[Packt] MODx book released today!

I am reading it now...

Its a good resource. But I find that it does not fire on all cylinders consistently: it sputters at times and roars at others.

Usually books like this lay a good groundwork and builds knowledge progressively from there. The intro rambles a bit and then skims through getting MODx up and running - without highlighting some of the issues and workarounds that this forum offers. Some of screenshots show elements that are created in 2008 and some from 2006 which already looks outdated.

At the end of each chapter there is a summary, "we have learned how to..." Really? Some of these chapters needed rounding out IMHO. After highlighting the installation you move quite quickly into creating blog posts using Newspublisher. I would have liked a more thorough tour of the Manager interface and the various panes etc. The sections on the ever so crucial Wayfinder and Ditto snippets could have been longer, fuller with more examples. I would have liked a screenshot on the MODx archive folder with an explanation of where things go. In general some of the common hurdles that new MODx forum users were missing here. I am glad that I have the book though. It is a good resource, just not THE resource.

Maybe I am picking nits here, but the Wordpress book I read left me with a feeling of having gained a fuller understanding of the product.

That being said some of the chapters are very good. The whole chapter on roles, users, permissions and documents was very well done in a quick way that I found totally worth reading.

There is going to be some errata as there are a few obvious errors in code and the MODx parameters.

Is this the holy grail for MODx learning and understanding? No. Is this a welcome and worthy arrow in the MODx quiver of knowledge? Yes, definitely...

Max

Some time ago they contacted me about writing a book, then started waffling over whether or not we had a large enough user base to make it worth their publishing a book. I never heard from them again, until they contacted me last year to ask me to be a technical adviser.

The form of the name MODx was almost officially changed to modx, but Ryan et al decided to leave it at MODx. That is probably the cause of some of the mixed forms in the book.

Quote from: Photowebmax at Mar 27, 2009, 01:47 PM

I will probably get the book unless we hear from early readers that its a dud.

What is puzzling is that the author has registered here, but has zero posts? There are no references to MODx at all on his site other than the one event item on his home page. If I had a web blog/site and was the first person to publish a book on an emerging CMS powerhouse then I would be yacking about it all the time! His site runs on WP and there are no posts about MODx. My hunch is that he is on this forum but is using a different identity...

Looking forward to some reviews though. But odds are I will order the book as soon as its available.

I don’t think the person exists? His web site is PARKED http://www.antanosolar.com/ The fact that other reports his site runs on WP etc gives me great doubt. I will not order this book. I will await BobRay’s book on Revolution.
I have been playing on a local installation of ModX and i have found it quite frustrating. I won’t start any sites with it until i have a good manual book in hand. That is what won me over to EE. Some great books to get me started and then it was a real breeze. Now I am addicted to it. I find so easy to use. It’s templating is a real strength. I think in the future there will be use of ModX for some friend’s web sites... For this i look forward to BobRay’s tome.

He exists as far as I know, and he did write the book. It was released a few months back - as to his dedication to MODx, that’s another matter ... I’ve had mixed reviews about the book, but on the whole, they’ve been positive.

Dear All,

I am Antano Solar John.

The author of the book you have been discussing about.

I have read your comments and you have been very kind.

Thanks a lot for those encouraging words.

I have also used the feedback very positively.

Also, I realize that many have been asking if I am a real person.

Yes I am real. I work as the CTO for NuVeda learning (www.nuvedalearning.com).
My blog is www.solarant.org

I love MODx and I hope to do much for the community and the framework.

Member MODx Developer

Antano Solar John

I was reading lately the Larry Ullmans posts about the
publishing industry and how much money authors make out
of a book. It almost nothing at all.

He, and John Resig and Peter Cooper and the likes indicate
that in average a tech book sells around 4-6K books which
seemed like a extremely low number based on the number of
tech people around, which at least in web development seem
like there are a lot.

Maybe an idea for Bob Ray book and other MODx books would be
to do it inside the MODx community (author, reviewers, tech
people, editors, etc.) and then distribute it via Lulu or
via ebook. It seems like this way the author will make more
money, the purchasers will get a cheaper book and the distribution
will be more targeted to the market intended audience.

What do you guys think?

Don’t get me started on the publishing industry. >:(

The low royalties are the least of the problems. It’s almost impossible to get a good book published these days with a major publisher.

Good thoughts in your post, though. We’re already heading in that direction, though no e-version is planned for the near future. Personally, I find e-books difficult to use as a reference and would rather have treeware combined with good online docs.

Hahahah here some links to Larry’s and John’s posts...

http://blog.dmcinsights.com/2010/03/04/the-economics-of-publishing/
http://blog.dmcinsights.com/2010/03/18/the-economics-of-publishing-part-2/

http://ejohn.org/blog/programming-book-profits

it is interesting to read in John’s post comments some of the
publishers thinking. In particular it is good to read Dave Thomas
from Pragmatic Bookshelf and how they are trying to do it differently...

Good to hear you are moving in that direction, something has to happen in
the publishing industry, maybe now with Kindle, iTablet and the like...

I like ebooks just because it is really hard for us outside of the US and
Canada to buy a book for 30USDs and then have to pay another 20-30USDs for
shipping!!! THe book comes out way too expensive... thas is whay an ebook
benefits the author and the non-US/Canada customers.

charliez I like your idea about the community involvement

Bob, I’m with you on ebooks, I really don’t like them at all. Additionally, one major downside to ebooks is the ridiculous amount of piracy there is that ends up cheating the author out of a good chunk of revenue. There are tons of websites out there where people share ebooks that they’ve bought or pilfered.

Doesn’t Amazon have a program where you can create your own book and it prints on demand? I am guessing this would be regionally sensitive so that the shipping costs wouldn’t be so ridiculous?

Quote from: einsteinsboi at Mar 19, 2010, 10:24 PM

Doesn’t Amazon have a program where you can create your own book and it prints on demand? I am guessing this would be regionally sensitive so that the shipping costs wouldn’t be so ridiculous?

Yes, but IIRC, it’s a pretty bad deal for the author. OTOH, some POD publishers will automatically list your book on the Amazon and Barnes & Noble web sites, which is where we’re heading.