Joomla! A User's Guide: Building a Successful Joomla! Powered Website

Author - Barrie M. North ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Paperback Book item from Prentice Hall PTR was reviewed on 15-Oct-2008.

Search ISBN:0136135609 offer from Abebooks or used books from Alibris. Joomla! A User's Guide: Building a Successful Joomla! Powered Website Reference Book. Classifications : Software Design & Engineering Computer Science New & Used Textbooks Custom Stores Specialty Stores Books General AAS Computer Science New & Used Textbooks Custom Stores Specialty Stores Books General . Click the following link to view the cover of Joomla! A User's Guide: Building a Successful Joomla! Powered Website.

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1) Paperback Book Joomla! A User's Guide: Building a Successful Joomla! Powered Website by Prentice Hall PTR. I am of two minds about this book. As a Joomla beginner but long-time geek, I found it necessary to acquire something more substantial than online documentation and forum posts to make the transition to a content management system. I bought this book after much nosing around (including the reviews here), and I do have to credit it for answering most of my newbie questions and getting me incrementally closer to Joomla competence. I learn a little more each time I dig through it, so yes, I would say I got my money´s worth.

As a writer (a few technical books and lots of articles), however, I am reminded of the biggest problem with technical writing: material generated by someone highly conversant with a topic can too-easily fall into the trap of speaking the language of the field... forgetting that beginners are trying to make sense of it. The author obviously knows his stuff, but even as a geek I found many of the chapters confusing and never did get what I would call a clear grasp of organizational principles. The net effect is that each new article I add to my site involves a bit of experimental poking-about until the menus reflect the structure I want, and there is a sort of surprised delight when a download extension works the way I expected.

I don´t think Joomla is really that hard, and it is exactly what I have needed to break out of a 15-year habit of hand-editing HTML (resulting in a sprawling site that breaks many rules of stylistic consistency and modern standards). But someone really needs to capture the fundamental CMS paradigm with absolute clarity, present it in a way that lets the reader build an internal model of the system with her own application in mind, and then introduce the tools non-trivially... with good examples and meaningful graphics. Maybe someone has done this already, but I have not found it.

For a Joomla expert, all this is unnecessary, of course, and that´s part of the problem with books about software tools. Identifying the target audience is the first problem when starting a book, and holding onto that all the way through a long brain dump can be particularly tricky. I don´t think this book is very consistent in that department, even though it certainly helped me get started and triggered enough "aha!" moments to get me past the "hello, world" stage. But my non-geeky, blog-literate partner bogged down completely in the early chapters, so I don´t think it really works for a true beginner.

Admittedly, stepping someone through a sprawling system that can take just about any form is a very tall order, for there is no obvious beginning-to-end sequencing (and there is plenty of allure in the esoterica). But I believe it could have been done much more smoothly and linearly: the essential truths about menu structures and the role of modules vs components vs plug-ins, while all stated in various places, require quite a bit of digging and re-reading.



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2) Paperback Book Joomla! A User's Guide: Building a Successful Joomla! Powered Website by Prentice Hall PTR. Very good for getting up and running with Joomla, covers all the basics of configuration and utilization of the standard parts. Goes into some of the template customization, but doesn´t explain in detail the PHP functions (you would have to know PHP to do anything more than follow the basic directions).
The companion website (JoomlaShack) is EXCELLENT.¤

3) Paperback Book Joomla! A User's Guide: Building a Successful Joomla! Powered Website by Prentice Hall PTR. I have found no way for the person with no Joomla experience to go through this book without getting "stuck". You know, when the results don´t match the instructions? This happens when, in Chapter 4, the user must download and install the sample files in SQL form. There is a website that has the download files, but the passwords don´t match what you put in when installing Joomla, thus, you have to go wandering around the site to find said login information.

When posting a question on the website forum, it takes days (if ever) to get a reply. Not very helpful when you´re in the middle of a problem. What you DO find all over the forum is an advertisement touting the author´s service to build and host a Joomla website for you! If I wanted that, I wouldn´t have invested in the book to begin with.

