The focus of this book is on creating a successful website using Joomla, rather than explaining every setting and feature of Joomla itself. Whilst it does comprehensively cover many of Joomla's useful features, leading the novice confidently from basic principles to more advanced concepts, it goes beyond this and gives excellent advice on how to build various types of website (blogs, schools, restaurants) as well as organizing content, using stock images, creating custom template designs, search engine optimisation, pay-per-click advertising, and more. Novices and more advanced users alike will benefit from the wealth of experience the author brings to this guide.

1.) The book is based upon a release candidate and not the final release of Joomla 1.5.x which at times creates confusion.

2.) The illustrations in the book that you are supposed to refer to to make sure you are configuring things correctly are too small to make out without a powerful hand lens and thus about useless.

3.) The template for chapter 10 if you DL it from Joomla Shack is not the template that he uses. That alone cost me over 10 hours of frustration.

4.)Lastly the author refers you to his web site on many occasions and when you get there you can't find what he send you there for, just a lot of shameless self promotion and little substance.

5.)The book site is hard to find I was 3/4 through the book before I finally found it listed on the site mentioned in the book. Then when you finally get to the book site you have 2 levels of hoops to jump through to get the SQL data base for the site in chapter 10! Then when you get the DB the password is hidden on the from page of the site instead of in documentation. This cost me a few hours too.

6.) On page one of the book tech authors should have you register online so that they can email you up to date corrections to save you tons of wasted time.

This book reinforces my belief that there are 2 kinds of documentation(books) for software. Either there is NO documentation or there is POOR documentation. I think the whole paradigm has to change for tech books. Perhaps they should all be printed on demand or electronic with the user printing them so that they can updated continually.

First of all the book is based upon a release candidate and not the final release of Joomla 1.5.x which at times creates confusion.

My second beef is that the illustrations in the book that you are supposed to refer to to make sure you are configuring things correctly are too small to make out without a powerful hand lens and thus about useless.

Lastly the author refers you to his web site on many occasions and when you get there you can't find what he send you there for, just a lot of shameless self promotion and little substance.

The book site is hard to find I was 3/4 through the book before I finally found it listed on the site mentioned in the book. Then when you finally get to the book site you have 2 levels of hoops to jump through to get the SQL data base for the site! You must register (again) then you must prove that you bought the book. Then you are allowed to DL the database that has NO DOCUMENTATION of how to incorporate it into a site if you have never done this before!!!

I am so frustrated in the section where you build a school web site that I am about to chuck the book and give up. The book is unclear, the photos too small!

This book reinforces my belief that there are 2 kinds of documentation for software. Either there is NO documentation or there is POOR documentation. I think the whole paradigm has to change for tech books. Perhaps they should all be printed on demand or electronic with the user printing them so that they can updated continually.

I have decided to rate this book 1 star but for some reason Amazon does not want reviewers to be able to do that.

If you are looking for a well written book about Joomla then this is the one. I read it from cover to cover except for one chapter. Joomla is a very powerful CMS engine, and because of that, the developers of this engine will always struggle to provide a simpler user interface and experience. In most cases simpler does really mean less powerful features. This book tries to bridge the gap, by making it simple to understand the powerful features of Joomla. Two of its final chapters are real projects that can be followed and you actually end up with decent websites.

Another reason why this book is such a good book is his recommendation for some of the commercial Joomla extensions that are available for Joomla. I made two purchases for two extensions after looking them up and comparing them against others. When I did that, I instinctively realized that this book is GOOD.

This book covers all the aspects of using Joomla! CMS. For new users (as me) it's a gude to manage, administer and build useful sites.

This book covers most of the basics of how to set up a Joomla-powered website. Some of the concepts in Joomla are confusing or have misleading labels. Author Barrie North admits as much in several places throughout the book where he says something like "now here's the confusing part." Thankfully, by carefully reading the book and working along with the examples most of those confusing aspects of the software are elucidated.

However, where the book falls short is that it fails to clearly pull together all the disparate parts of the Joomla system into a coherent picture of how they work together to form the whole. The author does make an attempt at this and the text does provide some help in this regard. But I felt that there were still a few important gaps in my understanding by the time I finished reading the book. Fortunately, after about one more day of exploring the software on my own things started to gel for me. The book does give you all the basics but could tie things together better.

