If you’ve been using or following Joomla! in the past years, you’ve most likely seen the name Barrie North or Joomlashack. Barrie has been a member of the community for a long time and, as such, my expectations for this book were pretty high. Besides explaining how Joomla! works from a usability point of view, there is valuable information for people who want to learn serious template building, and readers can stand out of the crowd by using Barrie’s steps to make their (X)HTML and CSS optimized for accessibility and SEO. All in all, this book is a great guide that comes at the right time for newcomers and more experienced Joomla! users and developers alike. Well done, Barrie!”

–Arno Zijlstra, Joomla! cofounder, custom template specialist, www.alvaana.com

 

“In a time when solid, real-life Joomla! 1.5 information is rarely available, this book is a thirst-quenching oasis of knowledge. The abundant and clear examples in the book make Joomla! 1.5 websites within anyone’s reach. I heartily recommend Joomla! 1.5: A User’s Guide by Barrie North.”

–Tom Canavan, author of Dodging the Bullets: A Disaster Preparation Guide for Joomla! Based Web Sites

 

“Refreshing! After reading many how-to books, this one is a step beyond the rest because of its focus on examples based on live sites. This book is well crafted for beginners to advanced users with a well-organized overview that walks you through the entire Joomla! CMS.”

–Steven Pignataro, corePHP, www.corephp.com

 

“As a long-time Joomla! end-user and developer, I had low expectations for anything new I might learn from this book. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find it a great refresher course, especially since the book is logically organized, leading beginners from the most basic Joomla! concepts and continuing through to more complex ones, such as tableless template design and how to write a template for Joomla! 1.5. In summary, Barrie North has produced the gold-standard print reference for Joomla! 1.5. I highly recommend this book for novice and intermediate users if you want to make the most of Joomla!”

–Vicor Drover, http://dev.anything-digital.com

 

The Best Easy-to-Use Guide to Joomla!™−The World’s #1 Open Source Content Management System

 

If you want to build sophisticated websites that can be easily edited and updated, you need to master Joomla. Now there’s an easy-to-read, easy-to-use guide to Joomla for every site manager, administrator, and developer. Leading Joomla consultant Barrie North covers all you need to get results: installation, administration, site organization, template development, content updates, and a whole lot more. You’ll find tips, tricks, and troubleshooting solutions, as well as three start-to-finish case studies.

 

New to Joomla? No problem! This book starts with the simplest design and system concepts, and builds your expertise step-by-step. You’ll rapidly master Joomla’s power, even if you have no content management, scripting, or CSS expertise. Experienced with Joomla? You’ll turn to this book constantly for its authoritative, plain-English, example-rich Joomla 1.6 reference content.

•    Understand content management, what Joomla does, and how its components fit together

•    Build Joomla sites from scratch and systematically customize them to your needs

•    Create modern, pure CSS Joomla 1.6 templates using popular grid frameworks

•    Use Joomla 1.6’s nested categories to organize content and articles

•    Create dynamic pages and effective navigation

•    Work with Joomla modules and components

•    Learn how to optimize your Joomla sites for search engines

•    Follow three start-to-finish case studies: building a school website, a small business site, and a blog

•    Identify the most valuable Joomla extensions and add-ons: find them and use them

Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for Previous Edition of Joomla!: A User’s Guide

 

“A complete guide to the powerful features of Joomla! 1.5, this book takes a holistic approach to building a Joomla!-powered website–from the CMS itself to its many extensions, search engine optimization, and even building your own tableless template. The novice reader is eased into the subject and confidently guided through the basic principles and on to the more advanced features. This guide empowers the user not only to build a professional website but to also to make it a success.”

–Russell Walker, CEO, Netshine Software Limited (Joomla! Development Consultancy)

 

“If you’ve been using or following Joomla! in the past years, you’ve most likely seen the name Barrie North or Joomlashack. Barrie has been a member of the community for a long time and, as such, my expectations for this book were pretty high. Besides explaining how Joomla! works from a usability point of view, there is valuable information for people who want to learn serious template building, and readers can stand out of the crowd by using Barrie’s steps to make their (X)HTML and CSS optimized for accessibility and SEO. All in all, this book is a great guide that comes at the right time for newcomers and more experienced Joomla! users and developers alike. Well done, Barrie!”

–Arno Zijlstra, Joomla! cofounder, custom template specialist, www.alvaana.com

 

“In a time when solid, real-life Joomla! 1.5 information is rarely available, this book is a thirst-quenching oasis of knowledge. The abundant and clear examples in the book make Joomla! 1.5 websites within anyone’s reach. I heartily recommend Joomla! 1.5: A User’s Guide by Barrie North.”

–Tom Canavan, author of Dodging the Bullets: A Disaster Preparation Guide for Joomla! Based Web Sites

 

“Refreshing! After reading many how-to books, this one is a step beyond the rest because of its focus on examples based on live sites. This book is well crafted for beginners to advanced users with a well-organized overview that walks you through the entire Joomla! CMS.”

