This is the Safari online edition of the printed book.

The First Practical, Complete Guide to Customizing Drupal Sites with Behaviors, Themes, and Templates

Drupal is now the world’s #1 open source content management system: Thousands of individuals and organizations are using it to build and update Web sites of virtually every kind. As Web designers and developers adopt Drupal, they need ways to quickly customize the visuals and interactivity of the sites it creates. Drupal offers powerful tools for doing so, but little guidance on using them effectively. Front End Drupal is the solution. In this book, two expert Drupal developers cover everything you need to know to create great visual designs and state-of-the-art interactivity with Drupal’s behaviors, themes, and templates.

While other Drupal books focus on module development, Front End Drupal is 100% focused on issues of site design, behavior, usability, and management. The authors show how to style Drupal sites, make the most of Drupal’s powerful templating system, build sophisticated community sites, streamline site management, and build more portable, flexible themes. You’ll also gain hands-on experience through several case studies that walk you through site creation and customization from start to finish.

• Prepare and organize content so it’s easier to integrate into Drupal Web sites

• Structure Drupal page layouts that are easy for users to work with

• Implement an efficient workflow for all your site contributors

• Configure Drupal with the modules and browser tools you need to customize your site

• Utilize Drupal’s Starter Themes, as well as themes converted from WordPress, Joomla!™, and Drupal 5.x

• Adapt Drupal page templates to control the entire site or individual sections

• Customize site content, including individual nodes and teaser summaries

• Maximize the power and usability of Drupal’s content editing forms

• Build great community sites with user profiles, comments, and user-generated content

• Use JavaScript to make your themes more powerful, portable, and flexible

• Create powerful animations and AJAX callbacks with Drupal’s jQuery library

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 13 Ratings

Front End Drupal = Back End Config Tweaks? - 2009-11-14
Reviewer Rating:
I was astonished to read that Drupal's look and feel is accomplished via the admin console (this book's pages are filled with instructions like "go to admin > themes > display > ad naseum").

I expected a CSS/XHTML/JS reference, as applied to Drupal, when I bought it... this is all about tweaking front end display properties using the Drupal GUI admin screens.

Is this book a waste of money? Don't buy it expecting a read on "Front End Engineering" as applies to Drupal - get a Steve Sounders book instead haha.

Read reviews of <4 stars before buying...

It was ok, not what I expected - 2009-11-14
Reviewer Rating:
I expected a more in depth look into modules, hooks, theme override functions etc. The book is ok for beginners but leaves a lot of information unaddressed. I recommend Pro Drupal Development Second Edition which is the book I purchased after growing frustrated with this one

Useful book, but not focused on theming - 2009-11-11
Reviewer Rating:
The reason I gave this book three stars is because, while I have found value in this book, it is generally unfocused and its overall goals unclear. I assumed that by using the phrase "Front End Drupal" in the title, the authors meant that the book was about altering themes. I was disappointed to find that that is not the case. The book has security information, design information, a discussion of the Document Object Model, javascript, jquery, etc.

While there is information on starter themes that are meant to be customized, there's not a lot about how to customize them. I was better off watching online videos for that. Throughout the book there are little tidbits about how to set up the .php files when altering a theme, but they are hard to find. Mostly, this book seems like a conglomeration of information about Drupal, none of it covered in much detail.

For instance, there is a section on how to incorporate anti-spam tools along with a list of modules that might be good for this. There's no real advice on implementing the modules, or why one module might be better than another. This is the way the theming section is as well. The authors focus on the Zen theme, which is fine, but there's no clear advice on why the Zen theme as opposed to other popular themes.

If you are looking for a good starter book that clearly discusses altering themes, try Using Drupal instead.

So far, so good. - 2009-08-01
Reviewer Rating:
I've made it through the first four chapters and am very happy with this purchase. The case studies are easy to follow and the examples are based on a foundation of best practices. So far I've just covered the basics, but from what I've skipped ahead and read this book makes subjects that I considered over my head easy to understand. This book is proving to be an excellent addition to my reference library.

A winning pick for any web programmer's library - 2009-07-19
Reviewer Rating:
Web developers and libraries catering to them will find FRONT END DRUPAL a winning pick: it provides a complete guide to customizing Drupal sites with templates, themes and more, and focuses on issues of site design, usability and management. From organizing content to blend into Drupal web sites to structuring easy templates, this is a winning pick for any web programmer's library.

Browse Similar Topics

Top Level Categories:
Programming

Sub-Categories:
Programming > Perl
Perl > Web Programming
Programming > PHP