Customer Reviews

Joomla! For Dummies

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This book is aimed at people who haven't used Joomla before and want to learn all of the fundimentals needed to get started. If you are an experience Joomla programmer looking for an a book on how to manipulate the underlying PHP, CSS, MySQL, and HTML, this ISN'T the book you need.

Personally, I needed a book that would teach me how to use the system. Before I purchased this book, I had never used Joomla in any way before. So, I was very happy to find that it only took several hours for me to read through this book and learn how to get a site up and running.

Unlike many other Joomla books, this one gets you into the program very quickly. The directions for using Joomla are very clear, as are the accompanying illustrations. Each of the chapters in this book are short and sweet.

If you are a newbie, like me, this is a great book to start with!

I was starting with Joomla! and checked some books from Amazon. I bouht one, what I thought, would be a good book as a start with sufficient detail to use it later a reference. But: it was too difficult. Then I got this e-mail notice from Amazon about this new "Dummy" on Joomla!, and I bought it directly. What a succes! This one really helps you to get insight in the software. It helps you understand what it is to work with a content management system and how to cope with "not having pages" but articles and menus. An easy step-by-step guide with sufficient detail to use it for a lengthy period. So: a real representative from the "for dummies" series!

For the struggling Joomla novice, this volume contains plenty of precise pictures and clear instructions to save the day. If Joomla is new to you, this is your book.

If you're advanced, this book will seem rudimentary. However if you need to teach Joomla to others, it makes a good and complete classroom manual.

Joomla for Dummies is a reasonably effective learning tool. Unfortunately the beginning deals with installing Joomla and that can be tricky. I tried the various suggestions for installing it as a stand alone on a PC and it didn't work, but that wasn't the fault of the book because there are so many variables in the installation. However, the frustration of trying to install it locally took a lot of the momentum out of my enthusiasm.

Once I started on the actual learning process I found it to be quite adequate for a beginner. The Dummy Series isn't as easy on the eyes as a text with color illustrations, but it did the job. All in all, once you get Joomla up and running this is an okay affordable textbook.

This book was written when Joomla 1.5 was the current version. I'm sure this book was wonderful in it's time but Joomla is now at version 1.6 and this book refers to menus and buttons that are no longer in the same place. I would recommend purchasing the "Official Joomla Book" instead. It is produced by the Joomla group and is available on Amazon.

Although Joomla for Dummies is well-written on a sentence-by-sentence level, the content was lacking. The information is repetitious and organized poorly. Worse, the index is all but useless, so you're out of luck if you need to look up something. (For example, "Separators" is not under "S" but under "Menus.")

This book covers very basic and advanced concepts, but not intermediate ones. It's not a complete waste of money, but it could have been so much better.

At the time of this writing, the current xampp 1.7.2 is not compatible with Joomla! 1.5.14. Until Joomla! develop a patch for compatibility, you will have to install xampp version 1.7.1 (the book is using xampp version 1.6.7).
Once you get past the installation, which is easily the toughest part about the book, took me several attempts, everything was smooth sailing. The material is pretty straightforward. My aim was to get the feel of the Joomla site and not to dissect every bit of information and the book doesn't get into too much long-headed technical discussion about Joomla and CMS in general.
I would definitely recommend this book to a newbie Joomla! developer.

Information is presented out of order and in confusing groupings. Installation is confusing and has steps missing or has "you can figure it out from this" instructions. A book for dummies should be simple and straight-forward - this book is neither!

I decided to attempt building a website from scratch using Joomla. It didn't take long and I found myself banging my head on the wall in frustration. Rather than giving up and going back to the many canned website tools available, I ordered this book and my problems were solved. The book outlines the whole process in a plain language very straightforward manner that makes it quite simple. I keep this book right on my desk as use it often as a reference manual when I get confused. If you know little or nothing about Joomla and want to build a website, this is the book to get you started.

I purchased a joomla template from a hosting company. The person who owned the (small) company tried to teach me about Joomla. All it did was frustrate me and made me want to give up.

Instead, I decided to figure it out. I looked through several books on Joomla and decided to purchase this book. This book was the easiest for me to read and comprehend. I have been very happy with my decision.

Joomla for Dummies is a great starting point.