–Steven Pignataro, corePHP, www.corephp.com

 

“As a long-time Joomla! end-user and developer, I had low expectations for anything new I might learn from this book. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find it a great refresher course, especially since the book is logically organized, leading beginners from the most basic Joomla! concepts and continuing through to more complex ones, such as tableless template design and how to write a template for Joomla! 1.5. In summary, Barrie North has produced the gold-standard print reference for Joomla! 1.5. I highly recommend this book for novice and intermediate users if you want to make the most of Joomla!”

–Vicor Drover, http://dev.anything-digital.com

About the Author

Barrie M. North has more than 20 years of experience with the Internet as a user, designer, and teacher. He has spent more than 8 years in the education field, becoming steadily more involved in web technology, teaching web design classes to students and technology integration to teachers. Most recently, he worked as an IT consultant for two new schools pioneering the use of technology. As well as web design, he has provided web marketing/SEO, usability, and standards compliance expertise to his clients.

He is a founder of Joomlashack.com, one of the oldest and most popular Joomla template providers, and a founder of SimplWeb.com, a service that provides easy-to-use, turnkey Joomla hosting for those new to Joomla. He also maintains a blog about all things Joomla at CompassDesigns.net. When not working, he can frequently be found on the Joomla community boards, and he has written many free tutorials for using Joomla. His combination of Joomla expertise, educational skills, and engaging writing has produced a book accessible to everyone.

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall; 3 edition (February 21, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0132487063
• ISBN-13: 978-0132487061
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 0.9 x 8.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #852,992 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Barrie M. North has more than 20 years of experience with the Internet as a user, designer, and teacher. He has spent more than 8 years in the education field, becoming steadily more involved in web technology, teaching web design classes to students and technology integration to teachers. Most recently, he worked as an IT consultant for two new schools pioneering the use of technology. As well as web design, he has provided web marketing/SEO, usability, and standards compliance expertise to his clients.

He is a founder of Joomlashack.com, one of the oldest and most popular Joomla template providers, and www.simplweb.com, a service that provides easy-to-use, turnkey Joomla hosting for those new to Joomla. He also maintains a blog about all things Joomla at www.compassdesigns.net. When not working, he can frequently be found on the Joomla community boards, and he has written many free tutorials for using Joomla. Barrie lives in South Strafford, Vermont.

He is the author of the best-selling book "Joomla - A User's Guide", currently in its 3rd edition and the comprehensive Livelesson Joomla Video series, both published by Prentice.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars First and Best Joomla! 1.6 Book Available March 4, 2011

By Huge Boz Fan

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I appreciate that Mr. North published a Joomla! 1.6 book so soon after the release of Joomla! 1.6. (I bought the Kindle edition.)

But what's best is that it is a very well written and practical guide to building a web site with Joomla! 1.6. It's exactly what I was looking for.

Barrie North writes in a very linear style, which is what I like in a technical book.

Obviously, Mr. North took his Joomla1! 1.5 book and updated it for 1.6. As a result there are a few (but not too many) places where 1.5 references remain. For example, the word "section" is used in places where it no longer applies. When Mr. North makes these corrections, it would be nice to have a free update for the Kindle version. :-)

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars March 2011 Release Premature April 17, 2011

By T. Gombar

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Because Joomla v1.6 was released only two months (January 2011) prior to the publishing of "Joomla! 1.6: A User's Guide: Building a Successful Joomla! Powered Website (3rd Edition)" with no user documentation, I was hoping Barrie M. North's release would shed some light on the open source website builder nuances. There is very little light shed on the new Joomla v1.6 interface in North's book, which is disappointing considering the price point. The Joomla v1.6 user interface has changed dramatically since the previous v1.5 release, and although there are references to the new Jom version throughout the book, many important details are missing or are left with mere dangling references to its details.

If you are hoping to learn how Joomla v1.6's nuances work, this may not be the reference guide you are seeking. However, if you are new to Joomla's "open source" web builders, North's book will give you a better understanding of CCS and SEO techniques that may create a website that is more "Google friendly". In my opinion the majority of North's Edition 3 is merely a rehash of his previous edition with some vague references to the new release of Joomla v1.6. The book seems to be a bit premature considering it's substance.

The creators Joomla 1.6 plan to unveil detailed documentation of their website builder by mid-2011. If you want to learn how to use this new version, I suggest waiting for their free release of the v1.6 documentation if you want to best utilize their new interface.

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Not very good April 17, 2011

By codi

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

First of all, I'm a beginner and maybe i shouldn't of tried to learn v1.6 so soon but i also think as well as other people is that it came out too prematurely. I'm lost a lot of the time. The screen shots in the book are different than v1.6, and there's missing information because i'm finding myself figuring out stuff on my own and i hate how he says that he's not going to get into detail about a subject becuase you can find it in Joomla help which YOU CAN'T because help for Joomla 1.6 is not available yet so it would have been helpful if he DID include such information. I want to return the book and either build a website with v1.5 or wait until there's a real Joomla v1.6 out. I'm sure it is fine for non beginners but not me. Too much information to be guessed.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars An Early Start For Joomla 1.6 April 11, 2011

By Howard W. Kelley

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

While this manual is a re-do of the author's Joomla! 1.5 book, which has served new and experienced web developers well, there is little doubt this is a rush-to-print edition. The book puts a 1.6 skimming on the 1.5 material because it is based on the beta edition of the application. That is not all bad but it does limit the level of detail that a new Joomla! 1.6 adopter may be seeking. This is one of the first two books to be published on the subject.

