Blog Entry
From the continent of Australia and the fine group of lads know as Newism, Anthony Short has written up a great overview of developing (ExpressionEngine) websites using Espresso.
I wrote about Espresso back in January while it was still in public beta. Version 1.0 is now available for download and purchase (59 Euros).
Anthony is the author of the ExpressionEngine Espresso sugar. What’s a sugar?
[A sugar is] a collection of files put together to form an Espresso plugin. They can do all sorts of wonderful things ranging from the simple - syntax highlighting and code completion - to super complex features such as the Cocoa API. The power given to developers is huge. Just about any feature that isn’t present, you could probably create with a Sugar.
Anthony’s Espresso sugar enables tag auto-completion, EE code snippets, syntax highlighting and more. Be sure to read the whole write-up.
Blog Entry
Hello, EE Insiders! There was no chat last week because I was traveling, but I’m back and so is the weekly EE Help Chat.
A group of ExpressionEngine developers, users and enthusiasts gather for an hour in an online chatroom to discuss EE and answer any questions people have. The group is comprised of people with different experience using EE, so if you’re new to EE and have a question, don’t be shy!
Learn all about the chat on the EE Help Chat page.
See you tonight in the chatroom.
Blog Entry
Solspace released a new extension today that allows you to easily track updates to any Solspace add-ons installed in your copy of ExpressionEngine. Solspace Software Update 1.0.0 is a free extension that displays a small widget on the homepage of the ExpressionEngine control panel (but you do have to enable it first by customizing your CP homepage).
The extension allows you to see updates, release notes, as well as gives you direct access to download links and documentation. It does not, however, install the updates for you. That still requires a download, upload and update.
The “Email list of updates” is a nice feature that gives someone the ability to easily alert their developer or tech support that there are updates that need to be downloaded and installed. The email is pre-filled with a subject line and body content containing all of the update details.
I downloaded and tested out this extension running EE 1.6.7. It worked as expected.
Blog Entry
Last week Rob Morris of Digitalmash put together a nice overview article, ExpressionEngine: Quick & dirty, which documented his experience as a new ExpressionEngine user.
Not surprisingly, Rob was confused by the “weblog” terminology that will be banished to the wasteland when EE 2.0 arrives:
In ExpressionEngine (pre 2.0) these groupings of information are called ‘weblogs’. Now this is a major source of confusion starting out, so if it helps you, think of them as ‘sections’ or ‘channels’. A weblog isn’t the whole blog in EE, it’s just a grouping of information. Of course, there are other things on my site that don’t fit into these 4 ‘weblogs’, but they’re ‘one off’ items like a contact form, for example, so we’ll leave them out for the moment.
Rob continues describing how he built the site, all the while having to fumble around with the terminology. This is exactly why I teach people to first change the term “weblog” to “section.” It makes much more sense to think of the content that way (and a lot to talk about it), especially since a lot of people use EE to build non-weblog websites.
It was nice to see Rob quickly pick up on the usefulness of embedded variables and all the things you can accomplish when you start passing them from template to template. Additionally, the recommendation of useful plugins is a great starting point for EE users looking to solve some very common problems.
One suggestion: to Rob’s list of Misc Handy Resources, I’d also add this site and my ExpressionEngine training videos.
Blog Entry
This is a on-going series of entries where I highlight EE experiences.
A bit overwhelmed by the power and flexibility of Expression Engine. (But in a good way.)
Garrett Dimon via Twitter.
Blog Entry
One of my biggest uncertainties about the EE 1.6.x to EE 2.0 transition was what would happen to EE 1.6.x. I was concerned about the transition as both someone who does client work with ExpressionEngine and has products based on ExpressionEngine.
I learned at SXSW that EE 1.6.7 would not go away but I wasn’t sure if this was public knowledge, so I didn’t say anything here on EE Insider. Well, on Friday on the EE Blog, EllisLab President Leslie Camacho made it official and public:
ExpressionEngine 1.6.7 will continue to be available for download and purchase after 2.0’s release. We view 2.0’s upcoming release as more of update to an operating system. EE 1.x has a significant install base and we estimate it will take a minimum of 2-3 years for the majority of the community to update. We will support 1.6.7 for a long time to come and we think it will remain a viable market for add-on developers for some time.
In other words, 1.6.7 is not going away. There is no reason to wait for 2.0 to get started. You can be safe knowing it will be supported for a long time and that the upgrade process will be straightforward. There will be no pressure from EllisLab to jump to 2.0 right away. Like 1.x before it, 2.0 will need to prove itself in the marketplace. We’re very confident it will.
This is great news for everyone. If you depend on certain add-ons that may not be immediately available (if at all) for EE 2.0, you can still continue to purchase and download EE 1.6.7 and develop your client sites using that version. This is also great news for third parties who are selling EE add-ons (Solspace, Leevi Graham) or learning resources (my own EE Screencasts, Mike Boyink’s Train-ee materials).
