How-to Article
As part of this site and other development work, I find myself testing a lot of EE add-ons. I also work on my own add-ons. For both of these activities it’s required to have a local install of ExpressionEngine, configured just how I like it. I call it my EE Sandbox, a place where I can play in EE. I had been creating my sandbox manually each time I needed to refresh it, but that quickly became too much work each and every time I needed to start over.
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Blog Entry
Launched about a month ago, Rorotoko is a website that brings together authors to “promote and discuss their own work.” The site was designed and developed by Erwin Heiser (known as e-man in the EE forums). In a forum post Erwin shared a little about how the site was built:
I used Solspace‘s Freeform and Tags modules, a few of Leevi Grahams extensions (Social bookmarking, Add sitename + his BigTarget jquery plugin on the frontpage), the wonderful Playa extension by Brandon Kelly and the Yearly Archive plugin by Low.
A bit of custom coding was needed for the “most mailed” feature on the frontpage and for having the comments on the second part of a paginated article. [links added by me]
Be sure to read the whole forum post from Erwin.
Blog Entry
This is a on-going series of entries where I highlight EE experiences.
If it wasn’t for ExpressionEngine, I would have given up building websites a long time ago
Geof Harries via Twitter.
Honestly the more I use ExpressionEngine, the less I want to ever use it again in the future
joshourisman via Twitter
Blog Entry
The productive developer of EE add-ons, Leevi Graham, has released yet another exceptional extension: NSM Publish Plus. What is it? Quite simply, Publish Plus allows you to create real editorial workflow inside of the EE control panel. You can assign weblogs per member, submit draft entries for approval, add notes to each entry, get notified when an entry is submitted or changes state and a lot more.
The extension is compatible with the Multiple Site Manager and is easy to install and configure but does require one important core hack.
I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to test this extension for about the last week and can say that it works as described. I’m excited about using this on a future project. The functionality this extensions brings to EE will most likely put it into the class of Solspace’s User Module: a must-have add-on for almost every large project.
NSM Publish Plus is normally $149.95, but Leevi is currently selling it for $89.95.
Instructional Video
The Blacklist/Whitelist module ships with EE Core, EE Personal and EE Commercial and is a first line of defense against comment spammers, trackback spammers and referrer spammers. You can add IP Addresses, URLs and User Agents to allow or deny visitors from commenting, sending a trackback or even visiting your website. Watch this short video as I walk through the Blacklist/Whitelist Module.
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Blog Entry
This will be a regular feature where I highlight an interesting EE Forums thread and ask for your input.
Kevin Smith posted to the forums asking how you can display only the expired entries:
I need to be able to show entries that are expired, but ONLY entries that are expired. In my sidebar, I’ve got a “Current Event” link and a “Past Events” list. This is for an art gallery, and there is only one exhibition at a time, but there may be times where there isn’t an exhibition at all, so I can’t just use the offset parameter for the past events list.
Kevin was able to get it working with PHP but it’s fairly convoluted (his description). Anyone have a different approach?
How-to Article
If ExpressionEngine doesn’t do exactly what you need it to, don’t worry. The developers of EE have created a way to extend and customize ExpressionEngine using EE Add-ons. Add-ons are small pieces of software that you download and install and which allow you to add features to ExpressionEngine without any programming knowledge or altering the core application files.
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Blog Entry
As part of his classroom-style ExpressionEngine training, Mike Boyink of Train-ee is hosting an informal meet-up for all EE-loving peeps in the San Antonio, TX area. It’s next Thursday January 22nd and starts at 6:30 PM. Mike is going to provide food, beer and soft drinks. You bring yourself (and your laptop, if you’d like).
Read Mike’s forum post for all of the details.
Blog Entry
This is a on-going series of entries where I highlight EE experiences.
Man I really love working in expressionengine. It works just the way I want it to.
Dan Diemer via Twitter.
Blog Entry
Dave Rencher of Lumis.com has released a very cool new plugin called EE Twitter Search. Unlike other Twitter-related add-ons, EE Twitter Search allows you specify what type of tweets show up in your template. For example, you can pass a query for “expressionengine” and the plugin will return recent tweets that mention “expressionengine.” You can also only display tweets from a specific user, by hash tag (e.g. #sxsw), tweets that are to a user (@somebody) or that reference a user.
And, yes, it supports caching, too. Here’s the code I tested to display the latest tweets that mention “expressionengine:”
{exp:twitter_search:find q="expressionengine" convert_url="yes"}
{from_user}: {text}
{/exp:twitter_search:find}
The convert_url parameter converts all URLs in tweets to linked URLs when given the value of “yes.” Very handy.
