Where can I get the book?
"The Yii Book" is now open source, and can be downloaded from its GitHub repo.
What happened to the account login?
While the book was commercially sold, the only way to (legally) acquire it was to log into this site and then download it. Now that the book is open source, anyone can download copies from its GitHub repo. So there's really no reason to have an "account" section here anymore.
Is the book available in other languages?
Unfortunately not.
Is the book available in print format?
Unfortunately not.
What Digital Rights Management (DRM) is used?
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.
Is the book available at Amazon?
Nope. 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.
Is the book available as an Apple iBook?
Nope. I suspect the same problems exist as with Amazon (see the above question).
Are you going to make the book available in any other formats?
I will not, but as the book is open source, other people can.
What version of Yii does the book cover?
Yii 2.
Why isn't this site built in Yii?
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!
Can't I find all of this information in the Yii documentation or online?
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, among other things, are context and consistency.
What do I need? What do I need to know?
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.
Can I use Yii with my hosting company?
Maybe. Probably yes. So long as your hosting company provides PHP 5.1 or greater and a MySQL database, you should be okay for Yii 1; Yii 2 requires PHP 5.4 or greater. 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.
Can I get the book for free?
Yes. Head to its GitHub repo.
What is your return policy?
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. If you're still unsure, then you probably ought not to buy the book.