Open-source software is estimated to have saved consumers about $60 billion per year according to a 2008 report by the Standish Group. This is achieved by an open collaborative community building the source code once and licensing unrestricted distribution and reuse. Drupal is an open-source content management system (CMS) and web development solutions platform. Some websites developed using Drupal include the Economist and the White House, and they are impressive examples of the tool’s capabilities in skilled hands. The Drupal website (https://www.drupal.org/) provides extensive documentation and resources to support developers and consumers. This book is targeted for programmers and site builders, and was intended to address an intermediate knowledge level. It applies specifically to Drupal version 7.x.

The book is organized into 11 chapters that walk the reader through installing the Drupal core, which contains the basic building blocks of a solutions platform. Each chapter begins with a well-written introduction that provides a transition from the prior chapter and explains the context and relevance of the immediate chapter. The chapters all conclude with a summary of what was covered and a transitional sentence or two to move the reader to the next topic. The overall structure of the book is logical and easy to follow.

The Drupal core includes: user management (permissions, roles, users), content (types, items, fields), modules, themes, and libraries. The basic modules included in the core are listed in a table. The modules not included in the core that are frequently used for enterprise applications are also listed in a table. The example used in the book is based on the Drupal core, but it is apparent that enterprise applications will require extensive additional modules to meet basic functionality required by most systems. The Drupal install and configuration is demonstrated through an exemplar, a fictitious restaurant chain website. There are very few screen shots from a “what you see is what you get” (WYSIWYG) perspective. The focus is primarily the graphical user interface (GUI) user entry screens to design your application with Drupal. The Drush tool is a command line shell and scripting interface for Drupal written in PHP. The command line interface is given minimal attention, but would be a preferable tool once expertise with Drupal has been achieved.

Overall, the book is a simplified introduction to setting up your Drupal solutions platform and building a basic website. There are a few presentation issues, such as multiple screen shots that are often unreadable due to very small font size or poor typeface resolution. A list of figures and tables would be very helpful as key information is provided in those formats. There are also several spelling and grammatical errors that are obvious and annoying. The Drupal website (https://www.drupal.org/) provides most of the same basic information found in the book, and to walk you through getting started with Drupal it provides video demonstrations that use Drush and identify key changes that are critical to the effective use of Drupal as a solution development platform.

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