Sams Teach Yourself Drupal in 24 Hours 1st Edition

5 stars for the author and the writing. But no stars for the publisher.I am finding this book to be an important addition to the Drupal library I've been building as I prepare to use Drupal for a major new site. But the publisher has made a design decision that undermines the skills of the author and conveys disrespect for readers.Having been through almost all the Drupal books available, I feel that the way in which this book is organized, written, and illustrated is among the clearest yet.The book will provide me with good counsel and guidance as I start to proceed through installing and building my Drupal site. Finally, I have found a book that answers some key questions I have had about the Views and Panels modules!HOWEVER, the major flaw is that the text is accompanied by grey-scale screen captures that, while critical to understanding the 24 one-hour lessons that comprise the book, are nearly impossible to see. The abundance and relevance of these screen captures are among the best of any Drupal book -- but the publisher has chosen to print them too small, and with grey text against grey backgrounds."Too small" is an understatement. Using a magnifying glass is essential!This is a real shame. The screen captures are so essential to the book, but the difficulty reading them severely weakens the book's value.

This is just what I was looking for - written at the level I need, all the info I need.

I've been a fan of Sam's Teach Yourself books for years now - and this is the absolute worst one I have ever read. Past the first chapter on installation, it's more like a first draft consisting of disjointed and poorly organized Drupal concepts. If you are trying to learn Drupal from scratch, don't waste your money.

I began to learn Drupal by reading the documentation on the Drupal website ([...]). I found the so-called Drupal "manual" poorly organized and not well-suited for a beginner like me. My first attempt to build a Drupal website was a complete failure, and my first exposure to the open-source world left me shaken. If I were not being paid to learn Drupal, I would have abandoned the attempt the first day. I was ready for a book.I bought Sams Teach Yourself Drupal in 24 Hours and starting working my way through it. I enjoyed the organized, incremental approach, and I was making good progress...up until Hour 11. In Hour 11, I was not able to add an image to text. It appears that the instructions in that chapter are not correct. For example, on page 179 Mr. Feiler writes "...you do not need a bridge to use IMCE with FCKeditor." However, I was not able to insert an image into text until I installed the IMCE Wysiwyg Bridge module. Then, although I was able to insert an image, as soon as I previewed or saved the page, the image disappeared. I still have not solved the problem, and I am about ready to start over with a new Drupal installation and different modules to see if I can get around this site-breaker. I read the rest of the book, although a lot of it, such as e-commerce, does not apply to my immediate goals, but without the ability to add images to text, this Drupal site is dead in the water.To be fair, Drupal is a moving target, constantly changing, and it may be that one or more of the relevant modules changed since the author finished his draft. Or, I may have made a mistake in my installation, or in one or more settings.This book makes extensive use of screen shots. My biggest complaint is that the shrunken size, low resolution and poor contrast make them very hard to read. This is not a problem when a screen shot is used just for orientation, but there are many places where the author instructs the reader to copy one or more settings from a screen shot. I found myself reaching for a magnifying glass.I found several minor grammatical errors and typos in the text, and on page 347 there are several sentences that are repeated. This left me wondering if SAMS scrimped on the proofreading before the book was printed. I did not find an errata page on either the SAMS website nor the author's website. There were a couple of times that I wished for more information. For example, the book does not explain how to back up a Drupal site and database, and it seems to me that this is a skill that everyone learning Drupal should know.On the whole this book has a lot of information packed into a modest number of pages for a very reasonable price. The information is well organized, and it appears that the author knows the subject. IMHO Reading this book gives a smoother start to learning Drupal than attempting to read Drupal's on-line documentation. If it were not for my difficulties with Hour 11, and if the book shipped with a magnifying glass, I would probably give it 5 stars.... This book will not be the last book on Drupal that I buy, but I think it is a good place to start.

As an absolute beginner with Drupal I found this book to be lacking in providing the background information necessary prior to jumping in and going through screens. The confusion between the two versions of Drupal (6.x and 7.x) added to the difficulty in understanding what the author was attempting to convey.This is my first Drupal book and I do not have another reference to use in a comparison. I will continue to plod through the text and see if at some point it begins to make sense.My goal is a corporate site that allows the collection and reporting of information from staff members in a MySql data base. With all the concentration in the book on 'social' sites it makes me wonder if this it the right product for my purposes.Thanks.Bill Slaughter

Good one

This edition needs updating. I heard great things about the book and in general it helps the reader get to grips with some of the concepts of how Drupal differs from its competitors. However, it focuses on Drupal 6 mainly with a nod to Drupal 7. I installed Drupal 8 which is now the main version with Drupal 7 being supported. So many of the examples have been superseded and you have to do a lot of work to figure out how to do things. Plus many of the administration menus have changed drastically.I would recommend that you not buy this edition but wait for an updated edition. The information is just too outdated to be helpful. I paid the full price and feel that I have been misled somewhat.Having said that, as a guide for thinking about your projects and Drupal in general, as well as demonstrating some of the features with real examples, it is generally useful. But be prepared to do some extra work and to skip over some parts which are now ancient history or irrelevant.

Well put together, with enough detail for someone who is keen to extend Drupal beyond its basic functionality. Well set out, as seems usual with Sams books. Would recommend (needs a better proof-reader in its second edition though!)

Really good starting point. Especially good for advising which Drupal modules you need to install in order to get Drupal to actually behave like a Content Management System...What - You want to edit text in a WYSIWYG? You need a module for DrupalOh... you want to be able to upload images? You need an additional module for Drupland the list goes onThe only thing I would note for this book is that it seems to have been written around the time that Drupal was going from version 6 to version 7... (a major upgrade!)... Drupal is about to release Version 8... so, it might be worth holding fire and getting an updated book. Because a lot of the modules I just mentioned are likely to be part of the core in Drupal 8.Anyway, well written (as SAMS usually are!) and was the lever that I needed to up-shift to be able to confidently say we could do Drupal...

Gave up and taught myself HTML and CSS instead. Lacks coherence and makes huge leaps between chapters so you can be following step by step one minute and feel you've missed a couple of chapters the next.