concrete5 Beginner's Guide [Paperback]

Remo Laubacher (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 18, 2011

This book is part of Packt's Beginner's Guide series. You will be guided through the set up of a Concrete5 site with step-by-step practical examples. This book is ideal for developers who would like to build their first site with Concrete5. Some knowledge of PHP, MySQL, or HTML would be useful, but you will likely have little to no experience in using Concrete5. This book will teach you everything you need to know!

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Remo Laubacher

Remo Laubacher grew up in Central Switzerland in a small village surrounded by lots of mountains and natural beauty. He started working with computers several years ago. After doing various computer related work, he focused on ERP and Oracle development but always kept his know how about web technologies up to date. A bit later, he ended up having a BSc in Business Administration but still works as an ERP and web developer and consultant.

He is an owner at Ortic where he does his ERP and Oracle related business but also works at mesch.ch where he discovered Concrete5 as the perfect tool for their web related projects. He has published some tutorials on codeblog.ch.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Packt Publishing (March 18, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1849514283
• ISBN-13: 978-1849514286
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #479,108 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars very complete coverage of C5, April 22, 2011

By 

Sasa Janiska - See all my reviews

This review is from: concrete5 Beginner's Guide (Paperback)

This is very nice book about C5 CMS which covers a lot of ground. It starts with the installation chapter, followed by explaining basis working with C5 (adding/editing blocks, pages etc.)

Chapter 3 deals with the permission system and in chapter 4 is dedicated to add-ons (C5's plugins) which extend basic functionality of C5.

Chapter 5 gives very detailed explanation how to convert HTML template for C5 CMS. There are lot of details provided and reader is destined to succeed. :-)

After that there are chapters about customizing block layouts, advanced navigation, creating one's own add-on block, writing a package for C5...even writing dashboard extensions is covered.

Pretty impressive for a 300p book, language is easy to follow and I highly recommend it for every C5 user who consider that official docs is not very well structured.

Why not 5 stars?

Well, my complain is that at some point the author changes in high speed and there is not, imho, enough explanation of 'why' but the reader is just given 'how'.

However, I must admit that it is probably due to the way this Packt 's "Beginner's Guid" series is 'designed' and author has taken maximum from the given 'field'.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This should be required reading for new concrete5 developers!, April 30, 2011

By 

T. Trupp - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: concrete5 Beginner's Guide (Paperback)

This long awaited Concrete5 guide book provides an in-depth walk-through of all the essentials you'll need to get up and running with a concrete5 website. It has loads of examples and useful code snippets for novice and intermediate concrete5 users, and also includes a few cool new tips and tricks that might even surprise concrete5 veterans. While the book's probably best suited for those who have a basic understanding of CSS, HTML, and PHP, it still has a lot of valuable information about operating a concrete5 website for those who are still learning these skills.

Within concrete5, many common website problems have already been solved at the interface level, so it's good to see that it takes the time to explore both the operation of the CMS from an end user's point of view, and how to customize your site from the code level. It covers a surprisingly wide range of topics, including: how to get a site running on your local development environment; how to skin your site with your own custom themes; using, customizing, & creating blocks; developing your own packages; how the attribute system functions; how to use basic and advanced user & group permissions; single pages, page-types, views & controllers; and deploying/configuring your site in a production environment. The author of the book, Remo Laubacher, has been an active member of the concrete5 community since it first became open source, and his contributions have played a significant part in how the system has developed over the years. With this in mind I can say that few people are as qualified to write a book on the subject. Highly recommended!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Resource for all Concrete5 Users, May 12, 2011

By 

Jared Quinn - See all my reviews

This review is from: concrete5 Beginner's Guide (Paperback)

Having worked on countless Concrete5 websites, I'm regularly looking for a resource I can point my clients at. To date, that resource has been the Concrete5 website, it's tutorial videos and forums, but these only cover part of the Concrete5 experience and I feel don't provide the best introduction for a client that is moving from another CMS or has just been delivered a shiny new complete Concrete5 solution and now is left in the position of managing it.

Providing on-going support in this situation is something that I have to do, but it's not something I'm particularly fond of doing, as it takes away from my core business, the business of developing creative, flexible solutions for my clients.

Concrete5 - Beginner's Guide is a fantastic resource as a way of gently introducing somebody new to the Concrete5 environment and methodology. It's written in clear, concise, easy to understand English by an author who understands his subject matter.

The book starts at the beginning, installing Concrete5 on a local development server - and provides everything a new user needs to know, including building a local development server using the Apache, MySQL and PHP (XAMPP) environment required by C5. While this basic installation is focussed on Windows environments, those running OSX or Linux can easily find guides online for setting this environment up.

Each chapter includes a small pop-quiz and a summary, providing great feed A small pop-quiz at the end of each chapter provides a convenient way to ensure that you've covered the key ideas that are presented in each chapter and are ready to move on to the next chapter.

Everything a site manager new to Concrete5 needs to know is thoroughly covered, including the Scrapbook and both options for Concrete5's permissions model. Concepts for more advanced users, including building a theme from scratch, customising block views and building your own packages are also covered in simple, easy to understand terms - providing developers new to Concrete5 a fantastic introduction to the world of possibilities that Concrete5 presents.

These 291 pages provide such a diverse and comprehensive guide to Concrete5 for beginners starting with Concrete5 as either a Content Manager or Developer. Remo has provided a fantastic resource for the entire Concrete5 community. 5 Stars.