Building Websites with Mambo

In Detail

Mambo is a mature and fully featured Content Management System (CMS). First released in 2001, the system is now on release 4.5.x and is supported by an active and well organized open source development team and community. Mambo is both easy to use at the entry level for creating basic websites, whilst having the power and flexibility to support complex web applications.

Mambo implements the core requirements of a full featured CMS. It has a powerful and extensible templating system with the ability to upload and manage many different data types. User access control, content approval, rich administrative control, content display scheduling are all built-in. New features and extensions are constantly added to the core system, with many more being available and supported by the community.

The book begins by introducing Mambo and concepts behind content management. Then the installation of Mambo, and its supporting software [Apache/MySQL/PHP] is covered clearly and simply. Once you have the installation up and running, we then take a tour of Mambo as it appears out of the box, to familiarize ourselves with how it works and what is what. As you take the tour, your own ideas for what you need in your new website begin to crystallise around what you can see Mambo is capable of.

We then build our web application, using the features of Mambo that are essential to our purpose. We try not to spend time on things that don't matter at this point. Once we have a base version of our site up, we then learn how to change its appearance and feature set to suit our particular requirements, including bringing it into line with an established corporate identity. At the end of the book we show how, if you have the skills and the need, you can add your own extensions to Mambo.

This book is a fast paced tutorial to creating a website using Mambo. If you have never used Mambo, or even any web content management system before, then this book will walk you through each step in a friendly and accessible way. From installation, to initial set up and content entry and then on to customization for your own look and feel, this book will get you to a stable and working Mambo based web site fast. You do not have to be an experienced web developer or designer to get a great looking site with a full set of functions using this book and Mambo. This book will guide you through every step.

Read Chapter 2 Installation: PDF [585KB] | HTML

Approach

This book focuses on taking you through the essential tasks to create a Mambo site as fast as possible. These essential tasks are explained clearly, with well structured step by step instructions. The book does not aim to cover every feature of Mambo, nor is it a comprehensive guide to extending Mambo. Almost everything in the book is accomplished without recourse to the underlying PHP code in which Mambo is written. The book is very readable and the author has a particularly chatty and engaging writing style.

Who this book is for

This book is suitable for web developers, designers, webmasters, content editors and marketing professionals who want develop a fully featured web presence in a simple and straightforward process. It does not require any detailed knowledge of programming or web development, and any IT confident individual will be able to use the book to produce an impressive web site.