Review: The Definitive Guide To Plone

Of the four Plone books reviewed, my overall favorite is "The Definitive Guide to Plone". It is a solid volume, coming in at about 568 pages. I like it the best because it covers many areas well, in a wide spectrum ranging from beginner to advanced.

Chapter 2 is a short but well written chapter about installing Plone on different platforms, including p.24 on installing Plone using apt-get on Debian Linux. Chapter 3 is about editing content, and is clear enough for someone new to Plone. I have a problem with putting Chapter 6 ahead of Chapter 7. Chapter 7, about customizing the look and feel, is extremely well written with good examples. Chapter 6 has good examples (such as how to put Google ads in a custom portlet on P. 147), but it seems very advanced and could confuse a new user, before they even get to the "skins" and other customizing info in Chapter 7.

Chapter 7 does a really good job on the skins topic, has a great section on the main template (provides a good element map on p.186), and talks in detail about left_slots and right_slots on p. 193. I felt the section on accessrules on p. 200 is a bit confusing. Where I felt much more explanation would be most helpful is the section about making a new skin on the file system, which the author says "...is actually easy". I found this part lacking in example material - but this is not critical to new users.

This book shines on the NASA case study, starting on page 206, which I like because it is one big example. You can go to this actual site and follow along with the layout (non-Plone looking :-) explained in the book. Highlights also include Chapter 10 and Chapter 13. Chapter 10 is about Plone integration with other systems, such as Apache and Squid (both web servers). Chapter 13 is a very useful how to on Archetypes, used by more experienced users to make new content types. If you are starting out, this may be confusing, but you will eventually go back to this chapter many times as you learn how things work.

Being a believer in the redundancy and scalability the Pound reverse proxy server offers (why I use it in my book and my systems), I was disappointed that this book only has a short blurb about it on page 463. The book also has appendices, but they seem too advanced for the average user and somewhat muddled on organization. It ends with an excellent index. Overall, the author Andy McKay has covered a wide range of topics in a clear style, with an effective use of screen grab graphics. Cost around $49.99

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Below are my other book reviews