Frequently Asked Questions

Good question. There are two ways of looking at this. On the one hand, you're buying an electronic version of "The Yii Book" by Larry Ullman, in English. You will be able to download as many copies of the book as you want in these electronic formats: PDF, ePub, and mobi. All are DRM-free.
Moreover, when updates of the book are published, you'll be able to download those, too (at no additional cost). This includes all updates...

• While I complete the first version of the book
• When I do a revision of the book for version 2 of the Yii framework
• When I fix any minor or major issue in the book at any point in time

It's possible that there will be a point in the future when an update of the book is not included (e.g., a major rewrite for Yii 3 in 2018 or whenever), but you will get all updates of the book for free until at least the end of 2014.

Another way of looking at this is that you're rewarding Larry for whatever benefit he's given you over the years. This could be:

• Free help in his support forums
• His freely available "Learning the Yii Framework" series
• His free newsletters
• His answers to your emails

However you look at it, the money you spend today is much appreciated.

Not yet. I have been contacted by a couple of people interested in translating the book into other languages. I will start pursuing that once the book is close to being finished. If you're interested in doing a translation, or interested in buying a translation, let me know.

Initially, the book is only available in electronic formats: PDF, ePub, and mobi. Once the book is finished, I do plan on selling print versions. That would probably be in May 2013 or so. If you feel strongly about this option, let me know.

None. Nada. Zip. Zilch. NULL. And I would really appreciate it if you returned that courtesy by not giving away the book, posting it on file sharing sites, and so forth. This book is a lot of work for no guaranteed money; please don't undercut me because I choose not to treat everyone like a potential criminal by instituting an annoying DRM system.

Not currently. I may make it available through Amazon in the future. I'm not sure. I will say there are two big problems with selling the book through Amazon. One is that I get cheated, money-wise: Amazon takes a huge percentage of the list price. A second problem is that Amazon would be a separate system, so a purchase there wouldn't register here. That means that if you were to buy the Kindle version of the book at Amazon, you couldn't freely download the PDF version from my site, or any extras. But if you feel strongly about this option, let me know.

Not currently. I may make it available as an Apple iBook in the future. I'm not sure. I suspect the same problems exist as with Amazon (see the above question). But if you feel strongly about this option, let me know.

I do plan on offering that functionality but haven't developed it yet. I hope to add this in time. If you feel strongly about this option, let me know.

I'm not sure. It was always my plan to make a decent percentage publicly available in HTML format (in part for search engine purposes), but I haven't made any decisions about that yet. If you feel strongly about this option, or the book being available in any other formats, let me know.

My original hope was to have the book completed by the end of February, which is clearly not going to happen. It just turns out to be much more work than I expected (not the writing part, but the other aspects of the process). I'm currently hoping to have it done by the end of May. I apologize for the delays but rest assured that I'm doing my best.

Thanks for the interest and I apologize for the delay. Unfortunately, I really cannot do this. Trying to provide any individual with an early copy is not fair to the other readers. It's also a decent amount of extra work for me (it's not as simple as sending you the file), and that extra work would delay my work on the rest of the book, which would also not be fair to everyone else. If you need help with an issue right now, you can always use the Yii or my support forums.

The current version of Yii is 1, which is what the book covers. Within the next few months, version 2 of Yii will come out and I'll update the book for it. People that have purchased the Yii 1 version of the book will get the Yii 2 version for free.

Very astute of you to notice and ask! The simple answer is: use of Yii (or any framework) wasn't warranted. This site has only a few public pages; a framework would have been overkill. Don't get me wrong: I love the Yii framework and use it regularly for Web sites, but I don't believe you should always use a framework on every project. In the initial, beta version of the Web site, I didn't even created any administrative pages!

Ah...yes. It is true that some, if not much, of the information in the book is freely available in the Yii documentation or elsewhere online. It's also true every word in "Don Quixote" is already in the dictionary (well, a Spanish dictionary). What books offer include context and consistency. And, frankly, this question is the kind asked by a person that's not inclined to buy books anyway (in my humble opinion).

You may be familiar with my popular "Learning the Yii Framework" series of blog posts I've written. You may have also seen some of the other posts I've written about Yii. When I started this book, I did begin by importing all of my existing content, and making note of the comments I've received. That constituted about 30,000 words, out of a projected 120,000. So, at most, one-fourth of the content previously existed, but even that is being updated and rewritten for the book, including new examples.

The book does assume complete comfort with HTML, PHP, MySQL, and SQL. If you're not already strong with PHP, MySQL, and SQL in particular, I'd recommend you consider my "PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Web Sites: Visual QuickPro Guide" book. Comfort with object-oriented programming in PHP is not assumed, but will be helpful. The same goes for decent comfort with JavaScript. If you feel like you'd be well served by learning more JavaScript, might I recommend my "Modern JavaScript: Develop and Design" book.

Maybe. Probably yes. So long as your hosting company provides PHP 5.1 or greater and a MySQL database, you should be okay. However, the first steps in creating a new Yii project start with a command-line interface, which you may not have. That being said, I recommend everyone install PHP and MySQL on his or her own computer and develop sites there, before making them live.

Um, no. I understand that some people are in economic, political, or geographic situations that makes buying the book difficult. Although I am very sympathetic to these situations, I cannot give the book away for free. For one reason, projects like this is how I make money, and I happen to need money (to pay bills, to take care of my family, etc.). For another, it's not fair to those people that are paying for the book if I were to give it to other people for free.

No returns are allowed. This is a strict policy, yes, but keep in mind I can't get the book back from you after returning your money. In other words, what's to stop people from buying and downloading the book, then getting their money back? This does mean it's a bit of a leap of faith on your part (buying the book with the hope/assumption it will be worth it), but that only seems fair as I took a leap of faith in writing it (with the hope/assumption people will buy it). Also, we're only talking $20 here, at the minimum. If you're unsure about the quality of my writing, perhaps you should check out my "Learning the Yii Framework" series before making a decision. If you're unsure about the quality of the book, check out the "reviews" I've seen so far.

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