While some attempt is made to distance the editorial content from the author's basic commecial web business there is a commercial tone within some of the text.

There is no doubt the author is qualified to write this book but as an introduction to Joomla! 1.6 he leaves a number of aspects unexplained or lightly buttered. Hopefully he will issue an upgraded version once we all get a better handle on Joomla! 1.6.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars I would not recommend this book September 8, 2011

By Igor

Format:Paperback

I'm not a beginner and also have experience on WEB programming .I'm also working in IT . The book structured poorly. There us different level expectation from reader . Some of the basic staff is explained on very atomic level , but some complex topics were just described in one sentence , without any details ,sometimes are skipped at all. Even if you follow book instructions, you have to do research by yourself to complete topic.
Too much time just spent . I would not recommend this book.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A good book with only a little bloat and too many editing errors May 4, 2011

By M. S. Gartner

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

First, just to let you know where I come from, I am a long-time programmer and have been doing web development for many (too many) years and have used other CMS products, so I was familiar with the concepts, but had never done anything but install Joomla on my development machine before reading this book. I suspect I am not the primary target audience and that the target audience has significantly less CMS and development experience. My non-existent Joomla knowledge means I can't speak to any lack of coverage of 1.6 versus 1.5 as other reviewers have alluded. My goal was to get an introduction to the system and the Joomla way of doing things in preparation for an upcoming project. In general, I believe Barrie North's book achieved this purpose.

I already knew what a CMS was and had already installed the framework and sample data, so I went through Chapters 1 and 2 very quickly, but for someone new to the process I think Chapter 1 would be useful while I suspect that the book could do without chapter 2 entirely. The online installation instructions are more than adequate (and the online information is likely more relevant and up to date) and it is a fairly quick overview (bloated by screen shots of every installation page in Joomla).

Chapters 3 through 7 are where the meat is. The progression is reasonable and while I could have wished for more technical detail, it gave me a good overview of the process of building content, menus, pages, etc. The screen shots were often a little small (font-wise) but mostly had added highlighting of one sort or another to indicate the part being discussed in the text. The technique of putting in "the least you need to know" sections (with a summary of the primary point for a given section) was helpful....

Chapter 9, on building templates, was very clear and I feel confident I will be able to build a custom template for my upcoming project. This was the most useful chapter for me. I am concerned after reading some other reviews that there were significant 1.6 features that did not get discussed, so I plan to do some extra research on the differences for template building between 1.5 and 1.6.

Chapter 8, while a good overview of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), seemed a bit out of place in the book; maybe it should have been an appendix or an online article with a reference in the book. And strangely, there is a redundant Appendix C: A Quick Introduction to SEO and while it's a bit long he could move chapter 8 to appendix C, or removing Appendix C entirely and move chapter 8 to chapter 12.

The last chapters, 10, 11, and 12 are excellent case studies of different types of web sites, and are clearly written for the novice web site builder. I think they could be tightened up significantly. I found the commercial references to the author's companies (joomlashack.com and others) to be reasonable, especially since the Joomla 1.6 templates being discussed are being provided for free (you do have to provide an e-mail address).

A glaring omission is a discussion of ongoing maintenance processes for Joomla. The book offers complete database images for its example web sites, but offers no tutorial on how to restore them, how to back up the database, and other admin/maintenance functions. This could be another appendix. Also, the book doesn't talk about staging at all (either using a stage server or viewing the site with unapproved content) and concepts like synchronizing stage with production, etc. or creating test sites, mirrors, etc. For the expected audience these would be advanced topics, but I hoped for these kinds of discussions.

However, the biggest problems I have with the book are the mistakes. This book was clearly rushed to print as it had numerous errors (spelling, extra or missing words, a few figures that didn't match the text or were duplicates of other figures). It's unusual for a book that's a new edition of an existing book to have this many mistakes in it, and it was a bit distracting. I also was unable to find an "errata" section on the book's web site to correct the errors (the web site is mostly a commercial for the book, but does have a forum which may prove useful, and of course the promised sample code).

My overall impression was that if you are new to Joomla then the book is worth a read. I will likely not go back to it often as a reference, however, so it may be a bit over priced. So, I give the book four stars for being a good book with only a little bloat and too many editing errors.

Edit: I'm a bit more annoyed by the ads for the authors web site now since finding out that the free templates offered and used in the book are all 1.5 templates, so in a Joomla 1.6 book he uses no true 1.6 templates in the samples. And, to underscore the speed at which this book was put out his web site barely mentions Joomla 1.6 except to say mostly "1.6 templates coming soon". I'm all for capitalism, but this is border-line false advertising. Read more ›