Finally, the quality of the writing is closer to what you might expect to find in a readme.txt file than in a book from a major publisher (Prentice Hall). I lost track of the number of times, the author uses the word "actually" -- a much overused word today. I'm not surprised to hear the word used gratuitously in conversation but I am disappointed to find this kind of writing in a book that lists for $45. And it's not just the colloquialisms that annoy. I found that the author's technical explanations were frequently perfunctory. When explaining a parameter it would be helpful to not simply state exactly what it controls but what its larger significance is or how it can be used. That sort of explanation is not always provided.

But, in spite of these complaints the book did serve as a useful tutorial that got me over the hump in understanding Joomla. Prior to ordering the book I had watched/read a number of free online tutorials but after a while I found that my understanding had plateaued at a low level. Searching for more tutorials to fill the gap became a time-wasting exercise. By working through this book I was able to reach a new plateau which should now allow me to confidently configure my own system.

This book straight up rocks. It has got me off the ground and realizing the opportunity to provide quality websites with a lot less long term knowledge of programming. It's easy to read, has plenty of information, for instance, search engine optimization, without trying to be the expert or claiming any guarantees. Just straight forward, real world info that's easily digestible and the best book on Joomla! 1.5 you'll find. If you want to learn Joomla! 1.5, buy this book.

Helpful. Reasonably up-to-date (for a subject that changes all the time). Clearly written and presented. Offers useful suggestions for online resources. Often assumes greater than beginner's knowledge - the chapter on CSS was impenetrable to me. Introductory chapters clear in explaining principles behind Joomla as a content management system. Could have done with more detail on how to alter templates.

Staring learning Joomla I found that some parts of it are quite obvious and some are not. Without going into programming details, this book explains the work you need to do to make a Joomla website. For me it was important to find explanation on how to create your own templates. I also found important information about installing and working with Joomla, localy and on a server. Certainly I had a lot of benefits by reading this book.

Don't get this book if you are new to joomla. That would be a devastating mistake. You will pull all your hair out in frustration.

I bought Barrie North's book because of the reviews on this Amazon site. I suspect the positive reviews were written by the author's friends or people who were already familiar with joomla. I felt obligated to correct the record.

The author seem very knowledgeable and this book contains plenty of useful information, but it also has several flaws:

Worst flaw is that, frequently, when walking the reader through a series of steps, he will overlook something important - I guess he assumes we already know stuff. This was tremendously frustrating. I spent hours trying to figure out missing links through the joomla forum and online tutorials.

The organization, descriptions and language are badly flawed. The author tries to use a conversational tone, but it is very annoying and confusing to frequently read useless phrases like 'as you can see' - especially when you can't. About half the narrative is filler like that. I had to re-read many paragraphs 3-4 times to understand them. (BTW, I have a PhD and read and write technical papers all the time.)

After five frustrating, headache-filled days (I kept giving him the benefit of the doubt that it would get better - it never did), I bought 'Beginning Joomla' by Dan Rahmel and had joomla working properly in a few hours. (First, I cleared my mind and computer of everything I had attempted under this book's guidance.)

Let this be your second or third joomla book, but not your beginner.

I would buy this book again in a heartbeat. It is well written and clarifies much of the Joomla user interface mystery.

This book is a must have for brand new Jooma users. The format of the book is not confusing - the way it explains how, why, and the logic of customizing the Joomla template without getting too technical. Some of items covered in the book could have used additional explanation, but after doing a little research on the web, I found the answer for myself quite easily. After I complete the book, I was able to customize the default template to my liking within 20 minutes! I'm sure it may take less time for you ;)

But this book is the perfect primer that'll help you dive into Joomla without any fear.

This book is easy to read and does not burden the reader with too much technical language. Starting with the most important elements of Joomla, and following through to the more complicated this book has a good learning pace.

