In Detail OpenCms is a professional-level open-source Website Content Management System, based on Java and XML. Many companies or organizations have requirements that go beyond what is available in the standard OpenCms application. Thankfully, OpenCms can be used by Java developers to create sophisticated add-ons and customizations that extend the power of OpenCms in virtually unlimited directions. Targeting version 7 of OpenCms, this book is for Java developers interested in extending and further customizing OpenCms through its Java API. Starting by showing how to set up a development environment for OpenCms work, the book moves you through various tasks of increasing complexity. Some of the common tasks covered are building OpenCms, XML asset type development, templating, module development, user and role setup, and search integration. In addition to these common tasks some more advanced topics are covered such as self-registering users, RSS support, developing custom widgets and extending the administrative interface. All the topics include examples and are presented while building a sample blog site. The skills you develop will make you an OpenCms developer to be reckoned with! What you will learn from this book?

• An overview of the OpenCms development architecture

• Developing in the OpenCms environment

• Working with the templating system

• Using the template API

• Extending and using OpenCms beans in template code

• Using the JSTL tag library

• Template caching

• Understanding resource collectors

• Understanding and creating OpenCms modules

• Creating structured content types

• Rules for creating OpenCms schema files

• Registering content types with OpenCms

• User Interface Widgets and their options

• Nesting content types

• Using Validating XML editors to edit configuration files

• Using Eclipse and WebDAV for module development

• Configuring OpenCms Search

• Looking at search indexes

• Supporting searching in templates

• Understanding OpenCms security

• Adding user registration and web user logins

• Programmatic publishing of content

• Providing site customization features

• Designing and creating Custom OpenCms widgets

• Using OpenCms message strings for localization

• Adding RSS support to OpenCms

• Adding OpenCms Administration Points

• Using OpenCms List and Dialog classes

• Programmatically using OpenCms widgets

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 3 Ratings

The book has more than adequate coverage for beginners but is helpful to developers as well - 2008-07-29
Reviewer Rating:
The coverage of the book is somewhat hinted at in the Preface "OpenCms can be used by Java developers to create sophisticated add-ons and customizations that extend the power of OpenCms in virtually unlimited directions. Starting by showing how to set up a development environment for OpenCms work, this book moves you through various tasks of increasing complexity."

The book moves forward incrementally, starting right at architecture overview level, through building and thereupon onwards into extending OpenCms by developing. The Chapter on Modules is very thorough and is something that would require a re-read before becoming proficient in handling the various levels of sophistication that OpenCms provides. I would have liked a bit more detail into the Security and 'securing the site' aspects of OpenCms. Especially around Resource Permissions. However, given that by the time one reads about this aspect, the developer/reader would have covered aspects of customization, not much harm is done. The various extensions to OpenCms is covered in 3 separate chapters which is a really good thing to do.

Happily enough, the book has a small but rich section devoted to Lucene and incorporating 'search' within a site. The chapter does require a small bit of prior knowledge about Lucene, but developers who would be introduced to Lucene API for the first time would not feel hindered in any way.

The best thing about the book is that the author manages to keep it light inspite of the wide coverage demanded by the Java API related discussion. While new developers would find it handy, the seasoned ones would find the book a good reference.

A good book to understand OpenCMS development process - 2009-11-16
Reviewer Rating:
This book is suitable to learn how to develop a solution in OpenCMS from the ground-up. It takes you by hand and step by step you can create a complete solution from zero. I recommended it.

OpenCms 7 Development - review - 2008-06-04
Reviewer Rating:
OpenCms 7 Development by Dan Lilieadahl is a very well structured book intended for beginning developers but also for seasoned veterans of the OpenCms platform. For beginners it provides a basic overview of the platform as well as a step-by-step guide on how to start developing websites in OpenCms. The author even provides information on how to setup development enviroments for different purposes. For the experienced developers OpenCms 7 Development provides detailed information on extending the basic features and functionality of OpenCms 7 using it's Java API and is quite useful as a reference.

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