I always assumed that they would continue to offer security updates for EE 1.6.7 but it’s great to hear the software will still be available for purchase and download.
Blog Entry
SXSW Interactive has wound down and I’ve left Austin behind for another year. As usual, it was great to see many old SXSW friends and meet a lot of new ones. Most importantly, I was able to hang out with, talk to and share a few drinks with a lot of ExpressionEngine designers, developers and users. For me, the highlight of the conference was the EllisLab party at Moonshine Grill and the Solspace nightcap that followed (By the way, thanks to both EllisLab and Mitchell at Solspace for putting together several hours of excellent EE community interaction).
Another highlight, of course, was sitting down with some of the EllisLab team and walking through Kaylee, the development version of ExpressionEngine 2.0. In short, I’m very pleased. And I think you will be, too.
As a developer, the most exciting part to me is that EE 2.0 is built on CodeIgniter. Yes, the redesigned control panel is nice (it really is quite nice), but developing on EE and CodeIgniter at the same time means so much for level of comfort with the CMS and the ease of customizing it to fit the needs of clients.
I’m also very excited about Accessories. These are tabs that you can add to the bottom of the control panel page to include anything you want: documentation, dynamic data, video or contact information to name a few examples. I think Accessories are the new hotness of EE 2.0 and the one thing I think will become very, very popular in EE 2.0 and will quite possibly be a way to bring a new interface to existing data or even an alternate interface for other add-ons.
For non-developers using ExpressionEngine, you should be able to continue coding your EE templates as you always have (with the one syntax change from “weblog” to “channel”) and the information you’ve learned should mostly apply to your work in EE 2.0.
For the majority of the EE community, who couldn’t be at SXSW, I’m hopeful that EllisLab will put together some similar information online, so everyone can share in the experience of learning more about Kaylee.
So, what’s next? Currently, EllisLab is in the process of starting the Developer Preview of Kaylee, which will allow ExpressionEngine add-on developers the chance to learn more about the new version, how to code their add-ons to work on it and, most importantly, give them a head start so their add-ons are ready when EE 2.0 is ready. “Kaylee is strictly for developers to familiarize themselves with the new code base and begin add-on conversion.” Until more information is released, you can read through the existing FAQs on the EE 2.0 Sneak Preview page.
Blog Entry
This is a on-going series of entries where I highlight EE experiences.
I am amused at my development in ExpressionEngine… Do something one way… 2 days later find a much better way to do it…repeat.
Nicholas Rivera via Twitter.
Blog Entry
Designchuchi has released a new module that helps you better manage your templates. DC Template Manager “offers functions for bulk-updating templates either in the database based on the filesystem versions or vice versa.”
The three ways are: Files => Database, Database => Files and Delete all Saved Files.
I downloaded and tested this module and it works as expected. One word of warning is that anytime a module deletes anything, you should make a backup and proceed with caution.
DC Template Manager is a free download.
Blog Entry
Seed Magazine, a science print periodical and website has relaunched and is now powered by ExpressionEngine. It’s a must-read for anyone interested in science and technology.
Tim Murtaugh, the web developer at Seed Media Group, was kind enough to send me some insider information on how the site was created.
Why did you choose ExpressionEngine?
We chose ExpressionEngine mainly because of the flexible nature of the templating system, but also because of EE’s ability to completely customize the content input fields. This means that our editors are able to input their content without having to massage it or force it into place—there is a field for every piece of data associated with an article.
Can you give some insight as to how the site is built in EE?
Our EE installation is actually pretty standard—we didn’t have to install many add-ons to do what we wanted. The biggest add-on is the Tags module from Solspace, which does exactly what you think it would, and is exactly what we needed. I extended the functionality of the pages for each tag just a tad by calling in additional templates based on the tag name—this allows us to associate bits of extra content beyond just the tagged articles with each tag, as you can see here: http://seedmagazine.com/content/tag/research/
As for plugins, we’re using:
Extensions:
Each of the departments (World, Ideas, etc) are categories, and the
featured items on each departmental landing page (as well as everything on the home page except the list of departmental articles) are put in place by editors who assign article ID numbers to template variables.
It’s a great site and thanks to Tim for giving us an insider look!
Blog Entry
Last night I released a new screencast series called ExpressionEngine Techniques. Here’s what I wrote about it over on the EE Screencasts website:
The series starts off with two screencasts: Search Engine Optimization and Pulling in External Content.
In the Search Engine Optimization video tutorial, I cover some simple steps to optimize your EE-powered website for search engines using only the tools that come with ExpressionEngine.
In the Pulling in External Content video, I demonstrate how to display content from RSS feeds, as well as import the content as entries into your ExpressionEngine website.
The episodes in this series are stand-alone and each one will address a different technique you can use when developing your site with ExpressionEngine.
If you have any feedback or want to see a certain topic covered in a future episode of the series, please leave a comment or email me!
