Mastering Mambo: E-Commerce, Templates, Module Development, Seo, Security, and Performance

by Tobias Hauser

Using a highly graphical, practical style the experienced authors show you how to get the most out of Mambo's more advanced features and abilities. Mastering Mambo is the book for anybody who has... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1904811515
• ISBN13: 9781904811510
• Release Date: December 2005
• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 7.5" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Advanced view of Mambo CMS

This book is a very good and complete tutorial on advanced uses of the Mambo CMS and associated components. Alas, like any paper book about an open source product, it has a hard time keeping up with current developments. Still work the price of admission. Particularly useful topics include eCommerce (This add-in is now called "VirtueMart"), and Search Engine Optimization.

Mastering Mambo - Good Introduction

"Mastering Mambo" is a new book for people running and building websites with the Mambo Content Management System., It was written in an awkward time, when the Mambo CMS was in the process of splitting from Joomla, but because the codebases of both projects is still so similar, "Mastering Mambo" is a relevant book for both Mambo and Joomla users. Initially, I was a little confused about the target audience for this volume. The same publisher (Packt) also has a book called "Building Websites with Mambo" that would be more appropriate than for Mambo beginners. The authors, Tobias Hauser and Christian Wenz, describe this book as being for "administrators, designers and developers" which encompasses a pretty wide group of people with diverse skill-levels. The first part of the book begins by covering the most basic features such as how to logon, install components, change templates and so on. It would suit someone building a site for the first time with Mambo. As it progresses, the book becomes more complex. There are chapters on Mambelfish, VirtueMart (called PHP-Shop here) and DocMan as well as chapters that summarise options for people wanting forums and galleries. By the time it gets to page 180 out of 250, the authors are describing how to develop your own modules and mambots. This is done in a clear way, with Mambo's functions and variables explained quickly and concisely. That completed, the third part of the book describes ways to complete a successful Mambo deployment. The Search Engine Optimisation chapter is OK, but could do with more information on producing a Google-friendly template rather than just human-readable URLs. The Accessibility chapter could also do with more Mambo-specific advice. However, there are two excellent chapters in this final section. The chapter on security is very useful. It covers cross site scripting, SQL injection, unexpected user data and more. It offers smart advice and is reasonably detailed. Finally, the performance and caching chapter is short and sweet, particularly in its coverage of the uses that Zend software. Overall, the book is well-written and has a lot of useful illustrations. Nonetheless, it suffers from two weaknesses. One is the unavoidable problem that software development moves more quickly than publishing process and some of the information here is inevitably out-of-date. The second is that although I liked "Mastering Mambo", I'm unsure who to recommend it for. Rather it is an all-round effort. Administrators can use the first part of the book. Developers new to Mambo will benefit from the second half.

Excellent Book

I am not really a Mambo newbie, I've been toying with it on a casual basis for about a little over a year. So working around in the admin section, adding content through the front end, and any other mundane routines I am very comfortable with. Thankfully, that kind of information isn't what Mastering Mambo offers. What Tobias Hauser and Christian Wenz do offer in their book is a very comprehensive guide to using Mambo for your development needs. There are many different aspects involved in any web project. What I really enjoyed about this book is that as a beginner programmer, I was able to pick this book up and understand it really well. Tips are offered throughout the book so as to make the most efficient use of Mambo. Some tips offered include how to preview sites using mambo templates. Another tip involves using an XML validator to prevent error messages when installing templates, modules, or components. I would venture to say this book is probably good for both the beginning programmer as well as the advanced programmer. The beginner will benefit by being exposed to programming concepts and how to develop business logic. The advanced programmer will be able to use this to pick up on the specifics of Mambo. While my particular interest in this book was to learn more about developing modules and components, that certainly isn't the only thing addressed in this book. This book is a very good survey of how flexible Mambo is and provides information on how to customize the design, increase functionality, marketing with SEO, and security issues.