Learning Joomla! 1.5 Extension Development [Paperback]

Joseph LeBlanc (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1847196209 | ISBN-13: 978-1847196200 | Publication Date: December 11, 2008 | Edition: 2nd,Revised & enlarged

A rapid and easy-to-follow introductory tutorial to help you use PHP code to create your first Joomla! extensions: modules, components, and plugins. This book is suitable for PHP programmers who want to take their first step in customizing and extending the features of Joomla! through custom PHP development. It is not a reference guide for advanced Joomla! developers. You need only the basics of PHP programming; no experience of developing Joomla! extensions is assumed. You are expected to be familiar with the general operation of Joomla!

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Joseph L. LeBlanc started with computers at a very young age. His independent education gave him the flexibility to experiment and learn computer science. Joseph holds a bachelor's degree in Management Information Systems from Oral Roberts University. Joseph is a freelance Joomla! extension developer. He released a component tutorial in May 2004, which was later translated into French, Polish, and Russian. Work samples and open-source extensions are available at www.jlleblanc.com. In addition to freelancing, he is an active member of the Washington, DC tech community and Joomla! Bug Squad.

Product Details

• Paperback: 284 pages
• Publisher: Packt Publishing; 2nd,Revised & enlarged edition (December 11, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1847196209
• ISBN-13: 978-1847196200
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #384,517 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent tutorial, February 20, 2009

By 

Sueter - See all my reviews

This review is from: Learning Joomla! 1.5 Extension Development (Paperback)

Excellent beginning book on writing Joomla extensions. He concentrates on devloping a component extension, but also has you create modules and plugins.

So that you know how to judge my reaction to this book, here's my background: I have good HTML/CSS skills, have installed a few Joomla site, and written a couple of templates. I've been a programmer for many years but on languages quite different from php. My php skills are still pretty new. I understood the concept of object oriented programming but hadn't much experience with it. I knew what MVC stood for, but that was about it.

It would have been nice to know more OOP, but I managed.

The MVC was very sensible and a much cleaner way to deal with php. That was fine to pick up.

After finishing the book, I was able to create my own component extension.

You are going to want to know some HTML, some php and joomla before you try this. If you don't know oop, I'd recommend taking a quick tutorial on it first. Killerphp.com has a quick practical one.

The only complaint I have is that I wish he had created an appendix or footnotes with the Joomla commands and their parameters. While he explains what's needed for the extension example, it's sometimes hard to know what all the parameters are used for which makes it difficult to go beyond something very similar to his example without finding another resource. You can check out the joomla dev site for details or look at the files themselves, but that's a little TOO detailed!

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Stepping Off Point For Joomla Extension Development, February 14, 2009

By 

Scott L. Wolpow "Too Many Books To Read" (New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Learning Joomla! 1.5 Extension Development (Paperback)

Having a number of Joomla Projects that require me to get to the next level of custom design I turned to a number of books. This book is well written, even at a laypersons level. [Though you must have some understanding of basic code, HTML etc] If you are a total "newbie" you can still follow it, even if you do not understand all that it discusses. After each set of code is an explanation of why the code was used and what it does. This can help you learn the concepts for not only Joomla, but also any PHP/MySQL/JavaScript/HTML based scripting.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Better than nothing - but not great, January 4, 2010

By 

Kevin T. Beard "~" (Lansing, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Learning Joomla! 1.5 Extension Development (Paperback)

Although I've only been using the book for a few days, and have learned a lot from it, I'm frustrated by mistakes in the code and lack of full documentation for the various methods that are used.

Background: I have a decent amount of experience with HTML/CSS and had set up a few Joomla sites before buying this book. I've used PHP before also, but for relatively simple things. I understand the basic precepts of OOP, but I am not a professional developer, so I thought (judging from the "who this book is for") this book would be a good way to start working on my own extensions. In some ways it is.

It does explain the basic things you need to do to build a new component, and uses a lot of Joomla functions that I'm sure will be useful, but it does not do a very good job of explaining how these functions/methods really work, what parameters they accept, etc.

The most frustrating part for me is that it seems there are some errors in the sample code. At first I thought this might be due to my own error, so I copied in the code samples available for download... there were still a few issues... so I installed the finished extension on a new install of Joomla, and it basically works - but still with a few issues.

In the end I'm sure the book will be useful, it's better than nothing, and I'm not aware of anything better - but something better could definitely be done.