This initial list will be shortened, so if you dig the EE Podcast, please vote for us! After you vote they will create a short list and from there the judges will decide the winners.
OK, so there was only one new addition this week. There are still almost 900 more for you to peruse at devot:ee, any time you wish. A random favorite of mine is Publish Tweeks, which removes the “Quick Save” and “Preview” buttons when publishing. The key part for me is that it also cancels the redirect to the preview after saving, keeping the user on the edit screen. This is very handy when you’re making small changes and updates and saving frequently, and it works well if you’re using Live Look.
There has been a lot of activity in the MojoMotor world since the software was released last month. Add-ons, community websites and websites built with MojoMotor have all surfaced.
Here’s a roundup of some of what has been going on.
Fans of Solspace’s Super Search module will be happy to know that the module now supports ExpressionEngine 2. This is great news for me because I have a project coming up where Super Search is needed.
A bit about Super Search:
The architecture of the module borrows from Google’s model of constructing search queries. Anything that you might want to query for, keywords, weblogs, categories, statuses, custom fields, date ranges, custom field numeric ranges, etc. can be loaded into a single URI segment by using the Super Search syntax
In order to run Super Search on EE 2 you also have to install the Solspace Bridge Expansion (which is included with the module).
Mijingo is the new home for my training materials (minus the ExpressionEngine book, which is still available from my awesome publisher) and those of future authors at Mijingo.
Learning ExpressionEngine 2
That’s the title for the new series of screencasts on ExpressionEngine 2. They’re beginner-level screencasts that walk you through, step-by-step, how to build a basic website in ExpressionEngine 2. The sample site we build this time is for Channel University. Is it real? No. But fake schools need websites, too!
This series is 8 episodes and runs more than 4 hours. I went through the first series and distilled it down to only the most vital information needed to get up and running with EE 2.
If you’re looking for more advanced material, don’t worry, all of that will be coming soon!
On October 22, 2010 ExpressionEngine Camp will take place in Denver, Colorado. It is being organized by Q Digital Studio and is a one-day event for EE developers and users.
EE Camp brings hands-on ExpressionEngine presentations, sharing, discussion and ideas to Denver, Colorado. ExpressionEngine is a flexible content management system that designers, developers and clients truly enjoy using to build beautiful and feature-rich sites.
It looks like they’re still working out the details but the date is firm and the venue is the Casselman’s Event Venue in Denver. Registration isn’t open yet so you might want to check the site regularly for more information.
Looking forward to seeing this happen. I hope more camps take place across the world.
I’ll admit that when I first came across this blog post by Jason Morehead on EE pricing that I rolled my eyes and quietly mumbled “Oh here we go again.” But then I realized who wrote it and then actually read it and, well, it was a nice change of pace in the conversation dominated by pricing complainers.
Jason talks through the common complaint that EE + add-ons is too expensive and WordPress is cheaper. We’ve all heard it a million times before and, honestly, I just ignore the topic at this point. I don’t give it publicity here on EE Insider and I don’t spend any time arguing with anyone. Why? Because if someone is approaching EE solely based on cost, they’re already missing the point of why EE is such a great deal.
In Episode 24 of the EE Podcast, we talked a bit about this. The topic was never supposed to be whether EE was too expensive (I say this because I noticed on Twitter that some people didn’t listen to the whole show before shooting off comments), but we did talk about it. One thing I mentioned is that I’ve found ExpressionEngine’s low price (compared to a lot of solutions that some of us regularly bid against) is the real problem. Some clients see that as a liability after years of paying thousands of dollars per year for some CMS that would make your eyes bleed.
Pricing complaints are usually a sign that the pricing is spot on. If EE (and add-ons) were actually *too* expensive, people would stop complaining about it and just move on.
I think that’s the trouble that a lot of people have a hard time seeing. If you NEED those $430 worth of addons to get a website done, that’s a large website and needs to be upcharged accordingly. If you are charging $600 for a website that requires all of that, you might need to rethink your pricing.
If the cost of getting up and running in EE with basic add-ons is only $500, then I think that’s a great deal. If your site budget is less, then EE probably isn’t the solution for you.
Each year (it seems to be getting earlier and earlier) anyone can submit a panel to the SXSW committee for inclusion in the following year’s program. The panels are all placed in the “Panel Picker” and the public gets to vote on which panels they want to see at the conference. After that an advisory board will make the final selections based on the voting.
So, now it’s time for the community to speak out and post any panels they’ve proposed to the special forum thread. Support the members of our community and please vote for their panels!
This week’s new additions, bringing the list of ExpressionEngine add-ons to a staggering 887 items (for comparison, there were about 300 add-ons cataloged in early 2009):
This week we’d like to point out the impact some of the CodeIgniter developers are having on ExpressionEngine. Two new EE2 add-ons, Rest by Phil Sturgeon and Backup by Thomas Myer are some of the most viewed, most talked about, and most purchased add-ons this year. It’s great that these developers can spend time creating useful things for EE2, now that it is built on CodeIgniter. Let’s hope we see more from these guys in the near future. Nice work.
