July 26th, 2010
Product Description
In Detail
Joomla! started as a fork from Mambo in 2005, when many of the original developers of the Mambo CMS moved to working on Joomla! It has rapidly grown in popularity and, according to its own description, is a “Cutting Edge Content Management System and one of the most powerful Open Source Content Management systems in the world. It is used world-wide for anything from simple homepages to complicated corporate websites. It is easy to install, easy to manage and very reliable.”
While the Joomla! CMS has the flexibility and power needed for complex, full-featured web applications, it is also simple to use to create basic websites. Its powerful, extensible template system can deal many different data types and control of user access, approval of content, scheduling of content display, and rich administrative controls are all included.
Approach
This book takes the reader through the tasks essential to create a Joomla! website as rapidly as possible. The necessary tasks are explained with clear step-by-step instructions. The author’s chatty and engaging style makes this book very readable.
Who this book is written for?
This book is suitable for web developers, designers, webmasters, content editors, and marketing professionals who want to develop a website in a simple and straightforward process. It does not require any detailed knowledge of programming or web development, and any IT-confident individual will be able to use the book to produce an impressive website.
W Boudville says:
Joomla [sorry, I just won't add that exclamation mark after it] is targeting the novice website designer and programmer. By some definitions, a designer need not be concerned with the messy details of actually making webpages. However, Joomla is easy enough to pick up that a designer might well be tempted to indulge in actual page design and generation.
It does aim at websites where the intent is for users to have a persistent login. To this ends, Joomla offers a separation of functions, for the user and for the administrator [you presumably]. As the book demonstrates, it’s pretty easy for you to create user accounts. The specialisation for content management is shown when there is the concept of groups of users. Joomla offers Registered, Author, Editor and Publisher. With subsidiary groups of Manager, Administrator and Super Admin. The administrative tasks are done within a simple GUI that frees you from memorising arcane command lines.
Joomla also has an interesting functionality. It lets you, the website author or owner, publish Joomla-generated URLs that are search engine friendly. Various search engines tend not to store long URLs, where there are many arguments in these, after the host name. The assumption is that the URLs refer to dynamic [ie. transient] content. Hence there is little point to the engine storing these URLs, or the pages pointed to by them. But you want the engine to store your website’s URLs, right? What Joomla does is rewrite the URLs in a more compact form, which improves the chances of an engine recording these. And thus offering your website in its free results.
Rating: 4 / 5
M. B. Sancho says:
It like an overview of the cms system, but not a real guide for development with joomla framework.
Its perfect for people who needs to manager only the admin enviroment an a few hacks on templates.
Rating: 4 / 5
Steinar Johansen says:
If you are looking for a book that takes you really under the hood of Joomla, this is not the one. This book provides you with the basic information to set up Joomla! 1.5 and to do a little changes here and there. If you for instance are looking for a tutorial book showing how to interact fully with the frame work by making your own classes, stay away from this. You find most of the information on this book online
Rating: 4 / 5
Scott L. Wolpow says:
A number of years ago I set about planning the re-launch of a website. I was using a blog system. I learned about `CMS’ and did my research. I narrowed down my options to Joomla, Drupal, Plone and a few others. I then went off to my local bookstore. There I went through the books. I decided on Joomla and looked for a good book to use. It is key that a `how to manual’ speak to you in a manner that you can understand. I choose Building Websites with Joomla 1.0 by Hagen Graf. That started me on the Joomla journey.
I have just finished reading the sequel Building Websites with Joomla 1.5. The book is even better than the first edition. Graf explains what a CMS does, the changes from version 1.0. The book explains all the parts of Joomla. It even covers the more advanced areas of creating your own templates and components.
If you are just starting out with Joomla, this book gives you a head start. If you are already experienced with using Joomla, but not customizing it, this book is for you. This book will defiantly be on the “within reach” Book shelf.
Scott Wolpow is a member of the New York Joomla Group. He also builds and hosts Joomla sites.
Rating: 5 / 5
ChaoticFat says:
This book might be good for beginners, but it depends on what kind of beginner you are. If you have no website building knowledge, then I think this may be a little confusing and may not work for you; but if you have some experience, then I think Joomla can be a powerful tool in helping you create a website and content exactly the way you envision it in your head. Installation is easy and once you’ve created a site it’s easily managed. Take a chance, you might like it.
Rating: 3 / 5