Decent Joomla book?

[duodec]

The online documentation seems pretty disorganized to me, and in any case I always learn a new system better with a decent book.

So of the books available that are specific to or updated to cover Joomla V1.5, which would be good for a reasonably experienced systems person with novice HTML/CSS skills and zip in CMS's? I played with Pivot a while ago and liked it but never had time to carry through. I need to learn "how to use it" to reasonably full potential, customizing, tweaking templates, 'brand-izing', etc, and I have the system and resources to learn it on (time being a killer, though).

In the past I've had good luck with the Peachpit press "Visual Quickstart" books but their Joomla book is still not out.

I've picked Joomla because we have interest at work, but also for future use in my own site development. Also because its been tested and actually runs fairly well in a VAMP environment (Thats VMS, aka OpenVMS, not Vista...). I've set up a test site based on their primer and its working fine, but the online docs leave something to be desired for 'discovery' as opposed to 'reference' use.

Thanks.

 

[Corey]

have you tried the Joomla Forum?

Cheers
Corey

 

[barefoottech]

AMAZON Books has a Large range of Joomla! books at reasonable prices
as do MOST large bookshops

 

[maxeaus]

G'day, i recently learnt Joomla, after i bought a website with the the 1.3 version, and once you get the hang of it it is quite nice to work with. The Joomla forum is good to use when you have "issues" you cannot fix or understand, but yes the tutorials are designed for high end experts in my opinion.

If you can get a book, then i reccommend you do that, but many things you can just work out by trial and error also. Another handy hint is not to ever disclose your website to anyone in the forum, as there are many expert Joomla hackers lurking there.

If you realy need expert help, then i suggest PM'ing an experienced Joomla expert with many years experience at the forum and take it from there. Also try and limit the amount of external applications you add on, as many of these are in beta, and have security holes.

And last of all, some of the Joomla ninjas that are available are very cheap, and many come from India, think about outsourcing jobs you need done, against the time and cost/s it would take to do yourself, it may well be cheaper. Advice again is try and find not the cheapest ninja, but the best, and build up a trust relationship with them. These guys are brilliant when you get the right one.

 

[duodec]

Thanks all who have responded. I'm aware of the significant assortment of books available (though many are for the earlier versions) and have browsed Amazon. Unfortunately I haven't had much luck relying on Amazon reviews for tech books. I'm rather hoping someone has already used one or more and can help narrow down the choices.

The forums are fine for specific questions, and can certainly be used as a reference with enough effort searching, but like the online docs, they aren't really ideal as a 'learning' guide.

The local bookstores haven't been helpful; B&N only had one book and it was for the old version, and Borders had nothing in stock. I hate to waste money on a book sight unseen that would be better spent elsewhere.

Wanting a decent book is due to my limitations; I don't do well bouncing back and forth from window to window, from fora to man page, while trying to work; I do much better with the well processed dead tree version of the information.

 

[barefoottech]

"the Joomla" book as recommended by Joomla.org themselves
http://www.packtpub.com/joomla/book/mid/081205a2vl4o
I use it as the textbook for my Joomla Courses (I teach Joomla Part-Time)

Plus the local joomlaninja at namepros (me) is available via PM for questions at anytime.

 

[GF]

Barrie M. North wrote an easy to read book - Joomla! A Users Guide

 

[Makis.TV]

packtpub.com and Barrie M. North can help you a lot

 

[duodec]

Thanks, all. Thats where I'll concentrate then.