In the latest episode of the EE Podcast, Dan, Lea and I talked to our favorite houseboat owner, Lodewijk Schutte (“Low”). I’m sure you know Low through his EECI talks and his EE add-ons. We asked Low to join us on the show to talk about using PHP in your EE templates.
This past June, Lodewijk Schutte (“Low”) gave a fascinating talk at EECI in San Francisco about different ways you can use PHP in your templates and gain a ton of functionality in the process. It was one of my favorite talks of the entire conference. Low joins us on the podcast to further discuss PHP in templates and share his experience, tips and knowledge.
The next generation of the popular ExpressionEngine Screencasts, completely redone for EE 2, will be available starting next week. I’ve been working over the last several months planning the new screencasts and over the last month and a half recording, editing and exporting. We’re tying up loose ends and putting together a brand new site. And we’re excited.
Just like before, the screencasts will be full quality, downloadable videos that you can take with you and learn on your own time, offline or online. I put together a preview for you. View it here or watch the full version via the downloadable video.
I want to make sure EE Insider readers are the first to know about it. If you want to be alerted to the availability of the ExpressionEngine 2 Screencasts and receive a coupon to save a little bit of cash, sign up below for the email notification list. Only subscribers to the list will get a coupon, so don’t forget to click Subscribe!
This offer is now over. The screencasts are available for purchase over at Mijingo. Thanks to everyone for signing up for a discount!
Today EllisLab posted a new build of EE 2.1 that addresses a potential security issue in the previous build (released last week). If you updated to the 20100805 build, you should also update to the 20100810 build to patch the potential issue.
There is no better way to learn than with some context. Reading the EE documentation is a thrilling way to spend your weekend (what?) but learning about EE concepts with real examples and code is even better.
Not long ago we published A Primer on Relationships by Noah Stokes and it walked you through a real-world application of relationships in EE.
Tony Geer posted a nice walk-through on his site about how he used relationships to make it easy to organize and display multimedia content (YouTube videos) on a client site.
I created one channel that captured only YouTube videos. Next, I created a new channel for the projects and took advantage of ExpressEngine’s freedom and flexibility to assign a field group with over 15 fields so that we could easily capture every bit of information that was needed for each project, but no field for videos. Why? Because I’ll use ExpressionEngine’s related entry functionality to link individual YouTube videos to particular projects.
On Friday, Mike Boyink of Train-ee released the PDF of his new EE 2 book about building a small business website.
Meet Building an ExpressionEngine 2 Site for Small Business - a 362-page, 148 screen-capture bundle of development joy lovingly written with the sole purpose of getting you up to speed on ExpressionEngine 2 as quickly as possible.
We’ve gotten a lot of requests for a show on e-commerce with ExpressionEngine. I’m not an expert on e-commerce on EE so I never felt comfortable leading an entire show on it. Matt Weinberg, however, is well-versed on this topic and he kindly accepted the invitation to be on the show.
In this episode of the podcast we spend 30 minutes talking to Matt about best practices and a couple of solid ways to implement e-commerce on your EE-powered website.
The people that brought you Cartthrob have another trick up their sleeve and they need your help. Barrett Newton built a new EE 2.1 add-on called SafeCracker. No, it doesn’t allow you to rob banks or find the secret treasure hidden in grandma’s attic; SafeCracker is a new way to create Stand Alone Entry Forms (SAEFs).
From Chris at Barrett Newton:
We’ve made it so that you can create an entry / edit form with the simplicity of a standard channel entry loop. In the past, people found it easier to use FreeForm to capture data than the built in SAEFs. FreeForm is great, but unlike FreeForm, all the SafeCracker data is stored as weblog entries, not as part of a module’s settings. Since that’s the case, entry notifications, statuses, and other standard EE systems work with SafeCracker, making it dead easy to build a contact form, or a sign up form, or job application form. The new custom field also makes it so that you can use 1 weblog to store lots of completely different types of data without having to pre-plan or pre-create new custom fields.
According to Chris, SafeCracker also allows non-logged-in users to submit content via SAEF, which isn’t possible with the standard EE SAEF. It also adds edit ability and outputs errors as JSON, so you can use it with AJAX.
I’m learning all of this from information from Barrett Newton. I haven’t yet tried the software but the description is definitely appealing.
Help Beta Test
Barrett Newton is in need of 10 beta testers with experience building EE sites and time to work with the add-on. They want you use to use it real world situations, not just running on a local sandbox site. You will be able to help shape the add-on; in addition to vigorous testing, they are looking for input on features, documentation and pricing.
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