Posted by Merlin on Mon, 12/13/2010 - 3:06pm

The book ended up being long overdue because, mostly, I couldn't manage to prioritize it up enough to get it done.

It took Emma Jane Hogbin to step in and finish a few bits and polish it a little to get this book to actually go to press. It should be printed right before Christmas and will spend a couple of weeks in transit. Amazon says Jan 10, which is probably about right.

The official website is http://drupal-building-blocks.com and Lynette is busy getting the code samples put up there. Plus errata and sooner or later the sample chapter.

You can also buy the Rough Cut meaning you can get the PDF and the actual book together or separate. It seems like a pretty decent deal. I know a number of people have take advantage of this already.

Blog
·
Drupal · Views · Panels

Comments

Submitted by steve (not verified) on Mon, 12/13/2010 - 8:04pm

Congratulations! I remember talking with you about the book at DIWD 2008. Since then, you've released Panels 3, Views 2, CTools and now a new book...Thanks for all you do for the Drupal community!

Submitted by Abhijit (not verified) on Tue, 12/14/2010 - 4:46am

Yes, it really has become long overdue, considering that Drupal 7 is being released pretty soon. It should be a great book for Drupal 6 though.

Submitted by K (not verified) on Tue, 12/14/2010 - 10:26am

Now I can point people to a worthwhile text from an experienced Drupaler rather than the rubbish being pushed out by Packt Publishing. Can't wait to get a copy and do a review. Keep rocking Earl.

Submitted by Michael Caudy (not verified) on Tue, 12/14/2010 - 10:41am

@Abhijit and general comment. I noticed in the Extras section for the book (on the book's O'Reilly web site, linked to above) that the codes samples are based on Views 3 (alpha). That is really great news, as it means that the code and the text are essentially as completely up-to-date as they can be at this time.

Earl, I think it is important that you emphasize / advertise that point. I think it could be a major selling point for the book (I have already been the book, via my Safari online account). From what I have read so far - mostly about Views API - the book looks to be extremely clear and informative. To know that the text is also very much up-to-date is very welcome news.

Submitted by Merlin on Tue, 12/14/2010 - 11:18am

The sample code isn't complete yet. Hopefully it will be before the book actually hits retail. We'll actually have both Views 3 and Views 2 code available as everything should work in both versions. The actual tutorials in the book are for Views 2, but the differences aren't that major.

The text is missing a lot of the newer features, so I'm not sure how up-to-date I want to call it.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 12/14/2010 - 11:32am

The Extras page at the book's O'Reilly site states:

"These code samples currently are based on Views 3.x-alpha 1 and CCK 2.8."

If they really are a mix of Views 2 and Views 3, you might want to change that statement on the book site, and also add your above statement that everything in the book should work in both versions. This will be very comforting for potential readers / buyers of the book

Submitted by Merlin on Tue, 12/14/2010 - 12:37pm

As I said. The code samples are not complete yet. The statement that is there is accurate for what is currently there.

Submitted by Boris Gordon (not verified) on Wed, 12/15/2010 - 8:11am

Any idea when the final pdf will be released to Rough Cuts purchasers? The book has definitely improved in this last stretch. Congrats.

Submitted by Merlin on Wed, 12/15/2010 - 9:42am

I have no insight into their schedules.

Submitted by mcaudy on Fri, 03/04/2011 - 9:53pm

Hi Earl,

I tried to send this message to you by e-mail, or via your drupal.org user account, but that does not seem to be possible. So, I hope this is OK to post here, as it does relate to your book.

I have been trying to learn and apply Views 3 for my own use (genomics research), but I am having difficulty finding documentation, or examples from which I can learn the general procedure.

I have read almost all of your book: "Drupal's Building Blocks", which is really excellent. (Thanks very much for writing this!)

However, my impression is that there is essentially no specific discussion of Views 3 in the book text, even though there is some Views 3 code included in the book download.

I also have tried to understand how to write query plugins for Views 3 to handle data from external data sources by looking at examples by others, but I cannot see a general procedure for doing this. Each ot the examples I have looked at seem to provide completely different, apparently ad hoc approaches:
* Jeff Micollis' "Flickr extendr" module;
* Jeff's "World Bank API"; wb_api
* Johan Falk's (NodeOne) "YQL Views Query backend module:
* Thomas Seidl's "Search API" module

I have found that there is some documentation for Views 3 in the Advanced Help section for the Views module for Drupal 7. However, I have not been able to find any specific discussion there, either, about how to write a query plugin for external data.

My impression is that whatever documentation, code examples, etc, are available for Views 3 is scattered around the web, or perhaps has been discussed on IRC, etc.

I would like to help provide a good single source for Views 3 documentation, as well as some clear demo use cases, and even some testing, if that is helpful.

Are you going to be at DrupalCon Chicago? I cannot find your name registered there.

If you are going to be in Chicago, could you perhaps hold a BoF on the Views 3 API, and/or show up on Friday at the Code Sprint? Or, could I meet with you during the regular meeting to discuss this?

Thanks very much.

Best regards,

Mike

Michael Caudy
mcaudy@gmail.com
www.mcaudy.net
Cell: 917 435-3624

Add new comment