I think some people who have bought this book are disapointed because they were expecting a massively indepth review of Joomla's features, but that's not the goal of this book. Instead, this book's goal is to take the static website designer into the realm of CMS design using Joomla! It will give you a very good description of how Joomla! operates and how you use the system to create websites to roughly an advanced-beginner to intermediate level. If you already know how Joomla! works you will not learn a vast amount, but for myself (who didn't know CMS from Adam) it was extremely helpful and I've used this book to help me design a fully functioning website. For that I give this book a buy rating!

As a newbie to CMS websites, I have been intrigued by what Joomla! can do. Since I come from traditional website programming using Dreamweaver, I felt the best way to get up-to-speed with CMS dynamics was to purchase a book. While I don't regret purchasing this book, it has been a little frustrating to fully follow, at times. I'm no newbie to HTML or CSS, by any means, but the book changed gears with "levels" too much from beginner to advanced to somewhere in-between, all without pressing the clutch! There have also been a few "holes" where I felt important steps were left out within an explanation. Maybe future revisions will address these.

While I felt comfortable with the book for the most part, a complete website newbie will probably be discouraged, at times. A good knowledge of HTML and basic CSS is a must to really grasp this book.

Do I recommend this book? It depends on who you are. If you have experience programming websites using traditional tables and some CSS (like me), I think you will gain quite a bit from the book mergeing into the CMS-way of website programming. If you don't, then I encourage you to purchase a book on HTML (or, really, XHTML) and CSS first. A good foundation in the basics seems to fuel a greater success with Joomla!.

I found this book to be very helpful. I recently started work on a Joomla 1.5 web site and wanted a book geared towards that version. Since this version is new it was difficult to find much written on it. I look forward to an update.

I thought this was a excellant introduction to administering a Joomla powered site. As I worked through setting up my site I found this to be a very handy reference book after the fact.

I found it written for a begginer but also serving as a handy reference guide as I become more familiar with Joomla.

Well-written. It's aimed for someone with slightly less ability than I, but more than the average never done more than surf the web user.

Some portions of this book are available on-line for free.

I was disappointed with the templates section. I wanted something on finding and modifying other people's templates. Instead it includes how to make a basic template, which is helpful to know, but I need something more robust and found myself struggling with this part. I know others who have found this a tough step.

I found it useful to buy another book on CSS and XHTML, as I needed to brush up my skills in order to get into things with the templates.

Still, this may be the best Joomla book out there for a first introduction.

Edit.. ok I gave a not great review for what turned out to be a user error.
I'm still working through making my template BUT I was able to install and view my template on joomla (note make sure to have joomla 1.5 installed)

Thank you for the help Barry, sorry for the negative remark.


again for the review part, I do like the language. The book explains how and why which is helpful. It's an easy read. Recommended for the novice (like me)

I bought this book specifically for chapter 9 and I've run into some roadblocks while using it. 1st I could not install my template in joomla. There was an error with the templateDetails.xml file. At first I thought the error was mine so I combed through the book again and then tried to install the sample file from thejoomlabook site. I received the same error. I downloaded a couple of free templates to look through their XML file and learned the problem was that < install > should have been .

after correcting that error, my template installed correctly. I have not been able to successfully view my template due to various errors (note I have not worked on debugging this, so it could very well be my fault.)

true joomla is opensource and it changes quickly, but I would have expected the sample files online to be accurate.

what I did like about this book is that it explains a little about what parts go where and why. So if you're new to joomla, pick it up.. just be leary of the examples (which you can find online anyway)

Great book for someone wanting to learn Joomla! 1.5 from the ground up. Knowing HTML and CSS is not required, but would be very helpful. Lots of "golden nuggets" of information throughout the book, such as SEO tips, average client monitor sizes, etc. Instructions include specific examples and walk-throughs. An excellent primer!

The only criticism I would offer is that some of the example images are difficult to read because they are printed light gray and the small text in the image.

I have to say that after reading this book, I was impressed. This was the first book that I read about Joomla 1.5 and I was expecting a boring book with no examples. This book takes you through every step and leaves nothing out. I has some marketing steps and I loved the SEO chapter. The example sites that are built are quality examples of how a Joomla website should be organized. There was not a lot of technical mumbo jumbo and this book was very easy to read and understand. I will definitely buy more book by Barrie North in the future. He really knows his stuff.

