Blog Entry
Recently I’ve been thinking that the EE control panel could use more robust logging. This is especially important for me during the late development stage of a project when the number of people with access to the control panel increases. It’s not really to expose and assign blame if something goes wrong, but at least have a complete record of what happened.
With a similar idea, Erik Reagan posted a great article on his blog this week about adding action logging to you add-ons. EE add-on developers take note! Erik walks you through, step-by-step, how to use the existing Logger class, load it in your add-on and use it.
Excellent idea! I hope add-on developers start adopting this method.
Read the whole article: Logging Actions in your ExpressionEngine Add-ons
Blog Entry
EllisLab has announced the topics for the UserVoice sessions at SXSW. The sessions are informal gatherings and not part of the SXSW schedule.
There are three different times available on Saturday March 13th and Sunday 14th.
- Saturday, March 13, 10 - 11am Distributed development: how do you guys do it?!
- Saturday, March 13, 4 - 5pm Module building from experts, the EllisLab team
- Sunday, March 14, 2 - 3pm CodeIgniter Web Apps with ExpressionEngine 2.0
Do any of these sound interesting to you? Sign up in the special forum threads they’ve set. There will be a limit on how many people can attend in order to keep the conversation manageable and to fit in informal gathering spaces.
Read their announcement: SXSW UserVoice Events Chosen
Blog Entry
It’s Wednesday and that means it is time for the weekly EE Help Chat, which takes place at 9PM EST and runs about an hour.
People of all experience levels are welcome and both beginner and advanced questions are encouraged. If you’d like to get an idea of how the chat works and what the guidelines are, check out the EE Help Chat page for more information. On that page you’ll also find the link to enter chat at 9PM.
Hope to see you in the chat!
Blog Entry
On March 23rd at the New England Research & Development Center in Cambridge MA, a bunch of EE users will be getting together to talk shop and trade tips.
We’ll be talking about how to get started with ExpressionEngine. For those who have used other content management systems before and/or aren’t quite sure how to dive in to EE, bring your questions! For those who work with EE every day, bring your best practices so we can all learn from you!
If you’re in the Boston area, you should attend!
BostonEErs - Boston ExpressionEngine Meetup
Blog Entry
Say what? New in BucketList 1.1 is the ability to choose which s3 buckets are available. From the changelog (short and sweet):
Implemented the option to specify which buckets are available for each field or FF Matrix cell.
This was one of my wishes from the beginning, so I’m really glad to see it implemented. Now I can create a “article_images” bucket and make it only available to the Articles section of the site. Very nice!
If you’re an existing license holder, like I am, you just need to enter your license key to get the update.
Read the announcement: Introducing BucketList 1.1
Blog Entry
WooThemes released two new themes for ExpressionEngine: Delegate and The Station. These themes were previously available on other platforms but have been moved to EE.
I’m not sure what to make of the idea of using themes on EE. I’m sure they’re helpful to some people but I choose to work with EE because of its flexibility and extensibility—not because I can drop in a theme and have a blog in 22.5 seconds. Maybe it’s just me. What’s your take?
Read their entire announcement: WeeThemes Gears Into Business
Blog Entry
Okay, I’m getting hungry just browsing through this site. Yesterday Chad Crowell of Encaffeinated announced a new site launch: Sonoma Gourmet.
Chad posted to the EE forums with a quick overview:
Some seriously fresh and tasty sauces here people. Order yourself a 6 pack - you will not be disappointed. This is an EE 1.6.8 site with Structure, Wygwam and Playa, as well as a nice customized version of Foxycart and FoxEE.
Check out the site and, if you’re hungry, pick up a case of sauce!
Blog Entry
Last month, I quietly released the EE 2.0 version of my First Timer extension. It’s an exact copy of the EE 1.6.8 version with no new features added except (as mentioned last week) it now supports NSM Addon Updater.
First Timer allows you to point users to a specific URL upon their first login and the a different URL on subsequent logins. I plan to add more features (it still doesn’t support MSM) in the near future, as time allows.
