Erik Reagan has posted a new extension on GitHub, called CP Pad Lock, that allows you to easily lock all member groups out of your control panel except Super Administrators.
This extension is not intended to take the place of the normal member group access permissions, but instead as a way to temporarily block out member groups while some maintenance work or updates are happening.
All none super admin users would get the following message:
CP Pad Lock is only available for EE 1.6 and is a free download. Download now: CP Pad Lock
Today is Wednesday and that means it’s time to gather together around your glowing computer screens and chat ExpressionEngine with folks from all over the world.
The chat is typically available at two different times:
European EE Help Chat
The European EE Help Chat will return next week after a short hiatus.
EE Help Chat
The original EE Help Chat—started in September 2008— will also take place at its regular time of 9 PM EDT. There’s plenty of space for everyone (the room is capped at 24), so join us with your EE questions.
In the latest episode of the EE Podcast, Dan and I talk about the things you can do to make client hand-off of a project easier.
You’ve spent weeks developing an ExpressionEngine-powered website for your client. The site looks great, works great and you’re ready to hand it over to the client. What now?
We not only discuss things you can do, but also add-ons and other materials to help you have a smooth transition from development to hand-off.
A couple of weeks ago I announced a giveaway of 2 free licenses to Cartthrob, the new e-commerce solution for ExpressionEngine. Hundreds signed up for a chance to win and I randomly selected two winners from the list. The lucky winners are…
Congrats to both of them! They’ve been contacted by Cartthrob to redeem their free licenses. Thank you to Cartthrob for their generosity. More giveaways coming soon!
reCAPTCHA is an ExpressionEngine 2 extension that replaces the built-in captcha with the reCAPTCHA system on member registration and comment forms. If you don’t already have reCAPTCHA keys, you can sign up and get them here.
With reCAPTCHA you can have CAPTCHAs that are accessible to the visually impaired, work with javascript disabled and supports multiple languages.
The extension is currently only available for EE 2. Read Brandon’s announcement post for some FAQs and a download link.
Add-on developer PutYourLightsOn (Firemail, LogMein) created and published a cheat sheet for EE 2 development. A handy reference for the Template class, Input class, Functions class and more.
Another step toward total EE 2 domination is taking place. Yes, it’s true. Solspace has started a private beta for EE 2-compatible version of both their Tag and Freeform modules.
Both Tag 3.0 and Freeform 3.0, built upon the Solspace Bridge expansion, will work on both EE 1.6.8+ and EE 2.x. We’ll be releasing copies of these Add-Ons to Private Beta groups in the next few days. In the meantime, we’re accepting applicants to be a part of each Private Beta group. There is no charge to purchase the software for either group.
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To be upfront, both of these Add-Ons contain very few new features, as our primary focus is getting them to work with ExpressionEngine 2.x. We’re hoping that the beta testing period will last only a couple of weeks, and then these Add-Ons will be available to everyone.
Lots of great stuff happening in May and part of that is another Train-ee classroom training class by Mike Boyink. Taking place from May 11th to the 14th, Mike walks EE beginners through the process of creating websites with ExpressionEngine.
If this sounds like something for you, there are still tickets available. The class takes place in Holland, Michigan and you can stay at a modern and affordable hotel.
I don’t typically cover every point release of add-ons but with the recent release of EE 1.6.9 there were some compatibility issues with some add-ons. From the EE 1.6.9 blog post by Derek Jones:
A particular bug fix relating to the Pages module required a database change, which necessitates a version update rather than only replacing files.
As a result, it is imperative with this release that if you are running any add-ons that utilize the Pages module, or are interacting with the ‘site_pages’ array directly via PHP in your templates, you will need to update the add-ons or code per the version update notes
Structure 2.1 added EE 1.6.9 compatibility so you’re safe to upgrade your Structure-powered sites after installing the 2.1 update.
A couple of other notable items from their changelog:
[Feature] nav_sub: add class=“overview” to overview li
[Feature] added last class to last lis
[Feature] Disabled current page from publish/edit tab
Yesterday I completed a tricky surgical operation for a customer (who shall remain unnamed). This customer was running two sites in ExpressionEngine’s Multi-Site Manager (MSM), a tool that lets you host multiple websites on one ExpressionEngine instance. Considering the two sites, the customer’s lawyers thought hosting them together was a Bad Idea.
