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3.0 out of 5 stars
A handy guide that could benefit from a few improvements, Jan 12 2010
This review is from: Joomla!: Visual QuickStart Guide (Paperback)
Joomla!
Visual Quickstart Guide
written by Marni Derr and Tanya Symes
As a fan of the Visual Quickstart Guides series, I felt lucky to stumble upon a guide covering Joomla, a content management system that claims to be simple enough to use without requiring a programming background.
While the book seemed easy enough to follow, I had a few problems with its design. To begin with, the screen shots were too small to see any detail. Whatever topic was being covered could have benefitted from either an enlarged graphic, or a pointer/circle to emphasize precisely what the authors were referring to.
The book's introduction covers system requirements, which don't include the Macintosh operating system. This gets confusing however when later in the book there are options mentioned for both Windows and Mac platforms.
After having recently read a Wordpress book (Building a Wordpress Blog People Want to Read), a comparison of the two CMS packages led me to believe that Joomla has a higher learning curve. Why? The interface is not as well designed and there are more steps required to complete the same tasks in Joomla as in Wordpress.
In addition, Appendix A (covering local and remote servers) could have more logically been placed at the start of the book. Installing a local server using a Mac is (finally) covered on p.266.
The final chapter is where the book really shines, explaining how to create php and xml files and tweaking templates. I'd read a few user reviews who were concerned that this book is a straight step-by-step guide. With the level of depth involved in working with Joomla, it's almost a necessity to flow the book's content this way. I did visit the book's companion site and found a lot of news and handy tips/tutorials there such as how to install a local web server, template sites and upgrading Joomla.
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