Learn more about First Timer.
Blog Entry
This is a on-going series of entries where I highlight EE experiences.
After a brief update to a site with a different CMS, it’s nice to get back to working with ExpressionEngine. So logical and user friendly.
Matt Crest via Twitter
Blog Entry
It’s common knowledge that a lot of people take EE and push it beyond just typical CMS functionality. I’ve heard of it being used as a bug tracker, intranet tool, social networking site and more.
So, I want to see what you’re doing with EE. Are you using it mostly as a CMS or as a framework on which you build something bigger?
Let us know in the comments!
Blog Entry
In the next few months there are a couple of opportunities to gather with your fellow EE users, talk shop, learn some cool stuff and drink copious amounts of {your_favorite_beverage}.
SXSW Interactive - March 12-16
The annual gathering of internet nerds from around the world, SXSW is a broad technology conference. It takes place in hopefully warm and pleasant Austin, TX. This year they have agreed to host panel discussion on ExpressionEngine. Led by Kenny Meyers, with myself, Mark Huot, Brian Warren and Jenn Lukas, the ExpressionEngine 2.0: Total Domination! panel will cover, well, EE domination! Actually, we’ll be discussing cool things you can do with EE and share some of our experiences.
The panel takes place on Monday March 15th at 12:30 PM in Ballroom B.
ExpressionEngine Summit - March 30
An online-only conference that will feature a full day of speakers talk about ExpressionEngine. I’ll be speaking at this virtual event about advanced templating techniques.
EECI 2010 - May 31-June 2
The follow-up to last year’s inaugural event in Leiden, Netherlands takes place in San Francisco at the end of May. In short, EECI is the event for our community. If you have budget to attend any event, this is your baby.
The speaker list is features Rick Ellis, Leslie Camacho, Derek Allard and Derek Jones of EllisLab, Structure module creator Travis Schmeisser, Brandon Kelly, Leevi Graham and a lot more.
I hope to see you at one of these events!
Blog Entry
As I occasionally do in this space, I want to thank the fine people and companies who sponsor EE Insider through their advertisements. Unlike a lot of sites you visit and read regularly, EE Insider doesn’t bombard you with ads about hair care products, toothpaste or some other crap you don’t care about.
We do, however, accept advertisers that relate directly to your work with ExpressionEngine, like:
Thank you sponsors!
Blog Entry
Increasingly more and more people are using Twitter—instead of a feed—reader as a way to find news and information. To this note, I’ve started publishing out all of the latest EE Insider content to @eeinsider on Twitter.
The account will contain some tweets that aren’t about new content, but will be the majority of what will be posted. This is meant for people who prefer Twitter as their content aggregator.
If you want to keep up with the latest ExpressionEngine news, follow us on Twitter!
Blog Entry
We missed last week, but we’re back with another action-packed, fun-filled, heart-wrenching, time-traveling, black smoke-fighting episode of the EE Podcast. We were asked to talk about search in EE, so that’s what we did.
In this episode we have a conversation about searching ExpressionEngine content. We cover the default EE simple search, advanced search as well as some power tools that allow you to smartly and easily search your EE content.
The episode is 22 minutes of a search through search. Give it a listen!
Subscribe, download and listen to the EE Podcast.
Blog Entry
The popular FieldFrame fieldtype, nGen File Field, has finally reached its 1.0 release. Included in the release are bug fixes, improvements and a few new features:
- New feature: Hide existing file option
- New feature: Use/create low resolution thumbnails (lower memory usage). Found in FieldType Manager/FieldFrame settings.
- New feature: Respects upload location maximum image dimensions
- General speed/performance improvements
The new low resolution thumbnails feature is nice to see. I’ve had a few instances where the fieldtype used up the allotted PHP memory.
nGen File Field works on EE 1.6, is free and available now.
Blog Entry
In a sign that the EE 2 momentum is increasing, yet another developer has updated their add-ons for EE 2. This time it’s Newism and they’ve released two new add-ons for our delight and nerdy pleasure.
