EllisLab has posted their bi-weekly blog post and like all EE blog posts it is revealing without the full monty. They focus on a process called SCRUM, an agile development method, which is actually a fantastic way to handle development (yours truly has been on a SCRUM team and found it to be excellent). It’s a good post, with a great SCRUM video, and one which Mr. Camacho slyly slips in this little tidbit:
I am happy to report that the Simple Commerce Module and the Discussion Forum will be ready for Beta2 as planned.
So for those of you in the ExpressionEngine Professionals Network, you’ve got a nice little treat coming soon. For the rest, there is still no public beta release date.
Always great to spread the good news. You? You’ve known for years you {switch="strong confidant man|beautiful intelligent woman"} with your {switch="chiseled jaw|smooth skin"} and {switch="short well-kept hair|beautiful long flowing hair"}.
@cardeo I’m in love with ExpressionEngine great docs and awesome support forum, great plugins and addons, I think you would love it Matt #EE
Stephen Lewis of Experience Internet has been writing an excellent series on using ExpressionEngine with Git.
...I’ve yet to see a proper discussion about best practises for managing an ExpressionEngine site with git.
This series of posts is my attempt to fill that gap, by documenting how I use git to manage ExpressionEngine websites. My goal is to start a conversation on this topic, from which we can all (myself included) benefit.
There’s more to come in the future, and we’ll be sure to post about it when they’re published. This is an excellent series by one of EE’s best extension developers.
I often see questions on the ExpressionEngine Forums regarding photo galleries. In EE Version 2.0 the Photo Gallery module by EllisLab is going to be discontinued but there are some other reasons for using Weblogs instead of the Photo Gallery Module.
We’re starting a new weekly update here at EE Insider. This year, Ryan Masuga of Masuga Design launched the incredible Devot:ee. It took a tremendous amount of effort on his behalf to create a place where add-on authors could submit their extensions, etc. and not fade into the EE forums never to be seen again. Every week, Ryan posts new extensions and add-ons that authors have created and added to his site. Therefore, each week we’ll be updating you on which add-ons have been added to the site. You can and should support Ryan’s efforts by becoming devoted which we recommend.
Here are the latest add-ons added to the Devot:ee database:
EE Insider Tips relies on you the reader to contribute it. The more thorough and more jam-packed it gets, the better it serves our community. Learned something interesting lately? Found a great plugin and an interesting way to use it? Have a common set of steps you use to find or solve a specific problem? Post it on Tips, and if it’s great we’ll feature the tip, yourself, and your respective company here on EE Insider.
El presidente, Leslie Camacho, updated the ExpressionEngine blog yesterday with some news on the EE Roadshow’s speakers and Ellislab’s respective role:
I’ll be going into detail about the philosophy behind 2.0, what we’re accomplishing with it, what the future of the CMS looks like from our perspective, and the opportunities it presents for web professionals. Rick and Lisa, meanwhile, will be hanging out and sharing food and beer with everyone (the benefits of being the CEO and contributing over 30,000 posts to the forums respectively).
It seems like Leslie got the short end of the stick this time around. But, you’ll be able to enjoy beer and food with him eventually.
Are you stuck on a problem implementing your website in ExpressionEngine? Would you like some assistance from a group of nice and helpful EE users?
Well, then the EE Help Chat is for you. We gather every Wednesday evening at 9PM (USA EDT) and talk about ExpressionEngine and help each other with any EE questions or problems.
The crowd is usually mixed between experience EE users and those brand new to the CMS. We welcome everyone, no matter your skill level.
Tomorrow is the last day to purchase early bird tickets for the EE Roadshow. This is your chance to meet the great people of Ellislab and word on the street is some excellent EE developers as well. You also get a chance to hear Mr. Ryan Irelan, fearless leader of EE Insider and lead developer of Happy Cog West (ed. or HappyBagACog), speak.
What is the EE Roadshow?
The EE Roadshow is a traveling conference designed to bring together experts and users to learn ExpressionEngine techniques and share insider tips about this incredible CMS.
The ExpressionEngine forums are a very popular destination for all sorts of problems and issues. Over time, however, things get lost in the mix. Extensions, plugins, helpful tips: Not all are available easily in search results. This, and many other great reasons, are why we bring you: In the Forums
Forum user chronistin was struggling, like many do, with SAEF.
For a new project which makes excessive use of custom fields, I need the ability to
1.) Add and edit content from the frontend
2.) Customize the frontend forms (i.e. using the standard custom fields tag won’t work)
There was one major problem: she couldn’t “figure out how to get the values for the entry fields that have been defined as dropdown.” As with many of the downtrodden, sad and frustrated people that find their way to the EE forums, someone stepped in to help her. The result is the excellent Pops plugin.
To see usage examples and sample code, view wecreateyou’s excellent follow-up post.