I am a professional web developer (mainly J2EE and PHP/MySQL); this book really helped me to take a decision: switch to Joomla!

The book starts with an introduction to Joomla! (and CMS in general) and then helps you to start your own site from scratch (fresh installation with NO sample content).

Then you'll learn how to develop a pure CSS template and after that there are three chapters devoted to the development of three different kind of sites: school, restaurant and blog.

Along with a dedicated site and forum (where Barrie replies to ALL our "stupid questions" ;) )... what else should I say?

Highly recommended!

This book has saved me countless hours building my web sites. The book offers clear explanations of the many features Joomla! offers. It also has many good insights into effective ways to organize content that takes advantage of these many features.

If you are new to Joomla! or coming to it from Mambo, I think that this is a book that won't just sit on the shelf after a first read. You'll find that the book is by your side on the desk, and always open.


Great job Barry!

This was a very good guide for getting your Joomla! site not only up and running, but running effectively. Barrie goes through a lot of information on how to get people to your site and hopefully have them come back. There are several examples throughout the book on how to organize a site and why you would want to organize it that way. I had created several Joomla! sites before getting this book, I wish that had happened the other way around. I'm much more efficient now and I was able to use the information in the book to sell 2 websites within a week of reading it.

The only chapter I had any trouble with was the Templating chapter. Since that's a subject that could (and should) have its own book, I wasn't expecting to be able to go design my own templates after reading it. I did read another book on CSS/XHTML afterwards and I'm going to go back and re-read the template chapter as I think it will make much more sense to me now.

I'd definitely recommend this book. It has a lot of information that will make you much more efficient and effective at designing your Joomla! sites.

Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R23CJMRX5AQ97B Finally I got to understand how to make my articles appear in Joomla! You really have to get this book. It's very informative and easy to understand.
Joomla! A User's Guide: Building a Successful Joomla! Powered Website

I am fairly new to the CMS arena. This was the first book I got about Joomla. I had no problems installing Joomla (AND Drupal too, the latter of which I found far more easier to understand structurally & logically than Joomla) on my iMac G5/Leopard. But as someone new, I wish the book was more thorough. As the author has said elsewhere in the book he does not cover every option/setting in the back end. Therein lay me frustration. A user guide I think should thoroughly cover all the relevant options/settings and explain what each of those do, why they should be set or not set, how they work etc. The book is lacking a bit in this area.

Moreover I found the book to be full of errors, wrong references etc. So I think the book wasn't thoroughly proofed. (this is especially painful to beginners as beginners tend to rely heavily on the accuracy of the content - once you get to the intermediate or advanced stages you may be able to spot these errors and know that they are errors.) The templates included in as supplementary study material had problems.

When I went to access the companion website, I found problems at the site too. (When trying to retrieve a lost username/password, it will bring you back to the same page with no comment/error message or suggestion of any kind! Finally I was able to go to the forum and tried to retrieve the login info. there. It worked but instead of taking me to the appropriate page. I was told the page could not be found!). On a different occasion when I tried to post a reply to a comment, it produced an error!

The point is, I found this kind of sloppiness (for lack of a less stronger word) throughout, in the book as well as in the supplementary material.

I am planning on supplementing this book with another book on Joomla 1.5. Still searching...!

Barrie North has done a great job leading the beginner through the whole process of developing a Joomla web site. A great asset to me are the tutorials that help learn how to develop templates from the beginning. Thanks Barrie for a job well done.

Excellent book. Well written. Clear. No difficult technical language. If you don't know much about Joomla (like myself) and want to get started, this is the book you want for Joomla 1.5
You start by building a basic site, and progress to somewhat more advanced sites. Good intro about extentensions.

Two points that could be improved in a later edition: explaining how to work with modules in more detail. And get the registration on the companion site to work! The book refers to a template you need to download, but the url is not very specific. And I'm still waiting for the acceptance of my registation...

But apart from that: the best book I got so far.