NSM Addon Updater
This new accessory (was an extension on 1.6.x) keeps you up-to-date on your installed EE add-ons. The add-on does explicitly have to support NSM Addon Updater but adding it is simple and quick. In just a few minutes I updated my First Timer extension to work with NSM Addon Update accessory.
Displaying an update to the First Timer extension.
NSM Live Look
NSM Live Look is the EE 2 version of the popular LG Live Look, which allows you to easily preview your entries before posting them live. I use LG Live Look here at EE Insider to preview every entry before it appears on the site.
Previewing an entry before posting to the blog.
Blog Entry
Over the last six months, Kenny has been instrumental in helping me keep this site alive and kicking while I was heads down finishing my book. He was responsible for the very popular ExpressionEngine 2 Week we put on last October and has been dutifully posting news and announcements—with wit and humor— since last Summer. Thank you, Kenny, for contributing to the site and the community! Security will escort you out of the building. —Ryan
What’s the Boyz II Men song? The one you all sing to yourself when you’re leaving a loved one? That’s right.. Motownphilly. Sing that while you read this heartfelt goodbye.
This is the end of my brief but fulfilling stint at EE Insider. Its been a real pleasure, a damn sincere pleasure to serve the EE community in this capacity. So as all self-important goodbye posts must go, I have to say my thanks in way too many characters.
I really want to extend my heartfelt love to the good people at EllisLab. I’m a pretty loud critic at times, even on this site sometimes, but whenever I’ve approached them with an interview or question they’ve been forthcoming. That kind of professionalism is really hard to find in such an ego-centric industry as the indie software front. Especially when the stakes are so low with something like a fan site. I’d especially like to thank el jeffe, Leslie Camacho for always being a good point man. I don’t always agree with their decisions, but they’ve built a hell of a community.
However, their community wouldn’t be half as strong as it is right now (nor as public) without the fine contributions of this site’s fearless, pale leader Mr. Irelan(d). There’s no side-stepping, Ryan took me on and subsequently helped my career. For this, I will always be extremely thankful and appreciative. He’s a smart, opportune, generous and great person. Its been an honor working with him and this site, brief as it is. So, Mr. Irelan(d), sincerely thank you. Buy his book.
The rest of you are pretty awesome too. Its been fun getting feedback and working on this little EE community.
So what’s next? I’m still working at Virb a job I love with good people. I’m also excited to start my freelance on the side business. Finally, you can hire me to help with your EE or CodeIgniter project and I’ll rock it. I’ll also be a sometime contributor to EE Insider.
So there you go. Thanks. *refresh to white screen*
Blog Entry
Lads & Ladies, it’s my finest honor to present: Your Weekly Devot:ee.
Thanks to Ryan “not Irelan” Masuga, for his work.
Blog Entry
Our favorite Dutch add-on developer that lives in a houseboat, Lodewijk Schutte, has released Low Reorder. It is an EE 2-compatible module and based on Elwin Zuiderverlds Reeorder module (which is still freely available for EE 1.6) but with some extra seasoning.
Low Reorder comes with a custom field type that is used to store the sort order of each entry. You can assign multiple Low Reorder fields to a field group, allowing for different orders for different uses. In addition to this, you can also filter sortable entries by status, category and expired/future entries.
Create a custom tab and then it’s never been easier for you or your clients to manage the ordering of content. Gone are the days of editing each entry individually.
Low Reorder is 12 Euros (about $16 US) and available now.
Blog Entry
SXSW got a little more funky-fresh this year, with the announcement of the EE/CI pre-party.
The premier ExpressionEngine and CodeIgniter Conference - and your cool friends from Ellislab invite you for a night out @ SXSW. Join us Monday night at The Library together with your friends from the EE & CI community. We’ll serve you beer and pizza and even give away some free tickets to the EECI2010 conference.
You can sign up for the party here but be quick, spots are limited!
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