Instructional Video
In the Search Engine Optimization video tutorial, I cover some simple steps to optimize your EE-powered website for search engines using only the tools that come with ExpressionEngine. Learn how to create custom title tags and metadata per entry.
Get the Video
Instructional Video
In the Pulling in External Content video, I demonstrate how to display content from RSS feeds, as well as import the content as entries into your ExpressionEngine website using three free plugins.
Get the Video
Blog Entry
EE add-on developer (and EE Insider guest author) Brandon Kelly released today a beta of his new extension FieldFrame.
FieldFrame is more than just an extension, it’s a “framework for rapid development of fieldtype extensions.” FieldFrame makes it easy to build custom fieldtypes for the EE control panel publish form.
Normally, when you want to create a new fieldtype, you have to build an entire extension, usually redoing code that has been written a hundred times. With Brandon’s extension/framework you only have to write the minimal amount of code to get your fieldtype working in ExpressionEngine.
Brandon mentioned to me that a certain prolific developer redid an extension as a FieldFrame Fieldtype and ended up writing 1/6 of the code. That’s some serious savings!
Since I like to test everything I post here on EE Insider, I created a simple Fieldtype called RI States Select, which gives you a custom drop-down field with all 50 states in the US.
This is a great extension—a true developer’s tool—and hopefully Brandon will support this through the EE 2.0 transition.
The extension is in beta, currently free for anyone to download and try out.
Blog Entry
New England-based webshop, Slim Kiwi, posted a list of reasons that they prefer to use ExpressionEngine for content management.
They also have a good attitude when it comes to evaluating a project and picking a necessary CMS:
ExpressionEngine’s our recommendation. If a client or prospect comes to us with another platform as a requirement and we think we’re equipped to make that project a success, we’re not ideologues who will rule that out. We build custom applications and platforms where appropriate as well. If you’re looking for our choice on a robust platform that can be tailored to your needs with a modest amount of effort, EE’s our answer.
Their No. 5 reason for using EE is my favorite: Community.
Blog Entry
Starter Fluid is a collection of ExpressionEngine themes that includes some basic CSS structure (using various CSS layout techniques or the Blueprint or 960 CSS frameworks).
To download a theme, just choose the layout you want, choose the weblog name and template group name and then download the theme. You should receive a zip file, which you’ll want to unzip and install using the instructions in the EE documentation.
This may be a useful resource for people looking to get a jump start when beginning a new ExpressionEngine-powered website.
Blog Entry
SXSW Interactive gets underway this weekend in Austin, TX and I know that many EE designers and developers will be in town for the annual tech conference. EllisLab will also be there, hosting their 3rd annual gathering for the EE community.
The EE Insider Guide to SXSWi is here to help you find your way and plan your time in Austin. First, I want to share with you some tips on getting the most out of SXSW and then highlight some panels and events that may be of interest to ExpressionEngine developers and designers.
SXSW EE Insider Tips
Some advice for SXSWi attendees:
- Bring business cards. Old school, yes, but also very practical.
- Leave your laptop in your hotel room and bring a notebook and pen instead. This will allow you to listen to the sessions and not be distracted. Plus, who wants to lug around a big bag all day long?
- Go to at least one session that is about something you know absolutely nothing about. You might be surprised.
- Pass on the large, official evening parties and instead find a small group of people to have drinks or dinner with. You will get much more out of a small dinner with than you will during a screaming conversation at the Frog Design party.
EE Insider Picks of the Panels
I went through the SXSW schedule and picked out some sessions that I thought would be of interest to the EE community.
EE Insider Party and Goodies Guide
There are some event planned just for the EE community. You should make every effort to attend these and meet your fellow EE enthusiasts!
Blog Entry
In anticipation of EE 2.0, I’m going to start covering some CodeIgniter news and software.
Jamie Rumbelow released the CodeIgniter Digg API Library today.
My new library, creatively titled “Digg API Library” allows you to hook into Digg’s API and pull stories, topics, photos and user data via Digg’s API.
It works as a standalone class too - CodeIgniter is not required.
The library is available in a Github repository or from Jamie’s website.
Blog Entry
If you’ve been wanting to spice up the template editor textarea in the EE control panel, you might want to check out CM Template Editor. One of the nice things about it is that it will add line numbers to the textarea.
The extension uses the EditArea javascript, which you’ll need to download separately.
If you like to edit templates in the browser (or want to make it easier for your clients to do so), this might be an extension you want to check out.
(Thanks to Sean Smith for the link via Twitter.)
Blog Entry
New to EE? Need help with an EE site you’re working on? Join us tonight for EE Help Chat.
A group of ExpressionEngine developers, users and enthusiasts gather for an hour in an online chatroom to discuss EE and answer any questions people have. People of all levels of experience are welcome. Don’t be shy!
Learn all about the chat on the EE Help Chat page.
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