RE: The Drupal Cookbook http://drupal.org/handbook/customization/tutorials/beginners-cookbook


GENERAL COMMENTS
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a) Overall a pretty useful book. Maybe be better to simplify it a bit and break it into somthing like:

CookBook1 - Basic install(no multisite),Recommendations on what to set up (like whats in the current basic configuration section, install Admin module etc, and how to go from test to deploy). What core modules should be turned on. What minimal list of non core modules that are useful for any site (assuming most sites want images/galleries etc.)

There shouldn't really be any content generation specific stuff in here beyond a front page/Story.

CookBook2 - Say 2/3 site recipes, Vanilla 5 page site?, blog, E-Commerce site.

CookBook3 - MultiSite and other more complex topics, but at a reasonably high level with links to the detailed discussions/docs.

b) Don't want to anal, I realise the person who wrote the cookbook was writing as a personal journal about what they did to get Drupal working but the language used to describe what was done seems to be very 'I ' oriented and informal (which maybe what was intended, I just find it a bit too familiar) , e.g. I downloaded the latest stable release. I then unzipped it (using WinZip).

DETAILED COMMENTS
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1. Drupal Cookbook - In the first page "Important Drupal Terms" the Block description section has a typo

"Blocks can be completely custom, created by imputing HTML into the block."

2. Should probably remove the Nancy note here OR make it a 'proper' warning

"However, over time you will come to realize that these are some of the most powerful and flexible modules out there. [Nancy's note: also stay away from access control (security) modules until later. They can really destroy your site if you don't know what you're doing.] "

3. The Basic Configuration section is good, Is there anything that can be added in terms of recommended steps?

4. In the Section - Creating Multiple Sites On a Local Computer

I understand this section is for local computer install and the author does point to locations for more detailed

multisite information BUT would it be useful to list the different multi site option so the user understand the huge variety of ways that multisite can be done: e.g.

Multi-site local

Multi-site hosted/shared hosted

Multsite subdirectory

Multisite - subdomain

5. The step - Change the $db_url and $base_url lines. The $db_url line should have the name of the database you just created. The $base_url will be how you want to access the site.

Would an example for $base_url be helpful?

6. In the section Adding Images to text - the last point jumps into taxonomy etc. Seems to be a lot in this paragraph that assumes previous knowledge.

· Do the stuff in http://mybesinformatik.com/tinymce-and-drupal5 to add the drupalimage plugin to TinyMCE.
· Tune the settings in the TinyMCE Profile to show the features required.
· Create a Taxonomy to allow tagging of images for easier retrieval.


7. Why is the section G1. creating a Page labelled thus (ang subsequent sections G2/G3/G4)?


8. Typo in "Creating a newest posts block" i.e. "add Filer" instead of "Add Filter" Step 8 - Filtering

You may not want every thing showing in your latest posts. You can limit it. For that you have to go down the page to "Filters". Click on it to reveal the filtering options. This is where you can select the content type(s) to show in the block. Where it says "Add Filer" select "Node : Type" and then click on the "Add Filter" button. For the operator you want to select "Is One Of". Then you pick the content type from the "Value" drop down list.