The Definitive Guide to Drupal 7 [Paperback]

Benjamin Melancon (Author), Jacine Luisi (Author), Karoly Negyesi (Author), Bojhan Somers (Author), Stephane Corlosquet (Author), Stefan Freudenberg (Author), Ryan Szrama (Author), Dan Hakimzadeh (Author), Amye Scavarda (Author), Allie Micka (Author), Roy Scholten (Author), Kasey Dolin (Author), Sam Boyer (Author), Mike Gifford (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 19, 2011 | ISBN-10: 1430231351 | ISBN-13: 978-1430231356 | Edition: 1

The Definitive Guide to Drupal 7 is the most comprehensive book for building web sites using the powerful and extensible Drupal content management framework.

Written by active community members and contributors (some of the "brightest and most innovative minds in the Drupal community," to quote Angela Byron, Drupal 7 maintainer), the Definitive Guide to Drupal 7 covers the basics then quickly advances to in-depth exploration of the functionality and tools that make Drupal so powerful for building web applications. Just as important, this book provides the reader with a guide to participating in the Drupal community: an international, committed, rapidly growing community of themers, developers, and open source advocates who write the modules, test the code, and work ceaselessly to make Drupal great. The release of Drupal 7, with its dramatic improvements in usability and system architecture, will take Drupal to a new level of popularity, and this book will help give you the foundation and scaffolding to grow with Drupal.

With The Definitive Guide to Drupal 7, you will be able to:

• Plan and build a complete Drupal site with core alone.
• Extend Drupal's functionality by selecting from thousands of modules.
• Make your Drupal site look like anything you want with theming and jQuery.
• Extend Drupal by coding your own modules.
• Install Drupal in many environments.
• Use essential tools such as Drush and Git to make your life easier.
• Contribute to the Drupal community as an organizer or a coder.

Who this book is for Anyone who is serious about getting better at Drupal.
Table of Contents

1. Building a Drupal 7 Site
2. Essential Tools: Drush and Git 
3. Building Dynamic Pages Using Views
4. There's a Module for That
5. Creating Community Web Sites with Organic Groups
6. Security in Drupal
7. Updating Drupal
8. Extending Your Site
9. Drupal Community: Getting Help and Getting Involved 
10. Planning and Managing a Drupal Project
11. Documenting for End Users and the Production Team
12. Development Environment
13. Putting a Site Online and Deploying New Features 
14. Developing from a Human Mindset
15. Theming
16. Advanced Theming
17. jQuery
18. Introduction to Module Development
19. Using Drupal's APIs in a Module
20. Refining Your Module
21. Porting Modules to Drupal 7
22. Writing Project-Specific Code
23. Introduction to Functional Testing with Simpletest
24. Writing a Major Module
25. Drupal Commerce
26. Drush
27. Scaling Drupal
28. Spice Your Content Up with Tasty Semantics
29. The Menu System and the Path Into Drupal
30. Under the Hood: Inside Drupal When It Displays a Page
31. Search and Apache Solr Integration
32. User Experience
33. Completing a Site: The Other 90%
34. Drupal Distributions and Installation Profiles
35. Drupal's Story: A Chain of Many Unexpected Events
36. Now You're in Business: Making a Living with Drupal
37. Maintaining a Project
38. Contributing to the Community
39. Appendix A: Updating a Drupal Site from 6 to 7
40. Appendix B: Profiling Drupal and Optimizing Performance
41. Appendix C: Page Rendering and Altering 
42. Appendix D: Visual Design in Drupal
43. Appendix E: Accessibility
44. Appendix F: Windows Development Environment
45. Appendix G: Installing Drupal on Ubuntu
46. Appendix H: Mac OS X Installation
47. Appendix I: Setting Up a Drupal Environment with the Acquia Dev Desktop

Authors

1. Benjamin Melançon
2. Jacine Luisi
3. Károly Négyesi
4. Greg Anderson
5. Bojhan Somers
6. Stéphane Corlosquet
7. Stefan Freudenberg
8. Michelle Lauer
9. Ed Carlevale
10. Florian Lorétan
11. Dani Nordin
12. Ryan Szrama
13. Susan Stewart
14. Jake Strawn
15. Brian Travis
16. Dan Hakimzadeh
17. Amye Scavarda
18. Albert Albala
19. Allie Micka
20. Robert Douglass
21. Robin Monks
22. Roy Scholten
23. Peter Wolanin
24. Kay VanValkenburgh
25. Greg Stout
26. Kasey Qynn Dolin
27. Forest Mars
28. Sam Boyer
29. Mike Gifford
30. Claudina Sarahe
31. George Cassie
32. Mike Ryan
33. Dmitri Gaskin

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

The Definitive Guide to Drupal 7 accelerates you along the Drupal learning curve by covering all aspects of building web sites with Drupal: architecture and configuration; module development; front end development; running projects sustainably; and contributing to Drupal's code, documentation, and community.

Continuously updated corrections and further information can be found at DefinitiveDrupal.org.

