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Jeff Chandler

New WordPress Book – WordPress 3 Site Blueprints

I recently came across a new WordPress based book that is different from most of the ones on the market in that it provides blue prints for creating specific purpose sites using WordPress. The book is called WordPress 3 Site Blueprints and was written by Heather R. Wallace and published by Packt Publishing. The first chapter of the book covers a topic that is still very relevant, Migrating a static website to WordPress. Considering the amount of businesses still switching from static based sites to dynamic content this is definitely a use case worth knowing about. The table of contents is as follows:

  • Chapter 2: Building A Community Portal
  • Chapter 3: Building An E-commerce Website
  • Chapter 4: Building A Local Classified Ads Website
  • Chapter 5: Building A Consumer Review Website
  • Chapter 6: Building A Job Board Website
  • Chapter 7: Building A Microblogging Website
  • Chapter 8: Building A Local Business Directory
  • Chapter 9: Building A Membership Website

As you can see by the table of contents, this isn’t a beginners book nor is it a how to install themes and plugin book. Instead, the book lives up to it’s name by giving you the blueprints to build 10 different specific use websites. Before making the purchase, I encourage you to read the sample chapter which is chapter 4: building a local classified ads site.

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8 responses to “New WordPress Book – WordPress 3 Site Blueprints”

  2. this isn’t a beginners book nor is it a how to install themes and plugin book

    Really? Their sample chapter is all about how to do a classified ads site through the use of a theme from a non-wordpress.org site, and is mentioned over 75 times through the 34 page sample chapter. This is something that has 19 plugins on wp.org and could also be handled at a basic level via a custom post type.

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  3. @Idealien – Yes, the entire chapter is mainly about installing and customizing ClassiPress along with a selection of plugins that in the end, creates a fully functional classified ads website which was the entire point of the chapter. What I meant by my statement that you quoted was that books such as WordPress For Dummies or WordPress For Beginners and many other books simply tell you how to install plugins and themes and that’s it. Just the basics. This book on the other hand tells you specific themes and plugins to install and use to come up with a particular use case of WordPress which the sample chapter was an example of.

    I thought the book was a great example of simply providing the ingredients necessary to create specific kinds of sites with WordPress, themes and plugins. While there might be better ways to accomplish the same thing e.g. Custom Post Types, I think this kind of book at least opens up the floodgates for creativity for many out there that didn’t know WordPress could be used for these types of sites.

    As for the affiliate link, this post is not a full blown review of the book and I have not read the entire book, just the sample chapter and the table of contents. I figured if I was going to post news about a WordPress book, why not put an affiliate link on it.

    By the way, since adding the various WordPress books to the Tavern store and talking about them quite a bit, no one has made any purchases for books through this website. At least not through any affiliate links. I think this crowd is too smart for books :P

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  4. I bought this book as it sounded good but i was a bit disappointed to be honest. HWile there are some good tips i was hoping that it would give more advice on coding each project rather than using 3rd party themes and plugins. Basically to do most of what is in the book requires you to purchase the plugins etc which is a big shame.

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  5. I think this kind of ebook is nulled if you don’t want waste other money (plus the ebook cost) it describes what you can do buying some featured plugin, that you need to pay to use…. Where is the deal?
    In WPBOX you can pay and download instantly all the stuff you need to create that kind of website with wordpress, like: an ecommerce, a link directory, auction website, a microblog like twitter, a clone of facebook/google/thumblr,a mobile ready website, antivirus, antispam, Seo, affiliate improvement and a lot more. Over 600 plugins and over 170 themes in a single pack. All you need is here! And it cost like a stupid ebook that say you can do these website paying for a single premium plugin…. Ridiculous IMHO

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  6. @Lee, I can’t say that I agree with your viewpoint as I was very pleased with the book. I’m surprised that you took issue with the book using third party themes and plugins rather than using an extensive amount of coding to build the sites. If you read the back cover it says, “Each chapter is devoted to the construction of a different type of site that can be created with WordPress and the right combination of themes and/or plugins.” so it’s clear going in that that’s exactly what you will find in the book. In my opinion your stance is like being disappointed when the cheeseburger that you ordered arrives with cheese.

    Also, I’m not sure why you would want to learn how to code the sites yourself when others have already created themes and plugins that will do what needs to be done. That’s the whole point of plugins and themes; they make it possible for you add functionality to your site without the need to invest the time and effort required to code them yourself.

    Lastly, yes some, but certainly not all, of the themes/plugins mentioned in the book require you to make a purchase, but so what? The real shame is that so many people think that everything available online should be free for the taking. Why shouldn’t these developers be able to make some money off of all of their hard work?

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  7. As one who has been digging in to WordPress for the last 4 months I can appreciate the comments “not a beginners book’. After paying a developer a heft chunk of change to build my company site (wp.org) I decided to run some stats and found very little site traffic and no referrals so I purchased two books and to figure out what I don’t know and how to make the site better. The first book was pretty light but helpful and now I’m on to a second more advanced book filling in a lot of the gaps. If time permits I would like to continue to advance my learning which is how I came upon this book but with no reviews on Amazon I wanted to see what others had to say. It doesn’t look like a cover-to-cover type read but rather cherry pick the chapters that might be able to help your specific case.

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  8. @April – A very fair point i should have explained my self better. What i meant was that the disappointment was not just because they were using 3rd party plugins/themes it more the fact that it just shows you how to use the plugins which the plugins themselves shows you. They do go a little deeper but not deep enough in my opinion. For me the worse part is they have chosen some plugins over better ones that are out there and they don’t even mention them. If it had more scope with other plugins then this could of been a great book.

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