Pro Drupal Development (Paperback)

by John K. VanDyk (Author), Matt Westgate (Author)
Key Phrases: call trace, content management, grouping results, Summary After, Duration Time, Storing Data (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Pro Drupal Development is strongly recommended for any PHP programmer who wants a truly in-depth look at how Drupal works and how to make the most of it.

— Michael J. Ross, Web developer/Slashdot contributor

Drupal is one of the most popular content management systems in use today. With it, you can create a variety of community-driven sites, including blogs, forums, wiki-style sites, and much more. Pro Drupal Development was written to arm you with knowledge to customize your Drupal installation however you see fit. The book assumes that you already possess the knowledge to install and bring a standard installation online. Then authors John VanDyk and Matt Westgate delve into Drupal internals, showing you how to truly take advantage of its powerful architecture.

Youll learn how to create your own modules, develop your own themes, and produce your own filters. You'll learn the inner workings of each key part of Drupal, including user management, sessions, the node system, caching, and the various APIs available to you. Of course, your Drupal-powered site isnt effective until you can efficiently serve pages to your visitors. As such, the authors have included the information you need to optimize your Drupal installation to perform well under high-load situations. Also featured is information on Drupal security and best practices, as well as integration of Ajax and the internationalization of your Drupal web site. Simply put, if you are working with Drupal at all, then you need this book.

• This book is written by Drupal core developers.
• Drupal architecture and behavior are mapped out visually.
• Common pitfalls are identified and addressed.
• Chapters provide regular discussion and reference to why things work they way they do, not just how.
• The front matter features a foreword by Dries Buytaert, Drupal founder.

About the Author
John K. VanDyk has been a Drupal developer since 2004. In 2005, he organized the first Drupal conference in Antwerp, Belgium, with Drupal founder Dries Buytaert. John has contributed several modules to Drupal—including the actions, workflow, publish, subscribe, and pubcookie modules—and has been instrumental in the design of Drupal’s Content Construction Kit. John’s day job is as an entomology professor and systems analyst at Iowa State University, where he teaches undergraduate courses about insects. In his spare time, when not hacking on Drupal, John enjoys squash hunting and raising children.

Matt Westgate is a core developer of the Drupal project and original author of the e-commerce package for Drupal. Matt also wrote the path aliasing module, along with many contributed modules such as tinymce and img_assist. He currently co-operates Lullabot, a consulting/training firm focused on making open source software easy to use and understand.

Product Details

• Paperback: 428 pages
• Publisher: Apress (May 17, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590597559
• ISBN-13: 978-1590597552
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (50 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #89,942 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Book for Drupal Module Writers, April 26, 2007

By	Kevin Dorff "kdorff" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If you are looking for a "this is how up install and run Drupal, these are the modules that are available" look elsewhere (the Drupal site, for instance) - this book is about writing Drupal modules how Drupal works internally.

But, if you are an aspiring Drupal module writer or just want to better understand how Drupal works internally or want to be able to tinker with existing modules you CANNOT go wrong with this book. It is very detailed, is incredibly well laid out and written. The examples are spot on. Very easy to understand and teaches you an incredible amount. I'm reading it cover to cover. I am about half way through and I couldn't be happier. It has answered pretty much every question I had about developing Drupal modules and extending existing functionality. I found some of the tutorials on the Drupal web site lacking in detail, this book IS the detail I was looking for. It covers Drupal 5.0.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Good book, but DONT BUY NOW (It's for Drupal 5!!), April 25, 2008

By	H. Sætra (Norway) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Just a little warning, don't buy this book (like I did), if you want to develop for Drupal 6.

Right off the bat I got in trouble, and even the first simple example won't work in Drupal 6..


So, I'm not complaining, but I was stupid enough to buy this just before version 6 got out, don't make the same mistake, read online-tutorials or find a book that's intended for the current version..

(Maybe hardcore programmers will still find this useful, but I could use example-code that works, and this doesn't, so you're stuck researching just about everything online anyway.)

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A good developer's reference, December 17, 2007

By	Michael McKee "mystic cowboy" (Port Townsend, WA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Read the title carefully. If you are not a developer, a PHP programmer with solid MySQL background this is not your book. If you want to know how to extend Drupal with your own modules or contribute to the core project then get it and be happy.