Learning Drupal 6 Module Development: A practical tutorial for creating your first Drupal 6 modules with PHP [Paperback]

Matt Butcher (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 8, 2008

Walk through the development of complete Drupal 6 modules with this primer for PHP programmers, written specifically for Drupal 6 to get you started coding your first module. Are you a Drupal developer looking to update to version 6? This book covers the new and updated APIs to guide your transition to Drupal 6. The new menu system, the Forms and Schema APIs, and many core revisions are covered in this book. This book is written for PHP developers who want to add custom features to Drupal. You will need to know the basics of PHP and MySQL programming, but no experience of programming Drupal is required, although you will be expected to be familiar with the basic operation of Drupal.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Matt Butcher is the principal consultant for Aleph-Null, Inc. (http://aleph-null.tv), where he specializes in content management systems, Linux system integration, and Open Source technologies. He has been an active participant in Open Source technologies for over a decade. Along with Learning Drupal 6, Matt has also written Mastering OpenLDAP, Managing and Customizing OpenCms 6, and Building Websites with OpenCms, all of which are published by Packt. When not pushing bits, Matt likes to explore Colorado with his wife and three daughters.

Product Details

• Paperback: 328 pages
• Publisher: Packt Publishing (May 8, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1847194443
• ISBN-13: 978-1847194442
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #611,804 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Matt Butcher is a software developer and author. He has authored several books as well as dozens of articles on technology and philosophy. Matt is a Senior Developer for ConsumerSearch.Com, a New York Times Company. He is also a frequent contributor to numerous Open Source software packages, including QueryPath, Drupal, and Fortissimo. Matt blogs regularly at technosophos.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good solid Drupal book,, August 29, 2008

By 

Jeffrey Heaton "Jeff Heaton" (St. Louis, MO) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Learning Drupal 6 Module Development: A practical tutorial for creating your first Drupal 6 modules with PHP (Paperback)

It seems every version of Drupal likes to change the API considerably. Signatures change, and many functions are dropped. Backwards compatibility is really NOT a concern with Drupal. This book covers the current version, 6, of Drupal.

It walks you through all of the code ideas of Drupal module and theme development. And really does a great job of doing this. Even if you are familiar with 5, the book examples are such that you can skim and upgrade your knowledge to 6.x.

One nice addition would have been a bit of reference. Maybe list all of the hook functions. List all of the form component types, with every attribute. I often found myself going online for examples of how to do form components that were not covered by this book.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good book but glaring ommission with core code example, February 15, 2009

By 

Kevin Roberts (Norcross, GA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Learning Drupal 6 Module Development: A practical tutorial for creating your first Drupal 6 modules with PHP (Paperback)

First off, I have to say that Matt Butcher is an excellent writer. I really like the way he takes a concept, let's you know where he is going, and then follows up with a lucid explanation. He does a great job of explaining his code.

However, on reading the other glowing reviews listed here on Amazon I seriously wonder how many actually tried to work through the example code contained in the book.

Chapter two gives the foundational example of building a module that accesses an RSS feed [...]. The code in the book does not work. So, diligent little beaver that I am, I went to the publisher's web site and checked the errata file. Sure enough, there were corrections to the code. After updating the code, it still didn't work. Finally, I downloaded the code examples from the publisher and found that the working code is *significantly* different than the example in the book! The changes found in the downloaded code not only differ from the book, but also from the corrections in the errata.

So, why do I still give this four stars? Well, it is still a very good book. Matt's skill as a technical writer is noticeably above the majority of technical authors I come across, and you will learn a great deal through reading this book. Just be sure you download the code archive from the publisher, and take the code in the book with a grain of salt until you compare it.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A solid guide to drupal, and a good introduction for experienced PHP developers, September 4, 2008

By 

James Stewart (Grand Rapids, MI, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Learning Drupal 6 Module Development: A practical tutorial for creating your first Drupal 6 modules with PHP (Paperback)

Last autumn's release of Pro Drupal Development was a significant moment in the history of the popular CMS, providing for the first time a relatively comprehensive guide for those wanting to do more than simply manage and skin a drupal site. A number of books have followed it but few have delved as deeply or been such a definitive guide.

Like most of the more recent books, Learning Drupal 6 Module Development focusses on a quite specific area of drupal development, but its a key one for any serious developer and touches every other area of the system. Experienced PHP developers may find that this book (in conjunction with some time for experimentation) will serve as a solid introduction to how they might build applications on top of drupal.

The book focusses on a single project--a website providing biographies of philosophers--and builds the modules it needs, introducing the various available tools and techniques along the way. Much of the time is devoted to generating custom content types, but there's very solid coverage of the hooks, filters, and actions that let modules really take integrate with the rest of the framework. Theming your output, using AJAX, and working with web services all get some time and illustrate how your app can be part of the wider web and keep up with its prevailing trends. A number of times I found myself reaching for code I'd written over the past few months to make amendments based on examples in the book.

I've been quite critical of books from packt lately and some of my criticisms apply here--he book itself feels flimsy and the print quality is poor--but this is also evidence that if an author and editor put the work in they do occasionally produce quality material despite the publisher. There are a number of asides that clarify language which demonstrate an attention to detail too often missing. It would have been good to see clearer signposts as to which features are new in Drupal 6 and which were available previously, but the online API docs can provide most of that.

When I reviewed Pro Drupal Development I noted some disappointment that the book didn't devote any time to automated testing of drupal code, and that criticism applies here too. Along with staged deployments, automated testing remains one of the least considered aspects of drupal and that's a serious concern for those looking to build robust well-managed applications on top of it. There are a few good articles online about how to test drupal code, but it would be good to see it taken more seriously as a core part of the module development process.

This book is likely to sit alongside Pro Drupal Development on my desk whenever I'm working on a drupal project and is a worthwhile investment for anyone who spends much time building drupal modules. There are clear areas for improved coverage, but it is as comprehensive an account as you'll find of how to build modules that take full advantage of the facilities Drupal provides.

Disclaimer: I was sent a copy of this book for review by the publisher.