This is my first ever review of a book at Amazon, and I have ordered and read many instructional web tutorial books which have all fulfilled their promises. This one disappoints, especially in the "support forum" department.¤

4) Paperback Book Joomla! A User's Guide: Building a Successful Joomla! Powered Website by Prentice Hall PTR. Being new to Joomla, but not web design and development, the book had me engaged up to the chapter on Search Engine Marketing. This topic alone seems to be the author´s real interest and for this he does have some good insights. But my enthusiasm ends here.

Mastering CSS is crucial to having control over the look of your site. At best CSS is a complex subject and I promise that unless you have extraordinary mind-bending abilities at reading between the lines, you will not penetrate this mish-mash explanation of how to put together, or edit, a pure CSS Joomla template as attempted in chapter 9. I would rather wrestle a wild boar, or crack ciphers from the Wehrmacht Enigma machine than waste any more time attempting to untangle such poorly thought out material.

This book needs a major and careful rewrite. And I do mean major. If you have any experience with clearly written, precisely crafted, well edited technical books --as in anything written by David Powers, you will quickly realize that this ´guide´ leads nowhere.
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5) Paperback Book Joomla! A User's Guide: Building a Successful Joomla! Powered Website by Prentice Hall PTR. I´m a web designer and programmer who bought this book in the hope that it´d reduce my time spent on forums and disorganized blog posts trying to hunt chunks of useful information on Joomla! , yet the book was far from fulfilling my expectations.
The book doesn´t provide clear definitions , doesn´t cover the necessary subjects thoroughly....makes a lot of assumptions and fails to communicate the structure of joomla clearly . Especially the last three chapters are a grandeur failure ( SEO+template making being the most important chapters if you really want to learn how to have some control over joomla and how to make your site efficient and accessible)

If you´re really curious about the book, download the pdf version.
I highly recommend saving your money for smthing more useful and meaningful than this book.

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6) Paperback Book Joomla! A User's Guide: Building a Successful Joomla! Powered Website by Prentice Hall PTR.

The First Easy-to-Use Guide to Joomla!-The World’s #1 Open Source Content Management System

If you want to build sophisticated websites that can be easily edited and updated, you need to master Joomla!-the world’s #1 open source content management system. Now there’s an easy-to-read, easy-to-use guide to Joomla! for every site manager, administrator, and developer. Leading Joomla! consultant Barrie North covers all you need to get results: installation, administration, site organization, template development, content updates, and a whole lot more. You’ll find never-before-published tips, tricks, and troubleshooting solutions, as well as three start-to-finish case studies.

New to Joomla? No problem! This book starts with the simplest design and system concepts, and builds your expertise step-by-step. You’ll rapidly master Joomla!’s power, even if you have no content management, scripting, or CSS expertise. Experienced with Joomla!? You’ll turn to this book constantly for its authoritative, plain-English, example-rich Joomla! 1.0 and 1.5 reference content.

·   Understanding content management, what Joomla! does, and how its components fit together

·   Building Joomla! sites from scratch, and systematically customizing them to your needs

·   Organizing content with sections, categories, blogs, and tables

·   Creating dynamic pages and effective navigation

·   Working with Joomla! modules and components

·   Search engine optimization for Joomla! sites

·   Start-to-finish case studies: building a school website, an e-commerce site, and a blog

·   The most valuable Joomla! extensions and add-ons: finding them, and using them

·   Key differences between Joomla! 1.0 and 1.5, and what they mean to you

About the Website

The accompanying site for the Joomla 1.5 book, provides five fully functional Joomla! sites with live follow-along examples from the book and up-to-date information on Joomla! The site also includes

• An active forum where you can ask questions specific to chapters from the book from a Joomla expert 
  
• 5 fully functional Joomla 1.5 live follow-along examples from the book. You can browse the sites and their backends live online.
• Downloads of 5 free websites for Joomla 1.5 based on various chapter of the book. These are SQL dumps you can import to instantly give you a completed Joomla site. 
  
• 4 free tutorial templates and 3 free templates from joomlashack.com including the popular commercial template - JS Aqualine!

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 12-Nov-2008, 01361356099780136135609, 090-450-821-041-231-0X1-8

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