The Definitive Guide to Plone

Publisher: Apress

ISBN: 1590593294

Rating: based on 15 reviews

Price: $44.99 $29.80     You save $15.19 (34%)
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ZPUG Review

(Full disclosure: Andy is a friend of mine, and I provided some technical reviewing for the book in its early drafts.)

Andy's new book has been getting rave reviews, and it deserves it.

One of the problems in writing a book about a system like Plone is that it's a large, complex system, with no single right answer for questions like, "What's the right way to do x?" Often, there are several ways to do it, and the difference between a good and great user is understanding the nuances and trade-offs of design decisions. With that in mind, the best guide will be one that tries to explain the material in context, aiming more for a clear explanation of the larger goals, rather than lists of option flags and configuration switches. This is the path Andy has chosen.

This is great, since there are already dozens of excellent HOWTOs at plone.org. These cover implementation details for all sort of tips and tricks, but often fail to provide the basics for users. Questions like "What's the skins folder for?" and "How do I tell if a product installed?" come up all the time in #plone IRC, and now this sort of fundamental stuff is well covered in a logical order.

The book aims for people who have never used Plone, starting off with installation instructions and a walkthrough. In particular, Andy's book has a gentle, self-deprecating tone that should help even beginners feel a bit better about their path. However, this is not a book for purely nontechnical users: knowledge of HTML, web site mechanics, and a bit of Python will be required for users to follow.

Some parts of the book can be a bit weak: the chapter teaching ZPT, for instance, should be read in tandem with the online documentation at zope.org, as that is more comprehensive, and provides clearer examples. However, overall, Andy's book should be useful for anyone interested in getting started with or advancing their skills in Plone.

Amazon.com Reviews

Great book, but also shows why Plone advocates fail at marketing

I did enjoy this book, but it sums up the Geek Overload route most bare-metal Python coders take in promoting Plone as a CMS.

The book is 568 pages long, but after page 144 it pretty much turns into a Python coding book with a few bones tossed out as to how to annotate your HTML to point at all the Python scripts you're supposed to write for new products, archetypes, etc.

I had hoped for a thick TAL section with explanations on how to customize existing portlets and templates to summarize News items with different display attributes, but again, yet another Python programming book fills up the manual.

Please, someone could make LOTS of cash writing a Plone applications book without all the bare-metal Python injections. Where is *that* book?

Good book for beginner

Not involved too much of programming stuff. Good for starter. I found it easier to understand than "Begining Python". There is also online version of this book out there. Free of charge.

could be better

This book provides an ok introduction to Plone, but it couldn't answer a lot of my questions when I was trying to use it to learn how to program in Plone. It is NOT a definitive guide, more of a tutorial explaining how to do a number of different, specific tasks. My opinion of this book is probably also influenced by my negative opinion of Plone itself. There are far less convoluted content-management systems available.

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