The Mambo content management system (CMS) is among the most popular Web publishing tools in use today. It's easy to install, configure, and use on a basic level, but runs into various problems with complex configurations. Learning Mambo seeks to prepare readers for configuring almost every aspect of Mambo, but it falls short in important ways.

Writing analysis

Learning Mambo starts out with a basic overview of the system, and establishes its primary example -- a site for the fictional Zak Springs Golf Club. Chapter 2 is an overlong description of how to install Mambo on your local machine; instructions for uploading the site to a remote server are not given until the very last chapter. The middle of the book concentrates on exploring and configuring Mambo through its backend interface, and installing new templates and add-ons via the extremely easy-to-use interface. The last -- and most useful -- parts of the book give some tips and advice for customizing Mambo on a deeper level by hacking some of its files.

The language in Learning Mambo is at times jumbled and difficult to follow. It probably could have done with a good editorial cleanup to eliminate unnecessary words, phrases, and ambiguities. This book is by no means unreadable, but it's also far from its maximum potential in terms of use of language.

Putting the book to the test

The main problem with Learning Mambo is that most of its content covers obvious subjects, or topics that are already thoroughly documented through the Mambo help system. The remaining information is useful to people who are new to content management systems, but it won't solve all of their problems. Learning Mambo frustratingly ignores Mambo's dirty secrets, like the bugs in the menu and SEF systems that show permissions errors when you delete a menu or move content to a new category, or the RSS feed module's non-SEF compliance, or the difficulty in upgrading to a new version, or the horribly bad scalability of the Mamboboard forum component, to name a few. These are the problems that experienced Mambo administrators have been dealing with for years, and I speak for all of them when I say that we would gladly have paid $45 for a book that would have told us how to solve them without spending hours hacking PHP files and scouring various forums for clues.

Aside from the several parts of the book that concentrate on obvious or elementary topics, Learning Mambo gives a lot of detailed advice for hacking various Mambo functions and components. I wish these Mambo hacks were more detailed and wide-ranging in subject matter, but even as they are, these tips are the book's saving grace.

Despite the shortcomings of its content, Learning Mambo is easy to follow along with, and doesn't have any glaring errors or omissions aside from what has already been mentioned above.

Conclusions

Learning Mambo functions well as a basic introduction to Mambo. However, Mambo is easy enough to use and figure out on this level that a book is unnecessary -- let alone a book that costs a whopping $45. If you're serious about creating a popular, monetized Web site with Mambo, this book has little useful information to offer you. If you're looking for a good Mambo primer, Wiley's much less expensive Mambo Visual Blueprint may be a better choice, though even with that book you will still have to discover Mambo's dirty secrets on your own.

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Copyright 2007 JEM Electronic Media, Inc. No reprints without written permission.