Justin walks you through his steps of severing the sites from each other, including some warning of potential pitfalls.
If you’re looking for another take on splitting up MSM sites, Mike Boyink at Train-ee posted a how-to on it more than a year ago. Mike included step-by-step, detailed instructions on how to do this.
Together, both articles should get what you need and hopefully assist in a painless severing of MSM sites.
There will be over 20 speakers throughout the entire 3-day event covering topics like building add-ons for EE 2, entrepreneurship, CodeIgniter development, using PHP in templates, building great user experiences, and my talk on moving from EE 1.6 to EE 2.
Additionally, there will be a “CodeShare Corner” sponsored by Solspace:
Amidst the throng of activity at EECI2010 San Francisco, the Code Share Corner (CSC) will be an oasis of calm and enlightenment for exhibitors and attendees to exchange code and ideas, connect with others, and discuss business.
This will be a comfortable lounge where you can sit and relax, grab a cup of coffee, and empty your mind.
Hang out with developers of your favorite add-ons, other attendees and conference sponsors. The guys from Cartthrob will be there and you can use that opportunity to learn more about the newest e-commerce solution for ExpressionEngine.
If you are unable to make the conference, EE Insider is the media partner for the conference and will be covering the conference keynotes, talks and other happenings. Expect a stream of photos, short videos and other news.
This site has a ton of content and a wide variety of content needs. It is a major online magazine with significant traffic and Expression Engine was flexible and powerful enough to meet all of their feature requests. The client has been extremely happy with Expression Engine and finds updating content much easier than with Drupal.
In order to migrate the site from drupal, we exported it with a Drupal Movable Type export and imported it using the Expression Engine MT migration tool.
A couple of weeks ago the latest attempt at e-commerce on ExpressionEngine—Cartthrob—was released. Anyone that has been using ExpressionEngine long enough knows that flexible e-commerce inside of EE has always been an elusive, slippery goal. Cartthrob is trying to change that.
I took a closer, hands-on look at the new add-on and how it impacts doing e-commerce with ExpressionEngine.
Video Player by Dukt allows you to easily get the embed code for any one of many hosted video services. All you need to do is pass the plugin the URL to the video and it will do the rest.
The plugin supports Youtube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, Veoh, MySpace, Metacafe and Revver. It is available for both EE 1.6 and EE 2 and is currently a free download.
And while I have you here, let me share with you my favorite YouTube video:
You have the option of making the simple voting open to all or requiring an account (using standard methods of restricting content to logged-in members). This looks like a handy way to implement simple voting where you don’t need something as robust as the Solspace Ratings module.
LikEE is a free download and it looks to be only available for EE 1.6.
Added form class and id parameters to contact, tell-a-friend, simple and advanced search, stand alone entry form, comment, mailing list forms.
Enhanced Password Lockout feature, improving protection against brute force attacks (hat tip to Jim at Transmodern Media)
Removed the word “hell” from the captcha dictionary.
Developers: Added form_class and form_id class properties to the Template Library.
Developers: Added original redirect location to the entry_submission_redirect hook
You can read the changelog in its entirety in the forum post by Derek Jones. Please be sure to follow the updating instructions in the documentation and always back up your data first.
EE Insider contributor Erik Reagan submitted a tip to the EE Insider Tips section of the site about displaying years for entries not from this year:
I personally hate going to blog sites and not knowing when an article was published. I often see ‘June 2’ but no year. Sometimes I’m actually interested in whether or not that means this June 2nd or last June second, or even a June from years ago.
Erik posted a simple code snippet to check for the date and then display the year if isn’t the current year. Be sure to read the entire tip for all of the info.
If you want to submit your own tips, head over to the EE Insider Tips section of the site and share your EE knowledge with the community. Submitting a tip requires a free account but also enables you to save tips by marking them as “helpful” and monitor comments on your own tips.
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