PHP-Nuke (www.phpnuke.org) is an open source web portal program that isvery powerful, but relatively easy to use once it is set up, and very flexible andcustomizable. It runs on Linux, UNIX, OS/2, Windows, MacOS andFreeBSD, and is supported in 20 languages. It gives administrators a powerfulassembly of tools to maintain an active and 100% interactive website that usesdatabases. It runs on the popular programs MySQL (or any SQL database),Apache, and PHP, yet the administrator does not need to know any of theseprograms in order to use PHP-Nuke.PHP-Nuke has two main audiences: 1) companies who are in record numbersestablishing intranet Web portals to help organize information on theirnetworks and improve interoffice communications. More companies are usingpublic Web portals to engage, inform, and retain customers; 2) ISP customerswho are receiving PHP-Nuke as an easy-to-use value-add from their ISPs. TheISP push is leading MANY customers to be interested in PHP-Nuke (sincethey get it for free with their Web hosting), but at a loss for how to go aboutusing it.

Enter your PHP-Nuke Garage... where you master the most powerful, cheap (and/or free) Web content system ever created, then use it to build great Web sites, portals, or communities... hands-on, step-by-step.

PHP-Nuke is remarkably capable and reliable, but until now, it's been poorly documented. This book fills the gap. Best of all, you can use it even if you have no experience with PHP, databases, coding, or hosting. Drawing on practical examples from a live example site, top IT author/trainer Don Jones illuminates every facet of working with PHP-Nuke: installation, configuration, customization, security, day-to-day administration, and much more.

Topics include: content delivery, design and themes, forums, journals, downloads, member lists, news/reviews, personalization, RSS, archiving, FAQs, feedback, statistics, surveys, pay sites, AvantGo mobile content, Amazon e-commerce links, and more. Jones even shows how to find a PHP-Nuke hosting service to handle the infrastructure for you -- so you can focus on content, not technology.

Organized into 66 easy modules, designed for rapid learning, and based on real examples, PHP-Nuke Garage will help you create the interactive site you've always wanted -- faster than you ever thought possible.

© Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

Good!
As PHP-Nuke’s author I can say, with property, that this book covers many aspects of PHP-Nuke for the average user.

It isn’t a book for professional PHP developers. It’s basic but very well written. A very good introduction of what PHP-Nuke can do, the author even describes module by module with lot of graphics.

If you’re new to PHP-Nuke and want to know how far this CMS/Portal system can go, this book is for you.

Conflict of Intrest ?
Author mentions his site www.ScriptingAnswers.com is run using PHP-NUKE ( bottom page 5 ) , however, when visiting the site, it is < not > PHP-Nuke being run at all !

Instead, it is using Microsoft Dot.Net and Dot Net Nuke....totally not PHP_NUKE at all !

Shame on the author for selling out PHP-Nuke to jump in bed with Microsoft and it’s Dot.Net garbage.

If using a personal/business site to tout a book, the author should make sure that site actually uses what is being written about !

An Easy to Understand Overview of Nuke
This is a well written overview of Nuke. It lays out step by step instructions on how to maintain Nuke. I disagree with the review that states the book is useless since it doesn’t go into detailed install instructions. The install of Nuke is very easy if you can’t install it on your server, you shouldn’t be hosting yourself.

I agree you need some html and basic skills to operate Nuke, but this book makes it easy.

seems easy
A painfully forced attempt at a hipster ambience. What with the cool shades of green and the musical instruments backdrop across the chapters. But in spite of this, and not because, it is still a decent read.

Jones makes a good case fo adopting PHP-Nuke to develop out and maintain a small website, that solicits user input in the form of content that will usually be later published on the site. The modules are more than just for making web pages. There are also crucial hooks to SQL databases. Which you’ll need for more realistic scenarios.

You should know some HTML before venturing here. A lot of his code examples become easy to follow with this background, along with some experience of the basic operation of web servers. He discusses HTML page layout and how the program does seem to make development easier. But it is primarily for managing content, of course. Graphical layout is adequate but not really even in its remit. (For that, check out Dreamweaver for a more comprehensive treatment.) It’s the manifold abilities like users having journals and making submissions and the like that are the focus.

Useless
I found the book discouraging!

The author does not guide me through installing and getting phpnuke started at all.. instead of helping out he discourages readers to just send their php files to hosts which have already installed phpnuke ! if i wanted to do that why wud i buy book?

I can quote innumerable instances from the book which are discouraging.. and the entire book is kind of irritating..

Not recommended at all..

The free FAQ listing on php-nuke website does a much better job than this book.

Useless
I found the book discouraging!



The author does not guide me through installing and getting phpnuke started at all.. instead of helping out he discourages readers to just send their php files to hosts which have already installed phpnuke ! if i wanted to do that why wud i buy book?



I can quote innumerable instances from the book which are discouraging.. and the entire book is kind of irritating..



Not recommended at all..



The free FAQ listing on php-nuke website does a much better job than this book.