Joomla!® 3 Explained: Your Step-by-Step Guide (Joomla! Press)

Being a full-time student, I buy a ton of books I also find myself doing a lot of outside research because many of the books I've purchased are simply not thorough enough. I also understand that when covering material that has to be learned during a 16 week semester, it's often not possible to cover every aspect of that subject. In reality, I've come to expect that outside research is a necessary evil.This is absolutely not true for Joomla 3 explained. I'm in my last year before graduation, and I can honestly say that this book ranks right along side of the top 2 or three textbooks I've purchased. It's written in a clear and concise manner, and almost every page is part of a valuable exercise. Stephen Burge took great pains to make absolutely sure the book was written in a way that literally anyone who has an interest in the subject can come away from this book knowing that if they didn't have a rock solid understanding of the material, then they really didn't have the interest to begin with. I can't say enough good things about this book. In addition, if you really want drill down and get a greater understanding of the most complex topics concerning Joomla, the book is full of references to online Joomla resources and forums.This book is pure, 100% gold. If you have questions about anything that I may have missed in this review, please feel free to ask.

How many times have I gone to a source for an answer and been told, "....well, all ya gotta do is....". Sure easy for them so say; they use this stuff every day. So it was wonderful to find a book that lays things out in a simple and practical manner. Not that the text does not have its short-comings. Sometimes the author makes a point and then OVER-makes that point as in the case of explaining that format is consistent throughout the JOOMLA program. It would have been nicer if the author had used that energy to tweak some of the smaller issues like "how do I turn-off the details in an article?" and "How do I post a picture?" The answers were there but a bit buried. All the same, the tenor of the writing is easy-going and not condescending and is basic without being primitive. I'll accept some need for polishing and proofing as long as I get this information I need, and this book had it.

This book was a great overview of Joomla! Someone else had created my company website that I am now responsible for. I saw that this book was soon to be released, so I was anxious for it to come out. After struggling through Joomla! on my own, this book really gave some good tips that were extremely helpful, especially the CASh workflow (Categorize, Add, Show). I read through the book, but have not yet put many sections to use. There is so much to Joomla!, but the book made it easy to follow step-by-step. However, when selecting article types or module types, the author tells you which one to select, but not why. So with one of 12 options, we only used one, and I have no idea what all the other options are for. I was hoping to be quite proficient by the end of the book, but I now know that I'm only scratching the surface. I will continue to use the book as a reference, hoping to grasp the bigger concepts.

a bit basic for me - greate text as a refesher if you have been away for a while

The book was a good help for a person new to Joomla (such as myself). However, there are several errors in the text such as missing steps and ,what appear to be, "cut and paste errors". The errors I found are in addition to the ones listed here:https://www.ostraining.com/books/j3e/errata/Will I e-mail the author and "report" these issues? This is NOT Free and Open Source documentation. I paid for the book, which means I paid a sloppy writer and a poor editor. Books should not have errata listed online, they should be properly proofread prior to their release.

Gave me enough to pick up an existing website and figure most things out. The "here's the steps, now you try to follow the steps, now you try without the steps" approach seems like it would work well for true neophytes.

Great book on the fundamentals of Joomla. But it lacks content on a variety of some of the most popular extensions for Joomla that a lot of users will be installing. If you just want to learn Joomla, this is a good book for you.

It is so easy to forget some of the simple steps, this book is great to have on hand.

What's in it is ok and clear, however, it's a bit light weight and not as in-depth as expected for the official documentation.

Excellent book for explaining Joomla. However, I a, not a techie and I gave up on Joomla in favour for an easier to set up Wordpress site!

As a novice building a website with Joomla, this book was helpful to my understanding of how to best design and build my new website.

great product as expected

Excellent book if you are dipping your toes in the Joomla water for the first time. Well structured with practical hands on examples and simple logical workflow. If you are new to Joomla and want to learn to use it right first time this is a book I'd recommend. One of two small typo but they serve to get you thinking more.