I tested this plugin and it works as described, however, I did run into one problem where the refresh parameter would cause the tweets to not show up. I’ve not yet found a workaround, but plan to report it to the developer.
How-to Article
If you’ve implemented the Simple Search Form before, you’ve probably come across this. For me, it’s the small thing that I usually forget until I go to test some search terms to make sure the search functionality is working as expected and the results have the proper URLs.
So what am I talking about?
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Blog Entry
Leslie from EllisLab posted a thoughtful and no-fluff comment on my When’s 2.0 Coming? post from Tuesday.
Be sure to read the whole thing, but here’s a highlight:
We expected some press and hype, but not to the extent that it reached. We were blown away by just how well known EE was and the anticipation for 2.0 took us completely by surprise. We knew our the loyal forum crew would want it, but immediate pressure from complete strangers took us by surprise. From that moment we tried to rein it in but that was a lost cause.
Blog Entry
Newly launched LogoGala archives all sorts of logos as a source of information and design inspiration. The site is powered by ExpressionEngine and was built by Deron Sizemore.
I asked Deron to share some of the EE details of the site. Here’s his response (edited by me for space):
One weblog for “featured” designs and general “gallery” designs.
Initially I started out development with a featured weblog and a gallery weblog. The featured weblog would hold the “featured” designs and the “gallery” weblog would hold all of the designs not featured. The more I thought about it, the less I liked the idea. So, I went with one weblog called “gallery” and am only showing the featured designs where needed using the weblog entries “search” parameter.
To start, I needed one additional custom field in the gallery weblog. This custom field would be a drop down list field type, would have two values (yes and no) and would ask the question “Is this design a featured design?” Then, if I wanted to show only the featured designs from the gallery, all I would need is to add this parameter to my opening weblog entries tag: search:gallery_featured=”=Yes” That parameter will search the gallery weblog for the “gallery_featured” custom field and all designs with a value of “Yes” in this custom field will be shown.
Display Popular Entries from the Gallery
To display the popular gallery entries on the homepage and in the sidebar of the internal pages, I’m using the track views feature in EE. The track views feature is a very simple way to keep track of how many views a single entry template receives. So, in my case, on the /gallery/details/ page which is the single entry template for the gallery I needed to make use of this track view feature. In the opening weblog entries tag on my single entry page I used the parameter: track_views=“one”
From there, to actually display the “most popular” list, you need to simply display a list of entries using normal weblog entries tags and be sure to orderby=“view_count_one” like this:
{exp:weblog:entries weblog=“gallery” disable=”{weblog_disable}|pagination|categories" orderby="view_count_one" limit="10" dynamic="off"}
Visit: Fresh Logo Design Inspiration: LogoGala
Blog Entry
Tonight is another installment of the weekly EE Help Chat where a bunch of EE professionals, beginners and enthusiasts gather for an hour to talk shop and share tips.
Typically, people will ask questions of the group in an effort to solve some problem they’re having. So, if you’re struggling with something EE-related, please consider joining us. There are no dumb questions and people of all skill levels are welcome.
The chat takes place at 9 PM Eastern (US). Use this URL to get access to the chatroom shortly before 9: http://eescreencasts.com/go-chat
More info about the EE Help Chat (and some of the transcripts) can be found on the new EE Help Chat page of this site.
Blog Entry
This site has been live for about a week and I think it’s time I addressed the whole “OMG where’s EE 2.0?” conversation that intermittently surfaces in the EE forums and other places, like Twitter. I want to walk through the facts of the situation and put to bed any misunderstandings. All of the information I’ll be talking about is publicly available and I’ll link up the sources.
Element of Surprise
I’ve heard some conjecture that EE 2.0 will be released any day now, like there will be some element of surprise to the release. This just isn’t true. The official ExpressionEngine 2.0 Preview page has a series of FAQs and the first one puts this misconception to rest. I’m going to quote the whole answer, just to make it clear:
ExpressionEngine 2.0 will be released when its done! However, the release will not be a surprise. Currently we plan to release 2.0 in three phases. First, there will be a Developer Preview for EE Add-on Developers. The primary purpose of this release is to give EE add-on developers the time they need to update their add-ons for 2.0. Second, there will be a invitation beta. The purpose of the beta will be to stress test 2.0 in a wide variety of situations. And third will be the official public release.
The Developer Preview and Beta are not available yet. We’ll announce their availability on the EE Blog along with instructions on how to apply for the Preview and Beta programs. The actual release date of 2.0 will depend on the length of the Preview and Beta programs. [emphasis mine]
Pretty clear, I think.