I've been working with creating sites for clients in Joomla! (1.0.x). Now that the 1.5 stable version has been released I was looking for a resource to work through the new features and get familiar with the changes that have been made. Barrie North's book is well written in my opinion, easy to follow and understand and well demonstrated with the tutorial exercises. I'd definitely recommend this book to others.

I just wanted to say that there's nothing wrong with people promoting affiliate links. However, Mr. North could put in a disclaimer if certain folks felt that his recommendations were more about profit than a useful resource. Overall, still an excellent book.

As a long time Joomla! end user and developer of popular Joomla!-based applications, I had low expectations of what I might learn from Mr. North's book, `Joomla!, A Users Guide'. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find this book a great refresher course, primarily since (i) I have learned Joomla! mostly through trial and error (which is good but time consuming and usually an incomplete education) and (ii) Joomla! 1.5 is a very different application than Joomla! 1.0, the latter of which comprises the majority of my experience.

`The Guide' is logically organized, leading beginners clearly from the most basic Joomla! concepts in a practical way...the way a new user would go about setting up a new Joomla! site. Importantly, Mr. North does not take for granted the level of sophistication of the reader and thoughtfully explains concepts outside the `Joomlasphere' that most novice web administrators should know (such as choosing a web host, web site development using a localhost environment, setting web site goals and site maps early on in the design process, etc...). More complex and Joomla!-specific concepts are then introduced as appropriate.

The writing style is also pleasing and, for a technical guide, quite straightforward with extensive examples and references to the accompanying web site:

www.joomlabook.com

For intermediate web administrators and Joomla! experts, later chapters in The Guide provide excellent information on how to attract visitors to your sites, tableless template design and importantly, how to write a template for Joomla! 1.5, a process which is quite different compared to Joomla! 1.0 template design. Again, a great refresher for users very comfortable with Joomla! 1.0.

In summary, Mr. North has produced the gold-standard printed reference for Joomla! 1.5. I highly recommend The Guide (especially for novice and intermediate users) if you want to make the most of your Joomla! 1.5 experience.

As a long time Joomla! end user and developer of popular Joomla!-based applications, I had low expectations of what I might learn from Mr. North's book, `Joomla!, A Users Guide'. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find this book a great refresher course, primarily since (i) I have learned Joomla! mostly through trial and error (which is good but time consuming and usually an incomplete education) and (ii) Joomla! 1.5 is a very different application than Joomla! 1.0, the latter of which comprises the majority of my experience.

`The Guide' is logically organized, leading beginners clearly from the most basic Joomla! concepts in a practical way...the way a new user would go about setting up a new Joomla! site. Importantly, Mr. North does not take for granted the level of sophistication of the reader and thoughtfully explains concepts outside the `Joomlasphere' that most novice web administrators should know (such as choosing a web host, web site development using a localhost environment, setting web site goals and site maps early on in the design process, etc...). More complex and Joomla!-specific concepts are then introduced as appropriate.

The writing style is also pleasing and, for a technical guide, quite straightforward with extensive examples and references to the accompanying web site:

[...]

For intermediate web administrators and Joomla! experts, later chapters in The Guide provide excellent information on how to attract visitors to your sites, tableless template design and importantly, how to write a template for Joomla! 1.5, a process which is quite different compared to Joomla! 1.0 template design. Again, a great refresher for users very comfortable with Joomla! 1.0.

In summary, Mr. North has produced the gold-standard printed reference for Joomla! 1.5. I highly recommend The Guide (especially for novice and intermediate users) if you want to make the most of your Joomla! 1.5 experience.

This is a very helpful book. Even if english is not your mothertonque, it is quite easy to understand and allows a straight forward coming for beginners, newbies and also for advanced html-coders. the authors experience in teaching turns out to be a great benefit for the reader. I am eagerly looking forward whats coming next.

Barrie M. North's book is an excellent introduction to using Joomla to create a website, that is driven by a Content Management System (CMS).

The book is easy to read and uses a tutorial approach in later chapters of the book that walks you through creating various types of website. I was especially interested in the Pure CSS website, as I had installed previous versions of Joomla, but removed them because I didn't want a website that uses HTML tables for layout.

