Chapter 10 - An Introduction to jQuery
This is probably the best chapter in the book, as it does an excellent job of detailing jQuery use within Drupal. It starts with an introduction to jQuery, and through very clear examples and progressively adding ideas, it takes a user from an understanding of jQuery to how it is most commonly implemented in the context of Drupal. The chapter has an efficiency about it that is spot-on, being clear enough for newbies to jQuery to pick up its use, which also giving more experienced users some helpful hints on tailoring things to fit Drupal. If all the chapters had been handled this well, Front End Drupal would be a knock out book.
Chapter 11 - Javascript in Drupal
This chapter deals with porting and developing your Javascript code to play nicely in Drupal. It starts with some basic ideas to keep in mind, and then quickly moves on to a lengthy real-world example of implementing a horizontal content scroller. Matched with Chapter 10, this also contains some of the more lucid instruction to be found in the book and is very well done.
The main takeaways from reading Front End Drupal are twofold. The first is that the book (and perhaps Drupal itself, to a lesser extent) should be more candid about their ideal audience. It's billed as something that will help the average designer get started with the exciting world of Drupal! And while that will be quite true for some, it greatly depends on having designers with a very wide skill set. Having an actual chapter devoted to an example psd-to-theme conversion probably would have gone a long way to clarifying some of the more esoteric structure of Drupal as well. The second takeaway is that this book is really more of a reference book than something that excels at instruction. There is a lot of really good information presented here that is quite helpful when trying to maneuver around the Drupal theming structure, but many concepts are either rushed through or they refer you back to Drupal's site for more info on specifics. And that's a sloppy approach for a book that could have been much more all-inclusive.
If you are already familiar with using and administering Drupal and would like to start designing for the system, this would be the likely choice to pick it. It has its faults, but it also has some very helpful information. And it also has a lack of competition. But it does do an adequate job of going through most of the common theming situations that a developer will face when working on a custom site. Here's hoping that the authors will expand this resource book in the future to become a true "bible" of Drupal theming, by including more careful instruction and real-world examples.
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