What do you think?
Rate this book
Drupal For Dummies
Learn to set up, manage, and administer a Drupal Web site Drupal offers unparalleled flexibility for content-managed Web sites, but most Drupal books are written for expert developers. Drupal For Dummies shows you the fast, fun and easy way to get going with Drupal, set up a site, apply templates, use modules, and more, even if you have no programming experience. Drupal For Dummies shows you how to take advantage of everything in Drupal that is ready to use, demystifying what may appear to be a complex set of tools. Drupal For Dummies is designed to help the non-programmer who simply wants to turbocharge a blog or is responsible for administering a content-managed site.
364 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
13 people are currently reading
58 people want to read
About the author
Lynn Beighley
41 books31 followersLynn Beighley is the author of dozens of tech books and even more articles. She's had lots of her short stories published in lots of places. She's an editor for Manning Publications and she's currently writing a YA novel that she hopes will encourage girls to try a bit of computer programming. She got an MFA a few years back. She's on twitter as @lynnbeighley and would enjoy hearing from you.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
March 12, 2010
Not considering myself in the target audience for the "Dummies" series, I avoided it for many years. Then, maybe a decade ago or so, I needed a book on kitchen remodeling when I was doing over a friend's kitchen. Kitchen Remodeling for Dummies was the only book at Borders on the subject, and to my surprise it turned out to be a great book and the kitchen was a huge success. So, my distaste for the series was tempered a little.
When I started learning Drupal, I turned to my favorite technical publisher, O'Reilly. Unfortunately, their "Using Drupal" is not the best for someone new to Drupal and CMS in general. For example, the first thing you want in a book about software is how to install it. The O'Reilly book inexplicably puts that information in an appendix. "Using Drupal" covers in 89 pages what takes all 350 pages of the Dummies book. That's too terse for a newbie, in my view. So, I tried the Dummies book.
The problem with the Dummies books (aside from the name) is the cloying condescending tone, like they were written for, well, dummies. "Don't worry you poor thing, we know this is too hard for you, but we'll hold your hand so nothing bad happens." I think this is edited into them if the real author doesn't get into the spirit. For example, in this book, you only have to put up with it for the first chapter. From then on in, it's a regular technical book. The kitchen book actually had none of this nonsense.
The information in this book is presented in an orderly fashion, and all the important and not too technical parts are covered. All in all, a much better starter book than the O'Reilly volume. If things don't go well, you'll probably not find the solution in the Dummies book, but it's a good start.
When you've absorbed everything in this book, you'll be ready to review your knowledge in the first 89 pages of O'Reilly's "Using Drupal", and then get ready to work through the next 450 pages, equally densely packed with information.
When I started learning Drupal, I turned to my favorite technical publisher, O'Reilly. Unfortunately, their "Using Drupal" is not the best for someone new to Drupal and CMS in general. For example, the first thing you want in a book about software is how to install it. The O'Reilly book inexplicably puts that information in an appendix. "Using Drupal" covers in 89 pages what takes all 350 pages of the Dummies book. That's too terse for a newbie, in my view. So, I tried the Dummies book.
The problem with the Dummies books (aside from the name) is the cloying condescending tone, like they were written for, well, dummies. "Don't worry you poor thing, we know this is too hard for you, but we'll hold your hand so nothing bad happens." I think this is edited into them if the real author doesn't get into the spirit. For example, in this book, you only have to put up with it for the first chapter. From then on in, it's a regular technical book. The kitchen book actually had none of this nonsense.
The information in this book is presented in an orderly fashion, and all the important and not too technical parts are covered. All in all, a much better starter book than the O'Reilly volume. If things don't go well, you'll probably not find the solution in the Dummies book, but it's a good start.
When you've absorbed everything in this book, you'll be ready to review your knowledge in the first 89 pages of O'Reilly's "Using Drupal", and then get ready to work through the next 450 pages, equally densely packed with information.