The other types of website that are covered in the book, or should I say tutorial are:

A School Website.
A Restaurant Website.
A blog site.

Components, modules and plugins are explained and covered in enough detail for those starting out on the Joomla path.

WHY DIDN'T I GIVE THE BOOK 5 STARS?

Now for the parts of the book that prevented me from awarding the 5 stars, that the content of the book deserves.

Mr North has a section within his book about how to get traffic to your website. The information is a very worthwhile edition to the book and covers several Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Rank Positioning (SERP) techniques. Link Building, Referals, Pay Per Click and other methods of getting traffic to your website are also covered.

However, despite the quality of the information I can't help thinking that this section was only created for Mr Barrie M. North to push his affiliate marketing links.

For the uninitiated among you affiliate marketing is where companies will pay you a commission for any sales that are the result of people following your affiliate link and buying from their website.

Even Amazon has an affiliate / associate program:

http://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/join

For example Wordtracker (one of the recommended keyword reseach tools) has an affiliate program that pays a 5% commission on all sales, resulting from an affiliates link. A yearly subscription at wordtracker is $329, therefore Mr North gets a nice $16.45 paid into his affiliate account if you buy from his affiliate link.

This is just one of the affiliate links within this book, others are for PR Prowler and Perry Marshalls - Definitive Guide to Google Adwords website.

The web addresses (URL) given in the book are not the actual URL of the websites.

Lets take an example:

I join the affiliate program of:

1. www.xyz.com

2. They give me an affiliate ID of www.xyz.com/something

3. I register the domain name www.xyzisgreat.com

4. I then use my registrar's (person I registered my domain name with) Domain Control Panel to forward and links that go to www.xyzisgreat.com to my affiliate link

5. You use my website address www.xyzisgreat.com visit the website my affiliate link point to and purchase a product.

6. I rub my hands with glee as all the money comes rolling in.

I expect to find affiliate links in ebooks that are given away free on a website, you get quality information and the author gets a bit of payback if you follow his affiliate links and purchase something he has recommended to you.

I do not expect to have affiliate link within a book that I have paid good money for. I have the Perry Marshall book and have used Wordtracker in the past, so I know what good resources they are.

However I have never heard of or used PR Prowler (A program that Mr North pushes heavily in his book, in fact he mentions how great the program is numerous times). How can an take this as an unbiased recommendation from a knowledgable Internet Marketing Guru, if I know that the link has only been put in the book for Mr North to get a commission if I buy?

To summarize:

Great book filled with excellent information about everything you need to know about creating your first website with Joomla. Just a shame that Mr North had to fill the SEO Chapter of the book with recommendations that he gets paid for if you buy. Do you feel a recommendation is unbiased if the person is getting paid for recommending it?

Very good book. Especially if you want to learn how to manage YOUR site (with your layout, design, style etc). This book learns you how to create your own template (including css) and what tricks are needed for common problems: browser compatibility, scaling of fonts, seach engine optimization (seo), tableless design etc.
It's also good for beginners as it tells you all basics in the first chapters.
There are many links to other reference material which saves you a lot of time! Definitely recommended!

I recommend to every Joomla user who is less than "expert level" -- read this book! I have been working with Joomla 1.0 for about 5 months, so already had a basic understanding of many of the terms: component, module, etc. I purchased this book just before Christmas and took it with me to read on the holiday roadtrip. You know you are reading a great computer-related book when you can read and understand and make copious notes in the book margins...without sitting in front of a computer! Not only did it "fill in the blanks" about much of my understanding re: Joomla (any version), but I felt excited, and much more confident, about using Joomla 1.5. Great overview of Joomla, great details, great tips! A well-written user's guide. Thank you!

Barrie has hit a home run with this book. If you are new to Joomla or making the transition to Joomla 1.5 this is the book you need to have on your shelf. While the online documentation for Joomla is detailed and available for all it lacks the overview and practical application knowledge that Barrie's book provides.

The book is well thought out and provides a wealth of information that only someone that has spent countless hours under the hood of the application can provide.

Everyone that is working or struggling to get a Joomla website live or modify an existing site, including customization of templates needs to have this book.