We’ve all run into scenarios with ExpressionEngine where we need to protect content from being accessed by users. There have been a lot of great recent developments on this front. First, an update of Linklocker (which we have not tested here) and now Keighl.com has an article on Using Protected Images in ExpressionEngine. Warning: Involves PHP.
Here’s a taste:
Here’s what we do. As long you’ve got an image library on your server (like GD, or ImageMagik), you can hide the real path to the images, and avoid the separate login box. Instead of an absolute or relative path to the image in the src parameter, just send it to a secret script that creates the image.
Poor Keighl is about to get an email from Leslie Camacho in regards to the space between Expression and Engine: it’s just the kind of service EllisLab offers. We vote to give them a pass this time for the article.
Update: Keighl has corrected the spelling. Calling off the dogs. The terrible irony being of course, we misspelled his name! Two for two today with names. My sincere apologies to you Keighl.
A modal box is a JavaScript driven dialogue box that “pops over” a page’s content. It is not a separate popup window, so it won’t be blocked by a user’s browser. Perhaps most importantly, a modal box requires the user to interact with it before the user can do anything else on the page.
If you’re a designer wondering which CMS to use and are considering ExpressionEngine, Jonathan is very convincing. After watching this, if you’re convinced, learn how to use it.*
The Navigator Module was recently updated to 1.3. This module creates custom navigation groups (such as sidebar navigation, main navigation etc.) to various entry and template types. It’s wonderfully complete in its implementation and provides a great mechanism for easy client control of navigation without entering the templates.
Some of its other features are:
- custom ordering of items
- ordering by title and even tite length (number of characters in the item’s title)
- sorting (asc, desc)
- alternating row colors (switch parameter)
- advanced conditionals
You can download the extension in this thread in the EE Forums and find a little more information about the extension and its developer at the excellent Devot-ee page. As with all add-ons on this site, it’s been tested on my local machine with the latest build of ExpressionEngine.
As announced previously, I’ve joined the ranks here at EE Insider. One of the first things Ryan and I discussed was creating a news funnel where people could submit news to us so we can broadcast it to the community. One of our goals is to be the central source of ExpressionEngine news, and we can’t do it without your help. So we decided to rectify this situation with an open call for any/all EE related news. Send us an email at tips@eeinsider.com.
Here’s a sample of what we’re looking for:
New or interesting extensions you’ve used
Major updates or major changes to great extensions
CodeIgniter information, useful to EE developers
Your latest ExpressionEngine site to potentially be featured here
Anything you think is ExpressionEngine news-worthy
Don’t be shy, we love hearing from you. Again, the email is tips@eeinsider.com, and we hope to hear from you soon.
Our community is fortunate to have a growing selection of conferences geared towards ExpressionEngine and CodeIgniter. I want to bring to your attention two conferences that might interest you (and where I’ll be speaking).
EE Roadshow
In its second year, the EE Roadshow will be held in Seattle on Friday October 2, 2009. Here’s their pitch to you:
Come and learn, share your stories and be a part of the growing community of passionate ExpressionEngine users. The demand for ExpressionEngine sites is growing, and in just one day you can become a better developer or a more efficient user.
I will one of a handful of speakers at the conference, which includes EllisLab President Leslie Camacho who will speak on “EE 2.0 & The Future of Content Management Systems.”
Until August 7th you can purchase a ticket for only $199, which includes breakfast, lunch and an after party.
I hope to see you in Seattle in October!
EECI 2009
I’m also pleased to be speaking at EECI 2009, the first ExpressionEngine CodeIgniter conference being held in Leiden, The Netherlands.
The conference takes place from October 22-23 2009. The first day will be packed with talks from some really great minds in the community. I’m humbled to be among them, for sure. The second day will be filled with nine different workshops to help you fine tune your EE or CI skills.
I think the early bird discount expired today, but there’s still room to register, so please consider coming!
A little news about the EE Insider website for you on a Friday afternoon.
Starting on Monday August 3, Kenny Meyers will be blogging here at EE Insider, covering EE news, events and technology. Kenny will be taking over the day-to-day blogging while I will focus more on how-to articles, videos and other cool stuff that I hope you will enjoy. With Kenny on staff, you should now see even more useful articles and videos from EE Insider (and EE Screencasts).
Kenny has been a guest author at EE Insider on several occasions, having written the tutorial on building a CodeIgniter application and the Gentle Introduction to CodeIgniter. I asked him if he’d be interested in joining the team in an official capacity and he kindly agreed. I’m excited to have him blogging in this space.
Kenny works as a developer for the awesome people at Virb and you can follow his personal shenanigans over at his website Happy Magic Fun Time.
A lot of you already know Kenny from his activity within the community, but I hope you’ll welcome him to the EE Insider team.
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