From the Back Cover

"Drupal's success has been phenomenal. The Definitive Guide to Drupal 7 will help continue that growth by making Drupal more accessible to everybody. It goes beyond building a website to talk about creating distributions, making a living, and contributing to Drupal's thriving community. I've always believed that Drupal's ecosystem is as important as its code; this book guides you through both."
 - Dries Buytaert, Drupal Founder and Project Lead

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 1112 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1 edition (July 19, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1430231351
• ISBN-13: 978-1430231356
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 2.2 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #22,573 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #33 in Books > Computers & Technology > Web Development & Design > Web 2.0
  • #76 in Books > Computers & Technology > Web Development & Design > Web Design

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars True to its name - A Frustrated Theming Newbies Elation August 19, 2011

By Brandon M.

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book is THE guide to Drupal 7, I have read 3 other books on Drupal 7 and as far as I'm concerned this book includes the same information and often a LOT more, particularly in custom theming from scratch. Before this book came out there was virtually nothing out there on creating and implementing a new region in the .tpl files. This book dedicates a sub-section to the topic in chapter 15 which covers Default Regions, Hidden Regions, Module-Specific Regions, when to use regions vs. hard-coding variables, and then walks you through 2 distinct examples of implementing a new region (p.291-292). The book does a great job of explaining template overrides, theme functions, theme hook suggestions, and the render api's alter hook, showing you the syntax, and then walking you through an exercise. Even for a newbie it does a decent enough job of demonstrating the php code strings so I could copy and paste with some confidence, though I would probably be lost if I had to troubleshoot and I am limited by the applicability of the examples in the book, whatever that may be (I know I have to read a php book if I'm serious about theming in drupal). My only issue with the books theming chapters is that it doesn't have a dedicated section that concludes its fantastic coverage of the individual theming techniques by providing an all-inclusive comparative analysis or custom site build demonstration that reveals the logic of using one theming technique over another in different areas of the site build process. As a newbie, I just quickly became overwhelmed by all my options. It does a great job of explaining the differences in Drupals various strategies for implementing CSS styling and then demonstrating each of them in an all inclusive set of exercises for efficiently managing CSS in Drupal. Of course, I am limiting my discussion to that of theming because thats my main concern at this point, though at the size of a large phone book, I am sure administrators, themers, and developers alike will find their areas of interest covered very thoroughly. I'm only on chapter 17 out of 38 chapters and am already on my way of achieving my lofty goals!

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The best technical book in 25 years! September 13, 2011

By BozHogan

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I've purchased 7 books on Drupal and this one is the best. Hands down. It's great for beginners and advanced Drupal users alike. For beginners, each chapter starts with the basics and takes you as far as you'll likely ever need to go. For the advanced, each chapter/topic starts with an easy read, refresh and review, then dives into the advanced stuff that helps you take your sites as far as possible. Very few books can accomplish both of these objectives, but this one does it in excellent fashion. No wonder it's a 1000 pages.
My work has already improved dramatically, and every chapter has me so amped up, I can't wait to dive into the next to see what else I can learn.
There were lots of books that came out earlier, but they just don't measure up. These authors took the extra time (about 4 or 6 months beyond schedule) to get it right. Not just in accuracy and clarity, but in presentation and completeness as well. They sacrificed schedule for quality, and it paid off BIG TIME. I'm giving away all my other books, and just keeping this one.
Anyone who is serious about learning Drupal, or for experienced users, who want to rapidly upgrade their knowledge and value, you would be a fool not to put this book in your arsenal. Fantastic Job, Authors!
I've been in technology for 25 years, and this is the best technical book I've ever seen. It's definitely a MUST HAVE, and aptly named. It is "The Definitive Guide to Drupal 7."

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Motherload of Drupal Books January 6, 2012

By DieCastProCrastInAteOr

Format:Paperback

I love this book. I must have 600 pounds of instruction books. Many of them were useful; some not at all. A few have been exceptionally good, but this is the first time I've been this excited about such a book. It's huge and comprehensive. For that vast majority of people it's probably the only Drupal 7 book they'll ever need. I'd urge anyone serious about Drupal to get a copy immediately.

The only people I wouldn't recommend this book to are those whose interests in Drupal are very limited. Those seeking a bare minimum working knowledge of Drupal; perhaps to do something very simple in Drupal Gardens; and aren't interested in learning beyond that very basic level could do much better in a very basic introductory book. For everyone else, Definitive Guide to Drupal 7 is a great book.

I didn't think I was going to like this book at first. The multiple authorship rubbed me the wrong way until I realized how brilliant the effect was. Most books like this are sort of like being back in school stuck in the same classroom with the same slightly interesting underpaid grad student instructor. Definitive Guide to Drupal 7 is more like being swarmed by a battalion of friendly geeks all trying to help me with my latest project. These people are quite obviously expert and well connected in the Drupal community but perhaps more importantly their enthusiasm for Drupal; their excitement about that community comes through and it's infectious. Also, the different perspectives of each author make chapters I would have skipped over well worth reading.

This is a huge book and it seems like it's taken me forever to work my way through it but I can't begin to express how much I've learned. In the process I feel like I've learned from this book how to learn just about anything else I'll ever need to know about Drupal.

This is physically a huge book, so if you're ok with electronic versions I'd recommend it. Also, as some reviewers have already pointed out, APress didn't do a very good job with the typography and book design. That kinda sucks. But, really, it's fine. Not pretty, but perfectly readable. If that's going to stop anyone from using this magnificent book, they're pretty much missing the whole point. If you want great typography go buy a novel.