Should I wait until EE 2.0 to build my site?
This question has been asked numerous times in the forums and the answer is always the same: if you need to build your website now, build it with the tools that are available now.
This is also the case if you’re waiting (or hoping) for a certain feature to be in EE 2.0 that you can use. The 2.0 FAQs addressed the question of 2.0 features and that’s all that has been announced. Don’t plan your website (or business) on unknown features of unreleased software.
Should I wait until EE 2.0 to learn ExpressionEngine?
A variant on the previous question, this one is also frequently asked. I’m asked it occasionally when someone is looking to purchase my EE Screencasts series of training videos.
It’s a genuine and well-founded concern; no one wants to invest time and money into resources that won’t benefit them with the next software release. The fact is, however, that the concepts you’ll learn in my ExpressionEngine training videos, as well as many other EE tutorials, will still be valid in EE 2.0—most especially template development. EllisLab has stated more than once that they see EE 2.0 as an upgrade, not a migration. While there will be a redesigned control panel, you shouldn’t expect to have to re-learn how to build EE sites.
So, if you need to learn EE now, learn it now.
Why is 2.0 taking so long?
It’s taking longer than expected. No one wants a half-finished release, just to have it. I certainly don’t want to build client sites on an incomplete version of EE. So, we need to wait until they’re done and satisfied with the product. As Rick Ellis says:
This has been a huge project for us, so we need to get it right. Rushing it to market before it’s ready would be irresponsible, so we ask that you give us a bit more time. We promise the wait will be worth it.
What do you think, Ryan?
I’m just as excited about EE 2.0 as everyone else. I await its release with anticipation and look forward to working with CodeIgniter while working with EE. It will be good for client work and it will, of course, give me a lot to write about in this space.
With that said, we should also keep some perspective. We already have a great CMS in the EE 1.6 branch. Along with it we already have a vast resource of EE add-ons that can solve many of the challenges you may face while building a site on ExpressionEngine. So, it’s not like we’re all unable to do our work without EE 2.0.
It’s just that EE 2.0 will make it all that much sweeter.
Blog Entry
First of all, I want to thank the many people that have emailed, commented here and elsewhere with their feedback and suggestions. Lots of great ideas out there and I think you all rock.
One of the questions I received more than once was why I didn’t have a way to donate to the site or how you could support EE Insider to keep it thriving and relevant.
Well, I think it’s up to me to keep it relevant and thriving. However, there are ways you can support EE Insider:
- Tell people about it. Send your co-workers or other EE users a link to this site or to individual articles using the Email link at the bottom of every article and blog post. It’s also easy to post links to articles to Twitter and Delicious.
- Suggest topics you’d like to see covered. I want to write about stuff that you’ll find interesting, useful and helpful.
- Recommend or purchase my popular EE training videos.
- Advertise your product or services on the site.
Have another idea? Get in touch.
Blog Entry
This is a on-going series of entries where I highlight EE experiences.
I keep rewriting things in ExpressionEngine because I keep finding even simpler ways to do things. It’s getting kind of ridiculous. <3 EE.
camerondaigle via Twitter.
Blog Entry
This one is from this past Summer, but I want to highlight it in case you haven’t come across it.
One of my favorite types of projects with ExpressionEngine is taking an existing website and moving it to EE without changing anything on the front-end. It’s a challenge to make the front-end of the site exactly the same while completely taking the rug out from under the back-end and replacing it with EE. I did that with my personal blog last year and Adam Khan did it with the very popular blog Subtraction (published by Khoi Vinh, Design Director at NYTimes.com).
Adam goes into a lot of detail about the challenges he faced and the solutions he used. It’s worth a read because his approach and solutions may help you with your next EE project.
Blog Entry
nGen Works (creators of the Structure module) have released a new extension called Publish Tweeks.
Here’s what it does:
Publish Tweeks alters the publish/edit page to streamline it for your users. It removes the “Quick Save” and “Preview” buttons when publishing. It also cancels the redirect to the preview after saving and keeps the user on the edit screen. No more lame preview!
I installed it in my testing sandbox and it did work as described except that I got a PHP Notice for an Undefined index: data and for some reason having both it and LG Add Sitename (a default extension in my EE sandbox) threw a PHP memory error. This was happening under MAMP and I did not test it elsewhere, so this may have been limited to my testing environment.
Blog Entry
This is a on-going series of entries where I highlight EE experiences.
Freelance site done. From design to full EE build in 1 day. Thank you ExpressionEngine and 960 grid!
Jack McDade via Twitter.
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