Drupal 7 webform cookbook
Webform is a module that has equal parts lovers and haters… On one hand it makes creating complex forms with no technical knowledge extremely easy. On the other a lot of it’s functionality is handled in a ‘non-Drupal’ way, although this has got somewhat better recently.
A book covering just one module (and related) is always going to be a tough job, and Vernon Denny does a mixed job, covering a lot of theoretical form design and best practices that most would probably feel is out of place in a ‘technical’ book, but is actually extremely helpful and valid, putting some context and explanation behind why Webform does certain things a certain way. There is also a reasonable amount of padding though, with repetition around how to do certain standard Drupal tasks and adding on some Webform extension modules that feel a little superfluous to what is currently being discussed. I guess you have to assume no knowledge for your readers, but at times, there’s way too many concepts going on at once that will probably put off a beginner reader who just wants to create forms, not learn theming or module development.
The negatives aside, the books thoroughness also prepares any reader for creating some complex forms, with conditional fields, submissions processing, submissions actions, the presentation Of data, spam protection, listings of some useful webform extensions and how to cope with some of the more common webform ‘gotchas’. All topics are handled in a clear, concise, but detailed manner, exposing the power of the webform module and showing any current users of services such as Google forms or survey monkey the potential they’re missing.