Packt Publishing released the book “Mastering Joomla! 1.5 Extension and Framework Development (Update)” which is an updated version of the original.

This book will guide you through the complexities of implementing add-ons, components, modules, and plugins in Joomla! 1.5. After learning the basics the books teaches you the more advanced stuff like modifying the database and building 3rd party applications using the API.

The book is written for PHP programmers and experience with the MVC design pattern is usefull.

What you will learn from this book :

• Understand the structure and design of the Joomla! 1.5 framework and how it operates at its core to develop efficient and well-designed extensions for Joomla!
• Extend the database conventions for the database schema and common fields
• Access and manipulate the database with the help of JDatabase and JTable classes
• Design extensions that work within the Joomla! structure
• Incorporate User, Session, Request, and Browser classes in extensions
• Organize your code with the Model-View-Controller (MVC) design pattern
• Build your own components to manage and present a specific set of data
• Enhance our component by creating a module, which will add new functionality to our frontend
• Modify your system’s functionality without the need to alter existing code
• Discover how to add pagination, ordering, filtering, and searching to make your extensions more user-friendly, and increase the chances of having successfully created a commercially winning or freely available extension
• Improve your extensions by customizing the document properties, adding multilingual capabilities, and providing an interactive user experience
• Access remote third-party services from an application with Joomla!’s API (Application Programming Interface) and web service
• Master the techniques of error handling and access control to prevent malicious attacks on your systems

If you`re interested in the book I`ve got the following article for you: Customize backend Component in Joomla! 1.5.