March 13, 2015
I've been working with, and learning, the WordPress CMS (Content Management System), but have been feeling its shortcomings of late. So I decided to learn one of the two other major free CMSs out there, Joomla! and Drupal. I decided to start with Drupal, even though it has a reputation of being a little hard to work with and learn.
This book is, as is true for pretty much every "**** for Dummies" book, written at a pretty introductory level, and in a rather chatty style. Some find the writing style to be, as one reviewer put it, "in a cloying and condescending tone", and it is, to a degree. It's hard to write an introductory technical book in a style that isn't mind-numbing. I had started reading another book on Drupal (which I hope sometime to review when I finally finish it -- it's kind of mammoth) that was not written in a friendly fashion, and it also made a lot of assumptions about what the reader might know, even though it was described as for beginners. The difference in writing style was stark, and I found the somewhat annoying style of this book to be preferable to the other book's style. I do think that the informality tends to get overdone in Dummies books, but I can live with it. However, often what happens is that there is too much space (and thus time) spent getting to the point, and you tend to say "get on with it!".
Another thing common to Dummies books is the over-use of numbered lists to show how to do something step-by-step. They are also rather repetitive. While there are lots of pictures relating to the lists, one has to jump back and forth between the list and its related picture, and they are not always on the same page. If they're going to do detailed step-by-step lists, then they should be more closely linked with the associated picture.
A particularly annoying problem with this book is that it repeatedly talks about the book's example website, http://drupalfordummies.com/, but when you try to go there, it gives you:
------------------------------------------
Forbidden
You don't have permission to access / on this server.
Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
------------------------------------------
I even went to the book's web page at https://www.drupal.org/node/1849952 , and clicked on the link "Official website for this book", with the same results.
This problem exacerbates the worst issue for the book; namely, it doesn't do enough to get you to creating your own Drupal web site. The topics presented are a suitable set, but at the end of the book, I wouldn't say that it gave you enough information for you to create your own web site of your own design (meaning appropriate use of templates, blocks, whatever). There weren't enough examples, IMHO.
Incidentally, the book covers Drupal 7. Version 7.34 is the latest version as of this writing.
Disappointing, as I think that one of the reasons why Drupal has its reputation of being difficult to learn and work with is that there is a dearth of good introductory books about it, to get you going. WordPress, on the other hand, has a very good selection of books that help you get going and then move on to more advanced stuff.
This book is, as is true for pretty much every "**** for Dummies" book, written at a pretty introductory level, and in a rather chatty style. Some find the writing style to be, as one reviewer put it, "in a cloying and condescending tone", and it is, to a degree. It's hard to write an introductory technical book in a style that isn't mind-numbing. I had started reading another book on Drupal (which I hope sometime to review when I finally finish it -- it's kind of mammoth) that was not written in a friendly fashion, and it also made a lot of assumptions about what the reader might know, even though it was described as for beginners. The difference in writing style was stark, and I found the somewhat annoying style of this book to be preferable to the other book's style. I do think that the informality tends to get overdone in Dummies books, but I can live with it. However, often what happens is that there is too much space (and thus time) spent getting to the point, and you tend to say "get on with it!".
Another thing common to Dummies books is the over-use of numbered lists to show how to do something step-by-step. They are also rather repetitive. While there are lots of pictures relating to the lists, one has to jump back and forth between the list and its related picture, and they are not always on the same page. If they're going to do detailed step-by-step lists, then they should be more closely linked with the associated picture.
A particularly annoying problem with this book is that it repeatedly talks about the book's example website, http://drupalfordummies.com/, but when you try to go there, it gives you:
------------------------------------------
Forbidden
You don't have permission to access / on this server.
Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
------------------------------------------
I even went to the book's web page at https://www.drupal.org/node/1849952 , and clicked on the link "Official website for this book", with the same results.
This problem exacerbates the worst issue for the book; namely, it doesn't do enough to get you to creating your own Drupal web site. The topics presented are a suitable set, but at the end of the book, I wouldn't say that it gave you enough information for you to create your own web site of your own design (meaning appropriate use of templates, blocks, whatever). There weren't enough examples, IMHO.
