Drupal 6 Site Blueprints [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

I had high expectations for this book. I had thought that it would be a straightforward guide to putting Drupal-based websites together. Unfortunately, thus far I am experiencing disappointment. The term blueprint suggests that everything (or nearly so) is laid out before you and no essential detail is missing. Usually a bill of materials is included so you know just what parts you'll be needing and how many of each, even if exact model numbers are missing.
These blueprints are incomplete. Some necessary parts are not mentioned in the text or the bill of materials list at all. Some parts are referred to in the text prior to their use, and then it may only the mention of a name without any discussion of how or what to configure. Sometimes there is a screenshot which shows something on screen with no reference in the text. Some of the verbiage seems completely out of logical order for one constructing a website from scratch.
My expectation was that I would be able to breeze through this and learn a lot in a short period. I am learning a lot, but more about how to read and reread the text, how to find missing pieces which have no textual reference and how to find pieces based on screenshots. If you're looking for a detailed explanation of module or theme configuration and/or usage, this is simply not the book for you.
When I contacted Packt about my problems with this book, they insisted that everything was there in order as it was supposed to be. My search of the pdf version of the text indicates otherwise.
There are no errata for the book and there is no discussion board for the book. There is unfortunately no similar book from O'Reilly.
David Barnes at Packt has great advice for authors... ([...]) ... which this book ignores.
You may learn a lot from the book... however it may be painful, slow or painfully slow.

Will make this brief. Book is semi-professional, at best. Grade: D+ (Improvement needed. Not satisfactory.)

Surprised that Proofreader Dirk Manuel and others would even want to be on credits page of this book. Dan Morrison and Ken Rickard Reviewers.

Am actually trying to install one of the projects, am stuck, because the explanation requires guessing on my part, and I need to vent. Author helps you know general outlines of projects (eg which modules are needed), helps you get started on projects, but provides far far too little details on all of the projects I have started so far.

Specifically, total pages for 12 projects 220, and many pages have just diagrams duplicated from Drupal or Drupal modules, or are half-pages. Quite frankly, I sense that the author might not have taken this book very seriously. His "book dedication" says "made possible by God" but then he says "mission from God". I find that offensive. Some of his content and style is quirky at best. Project 12 is a new aggregation site for "bad news"? Project 11 is an "alien spotting" google map site created for Rita, the wife of flaky husband "Winston groovy" who claims to be an alien abductee. Hello!

I'm Pretty new to Drupal. But having gotten a sense of the application starting out, I quickly came to understand that it involves working with a lot of components (modules, etc.) on a very granular level. I learned that the Drupal community refers to "recipes" for Drupal sites as a set of instructions--laying out which combination of modules and node/block configuration one might use to build this or that kind of site. Its really a wonderful program in that you can begin with one core installation and then "cook up" any number of very complex and feature-rich websites.

That is what led me to purchase this book, "Drupal 6 Site Blueprints." I had learned the basics with one book already (more on that later), but now I felt that a book that offered a collection of "recipes"--or blueprints, as the title suggested--would provide me with more depth in understanding how to use it.

I was extremely disappointed with this book, though. It was broken into chapters for building 12 different kinds of website, but it was lacking in any real depth. But the worst part about it--the part that makes me actually want my money back--was that it wasted time , ink and paper on mindless redundancy.

The book would present a simple outline for the components/modules for a given site and then explain how to activate and configure the modules to achieve the desired effect. However, in subsequent chapters the book repeatedly referenced many of the same modules that had already been covered, and then proceed to repeat the same set of instructions that they had before...almost verbatim! This would often involve whole pages of repeated copy and screenshots to say the same thing.

Naturally many sites would share some common modules that are basic to certain kinds of usage, so they would want to be referenced again. But why not simply use a citation to the previously covered material? ("see module x instructions on page xx") Then the rest of the new chapter/site could cover the new material in greater depth to provide greater understanding.

I haven't gone through the book and done an actual count, but it felt to me that if you removed all of the obvious redundancy, the book might have had a quarter to a third fewer pages. That's just lazy writing, and even worse editing.

If you are looking for a book to learn Drupal and try out a number of site blueprints, I have to recommend that you not buy this book. A book I can wholeheartedly recommend is "Using Drupal" from O'Reilly Press. I was the first book I read and provided not only an excellent introduction to the application, but also had a number of very thorough, in-depth recipes for a number of pretty diverse sites.

This is my first product review on Amazon, and I'm sorry that it had to be so negative. Unfortunately, my feelings were so strong about the way it was written, that I felt I had to post something.