Preface

Ever wanted to make a really great Web site? One that not only looked good, but offered cool features like discussion forums, product reviews, news announcements, and more? Chances are, you've tried using something like Microsoft FrontPage, which is a great Web page editor but a lousy Web site builder, in many regards: it takes a lot of work. You may have even discovered third-party tools that create discussion forums and other neat features, but how do you tie them all together into one cohesive-looking site?

You could just keep plugging away until you come up with something you like, but I recommend doing what thousands of others have done: get Nuked. PHP-Nuke, to be specific, a Web portal or content-management system software package that's totally free, that's easy to use, and that offers a point-and-click way to create just about any kind of Web site you want. Do you need to know any programming? Nah. Don't get me wrong, knowing how to program will vastly expand the list of things you can do with PHP-Nuke, but you can do some flat-out amazing things without typing a single line of programming code. Lots of other people know how to program, and they've created add-ins for PHP-Nukemost of which are also freeso you can add functionality to your site simply by copying files and selecting a few preferences.

Do you need to know how to install PHP-Nuke? Maybe not. If you want to run your Web site on your own server, you may need to install PHP-Nuke yourself. It's not hard, and I'll cover the basic steps. But lots of people are paying someone elsea Web hostto host their Web sites. Many Web hosts also offer preinstalled PHP-Nuke packages, meaning that you can sign up and start creating your Web site within a few hours.

This book, then, is all about using PHP-Nuke. I don't assume that you have a lot of Web experience, and I certainly don't expect you to know how to program. Instead, I'll simply walk you through each and every aspect of PHP-Nuke, show you how it works, and give you some examples of how to use it. The great part about the Garage series is that you don't even have to read this book in the order I wrote it. Heck, I didn't even write it in order. Instead, you can just skip right to the topics that interest you. Want to know how to set up a news-letter on your site? Go to that topic first. Interested in posting book or product reviews on your site? There's a topic that shows you how. You build your Web site your way, in your order. Each topic is just a few pages long, with plenty of information and plenty of screen shots so that you can follow along more easily and get finished quickly.

I work mainly with Microsoft products, and I've written about a dozen books on Microsoft technologies. But when it came time for me to put up my own Web site on Microsoft scripting (www.scriptinganswers.com, which you'll see peppered throughout this book), I went with a decidedly non-Microsoft solution: PHP-Nuke. I didn't have time to create a Web site from scratch; I wanted to be able to click a few buttons and have a Web site up and running. That's what PHP-Nuke gave me, and I believe you'll get just as much satisfaction from working with it.

As you work with PHP-Nuke, you may run across folks on the Web who are really hardcore PHP-Nuke administrators. Don't feel intimidated! Just as with any other technology, there are the hardcore geekslike the folks who spend their weekends under the car hoods tuning things upand there are folks who just utilize the technologylike the folks who drive a car to work and pay someone else to change the oil. I'm kind of assuming you're in the latter category: you've got a Web site that you want to put up, you want to get it there quickly, and you don't want to have to learn a whole new profession to get there. If that's you, you're in the right book. I've tried to make it easy to get to know PHP-Nuke and to get your Web site up and running as quickly as possible.