Incidentally, the book covers Drupal 7. Version 7.34 is the latest version as of this writing.
Disappointing, as I think that one of the reasons why Drupal has its reputation of being difficult to learn and work with is that there is a dearth of good introductory books about it, to get you going. WordPress, on the other hand, has a very good selection of books that help you get going and then move on to more advanced stuff.
July 28, 2011
This wasn't a very bad book and would probably be great for beginners with no web experience, since it does take a very low-level approach and is filled with screenshots. The problem, for me, was that it's clearly specific to Drupal 6 while I'm working with D7, which has an overhauled admin interface and many more core modules. Secondly, I wanted more details on injecting JavaScript, PHP, pulling data from other services, etc.--all pretty clearly beyond beginner stuff. I would have been much better served by a book that assumed HTML/CSS competence and worked from there. Also, the chapter spent on setting up a storefront just happened to be useless for my purposes, but that's always the risk when you delve into particular types of websites. Some sections, such as backing up your database, running updates, and controlling user roles, were really very good.
My one real problem with how the book goes about building a website is that the same mundane tasks get repeated over and over while the author never tells us what the big picture is: we get the same "how to install module" discussion about 20 times. It would save much space and allow for more advanced topics later if she would just solidify how modules work first, then repeat less later.
My one real problem with how the book goes about building a website is that the same mundane tasks get repeated over and over while the author never tells us what the big picture is: we get the same "how to install module" discussion about 20 times. It would save much space and allow for more advanced topics later if she would just solidify how modules work first, then repeat less later.
November 24, 2016
Very, very basic Drupal. I know it's "dummied" up, but if you don't have at least some experience with Drupal, I think it is hard to do much. I couldn't do much with this book until I had already taken a Drupal course, and by then I saw how much it was lacking to be able to do a really sound Drupal site. Drupal is more complicated than people say, and it is not entirely WYSIWYG friendly. There needs to be some knowledge of HTML, PHP, and at least some basic web design experience. Once you have that, you might get something out of this, but you couldn't do a whole lot. Not recommended if you need a medium to large size business site, or any enhanced features at all.
September 28, 2016
This is the first "for Dummies" book to fail me, and fail me it did. I don't blame the author as much as the Drupal platform itself. I'm not sure there is a way to explain Drupal to make it user-friendly. I'm sticking with WordPress.
July 27, 2011
Perfectly reasonable introduction to the subject.
May 13, 2013
Fer dummies!
December 19, 2012
Good enjoyable book for those wanting a beginner's introduction to Drupal with easy to understand terminology.
October 12, 2015
A little dated, but generally useful
January 21, 2013
very good!
November 30, 2012
Link to web site is out of date. Was for the first edition, not second.
That is disappointing.
That is disappointing.
August 31, 2018
Learn to set up, manage, and administer a Drupal web site
Drupal offers unparalleled flexibility for content-managed web sites, and Drupal 7 is the easiest version to use yet. This new edition teaches you the fast, fun, and easy way to get started with Drupal. Even if you have no Drupal experience, you'll quickly learn how to download and install Drupal, set up your first content-managed site, apply templates, use modules, and more.
Drupal gurus Lynn Beighley and Seamus Bellamy show you how to take advantage of what Drupal has to offer, make the most of the new features in Drupal 7, and demystify perplexing Drupal issues.
Drupal is a free, open source modular framework and content management system designed for content-managed web sites
Shows you how to download Drupal; no programming experience required
Looks at Drupal 7 and explains new features that make it is easier to use than previous iterations of Drupal for a creating a blog, content site, or eBusiness site
Explains how to organize and create your site's content, apply templates, and get your first site up and running
Details the ways to use modules and third-party templates
Whether you're looking to implement a flexible content management system, turbocharge a blog with photo galleries, or administer a third-party Drupal site, this book gets you off to a running start!
**
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews