Blog Entry
Earlier this week EllisLab released ExpressionEngine 2.7, which includes the new Grid field type, New Relic support, Markdown parsing, and more.
There is already information posted about these additions to ExpressionEngine but here’s a quick recap.
Grid, a new field type that makes it simple to include tabular data in a single field, is essentially a native implementation of Pixel & Tonic’s Matrix add-on. I will leave it up to Pixel & Tonic and EllisLab to convince you which you should use (I personally prefer Matrix). It is encouraging that EllisLab is starting to add features and make the out-of-the-box experience of ExpressionEngine more complete for how people are using their software in 2013. However, the way they went about it wasn’t exactly ideal.
New Relic, a service that makes application performance monitoring services, also gets support in ExpressionEngine 2.7. In order to use this feature you do need a New Relic account. This is very much a nod in the direction of the upper scale enterprise market.
Markdown, my favorite way of writing text for the web (and how I’m writing this post), also gets some attention in EE 2.7. Previously, you had to use the excellent Smartdown add-on from Experience Internet but those add-ons have been set free and are no longer maintained or supported. Markdown is now a native formatting option so there’s no need to install another add-on to get that functionality. Very nice.
There’s more in EE 2.7, too. Read the entire blog post by EllisLab] to get the scoop.
So, should you upgrade now? Well, that’s tough to answer.
I always wait a bit before updating so I can let some bugs shake out. EllisLab’s releases have gotten a lot better compared to earlier releases of EE 2, however there could still be bugs in there that haven’t been caught. Be careful and always back up.
Over at Mijingo I am running ExpressionEngine but I try to keep slightly behind the current version because it’s ecommerce and, well, I’d rather not have a bug interrupt my customers’ ability to get the learning materials they need.
Evaluate your situation, carefully measure and assess the risk involved in upgrading and then make your choice.
Blog Entry
- Latest Tweets ($) by Andrew Biggart (Peppermint Soda)
Twitters API v1.0 has now been retired. This plugin allows you to pull your latest tweets from Twitter using PHP and OAuth.
- Red Carrot Notes by Red Carrot
Add a visual separator in the entry edit screen to break up field groups without relying on tabs. You can customise the colour and add as many as you want in a channel.
- Simplified Social Sharing by LoginRadius
Let your users share via their accounts on popular social networks such as Facebook, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn, Vkontakte and over 80 more! Just install this FREE plugin to enable Social Sharing on your ExpressionEngine Site.
- SafeCracker HTML5 Attributes by Jason Varga
Adds support for HTML5 attributes on a SafeCracker form tag.
- Caution Tape by Jason Varga
Prevent destructive changes to your production site by mistake by adding some caution tape and an environment label to the top of your control panel.
- Pages to Table by Nicholas Cheek
Takes your serialized and encoded pages URI and combines the page id and page title in a seperate table to make that information easier to use. This extends the Pages and Structure Module.
Blog Entry
In many places around the world it’s that time of year when you change gears from summer fun to back to school and learning. Even if you aren’t in school yourself or have kids that are, you probably know the feeling that the end of summer brings: time to get serious again about everything you want to accomplish this year.
Mijingo is packed with stuff for web designers and developers just like you. Use the coupon BACKTOSCHOOL when you check out, you will get 20% off your purchase.
This special coupon code is only good until Friday August 30th 2013. Load up on some courses right now.
A recommended course for everyone: Low’s Building an ExpressionEngine Add-on.
ExpressionEngine Add-on Developer of the Year Lodewijk Schutte teaches you how he develops his award-winning plugins, modules and extensions. In more than one hour of video, Low walks you step-by-step through his add-on development process.
It’s a wonderful way to learn add-on development from someone who makes his living from add-on development.
The sale is only until Friday, so don’t procrastinate!
Blog Entry
There are only a couple more weeks left to register for this year’s ExpressionEngine Conference and to still be eligible for the early bird gifts from EllisLab.
We have a small reward for those who register early. If you register for ExpressionEngine Conference 2013 by Friday, September 6, you will receive two free gifts upon arrival courtesy of EllisLab. To claim your reward, simply forward your conference registration receipt to team@ellislab.com.
(I’m thinking a new car for everyone. Oprah style.)
This year’s conference takes place in wonderfully quirky Portland, OR. See you there?
Register for the conference
Blog Entry
I’m a little late getting this one posted but tomorrow (today!) is the Londoneers meetup at The Bell Pub.
This meetup features John Baxter on the topic [](Running EE on Vagrant with Puppet
The big man from Essex, John Baxter, will be giving us a low down on running EE on Vagrant using Puppet, plus how does he get his EE installs out of the box so quickly?
How do you deal with working local and them shifting to a production environment?
If you have your own tips and tricks for getting and EE install done in minutes, not hours, bring them along for tonight’s MeetUp.
RSVP for the meetup
Blog Entry
Change. It happens. And how you manage that change dictates success, whether personal or professional. For the very first episode of CTRL+CLICK CAST, Emily and Lea discuss the podcast’s transition to the new brand. From communication to branding to design and development, they share the decisions made and the priorities that dictated those decisions. Lea also discusses moving from LeaLea Design to Emily Lewis Design, sharing how she effectively transitioned her brand and clients. Tune in now!
Thanks to ConvergeFL for sponsoring!
Blog Entry
- Lockit by Pete Eveleigh
Lockit is a simple Accessory that allows you to lock a field down to prevent further editing.
Blog Entry
Bold, a studio based in central coast California (which would, perhaps, also be referred to as “paradise”) recently launched a new ExpressionEngine-powered website for Real Time Genomics, a genome analytics company.
From Bold’s portfolio:
Amazing wouldn’t be a strong enough word to describe what Real Time Genomics is doing. They are on the forefront of analyzing raw data for leading biological researchers. When they approached Bold about bringing their website up to par with their work, we jumped at the opportunity. RTG had a complete skeleton for a site and we dove in to produce new wireframes, design and ultimately a finished site powered by our favorite CMS, ExpressionEngine. We’re super proud with how this one turned out.
Read about the project or visit the live site.
Blog Entry
This is a on-going series of entries where I highlight EE experiences.
Blog Entry
How add-on developers do support has always been different depending on the developer. Some use forums (like EllisLab did before switching to private tickets), other use just email, and some use other services like Get Satisfaction or the Devot:ee developer support forums.
Solspace has always used forums to handle their customer support and they’ve realized that it is no longer the right solution for them.
In 2007, we chose to run with a discussion forum style approach for providing support, and it’s been running that way to this day. I think it’s very fair to say that this approach didn’t scale well, and we’re a little behind today on how we provide support.
What’s the new way?
As of today, we are no longer providing support through the Solspace support forums (we’ll continue to finish up assisting customers with open issues, and the forums will continue to be publicly available as read-only). Instead, we’re embracing the ExpressionEngine® Answers site as the official site for posting “how-to” questions you may have regarding Solspace software. We will be actively engaging in the ExpressionEngine® Answers site and assist customers where we can.
In addition to answering help questions at Stack Exchange (ExpressionEngine Answers), Solspace also made available private support tickets that you can open if you are encountering a bug or issue with their software. If you are asking about implementation suggestions or questions, sometimes the fastest way may be to post to Stack Exchange and others in the community can help you, too.
Read the full Solspace announcement for all of the details.
Blog Entry
- MSM Site Select by Rein de Vries
This little Fieldtype adds a dropdown for selecting a MSM site. This way you can create a MSM site where the content editor can select on which site the content is visible. Supports Matrix, LV, Grid and Content Elements.
- Photo Frame Text Pack ($) by Objective HTML
The Text Pack adds a new button that allows users to create text labels that overlay photos. The Text Pack integrates with Google Fonts to provide you with the most robust and elegant library of fonts.
- Photo Frame Meta Pack ($) by Objective HTML
The Meta Pack adds an additional button to toolbar to your existing Photo Frame install that allows you to read the EXIF (meta) data that is associated with the photo. The EXIF data is created by the camera or application used to render the photo. Photo Frame will read and store this data, and give you the ability to output in the template with new tags.
- Entry Exporter ($) by Michael Rog
Entry Exporter allows you to package up an entry as a flat file, along with any attached/included images, and export it as a folder or ZIP file on your server. You can tweak options like entry ID, template, format, filenames, etc., via your config file (for defaults) or the ACT URL (for ad hoc exports).
- SEOverride ($) by Drez Design
The SEOverride module is a single-page, AJAX-based control panel for managing the title and meta tags for any URL on your Expression Engine powered website.
- Breadcrumbs from URL lite (free version) by Nicholas Cheek
This is a lite version of breadcrumbs from URL. Takes your current URL, excluding your domain, and places a breadcrumb trail for your users to follow.
- Mustash ($) by Mark Croxton
Mustash is an ExpressionEngine control panel module for managing cached Stash variables, bundles and cache-breaking rules. It’s the perfect companion to Stash.
- Is Message Read? by Yuri Salimovskiy (IntoEEtive)
ExpressionEngine plugin to check whether PM in ‘sent’ folder is read by recipient
- Store Address Lists by Peter Lewis
Displays Country and Region lists for use outside of Exp:resso Store checkout tag, either as a single tag outputting select options, or a tag pair for custom markup.
- Breadcrumbs From URL ($) by Nicholas Cheek
Allows you to create a breadcrumb link trail from the URL you’re on without utilizing the control panel for fast implementation. It’s as simple as adding the {exp:breadcrumb:url} tag.You’re able to create breadcrumbs with simplicity and style them to your site.
- PDF Press (5-Site License) ($) by Anecka (Pat Pohler)
Save any ExpressionEngine® HTML/CSS template to PDF in a matter of seconds without an additional API or monthly fee. Make downloadable order recipients, invoices, product brochures and case studies. Unicode is supported, save PDFs to other character sets such as Arabic, Chinese, and Cyrillic.
Blog Entry
Mark Croxton is back. Well, he didn’t ever go anywhere, I guess. But he’s back with another tool (for a total of 10 add-ons available).
This time it’s Mustash, an add-on that gives you a powerful control panel interface for “managing cached Stash variables, bundles and cache-breaking rules.”
Mark gave us a great thing with Stash. Now you can buy Mustash and have an easier time managing everything related to Stash. Also, it’s a nice way to thank Mark for his amazing work so far.
Mustash is $65 and available at Devot-ee.
Blog Entry
Over at Mijingo today, I released a brand new course on the project management tool Basecamp by 37signals.
The course spans two videos and covers Basecamp from two perspectives:
- The project manager setting up and managing the Basecamp projects
- and the project collaborators using Basecamp to work on a project.
You can make your projects happen on-time with Basecamp’s powerful features. To-do lists keep you honest about what needs to be done. Team discussions ensure everyone is on the same page. Collaborative text documents help you write guidelines, press releases, documentation or white papers. The Basecamp project calendar helps you assign deadlines and milestones to everything.
But all of these pieces need to work together. And you need to know how they all work together. That’s where Basecamp Essentials comes in.
Basecamp Essentials is available for individuals, small teams, or companies. Just choose the license you need when you purchase it.
Blog Entry
Back in June EllisLab lifted the curtain on Grid, a new field type that allows tabular data in a single field. Yes, this is what Pixel & Tonic’s Matrix does. The news of Grid was buried by the odd commentary in their blog post, but they’ve come back with more information.
Last week, EllisLab gave a closer look at Grid, including an example use (baseball player stats) and some code samples.
A Grid field can be configured with multiple columns, each capturing data with any of ExpressionEngine’s existing fieldtypes, including any Grid-compatible third-party fieldtypes. From there, each channel entry can have a dynamic number of rows in the Grid field to suit the needs of that particular entry.
Grid is currently part of the developer preview for EE 2.7 and distributed out to developers to test and adopt. I wrote this before but I expect to see 2.7 drop soon.
Blog Entry
I’ve been on a few podcasts recently and one of the highlights for me was talking to Thomas Borowski on his excellent Think, Make, Sell podcast.
You can listen to me talk way too much about my history, how I got started doing training materials, working on ExpressionEngine stuff, and my work at Happy Cog. All in all, it’s an epic run through what I do and how I started doing it.
If you’re into that kind of thing, please tune in and listen. Thomas does a great show and I encourage you to subscribe.
Blog Entry
In a bold move, the EE Podcast (which I started back in 1901, I mean 2009) announced they are rebranding to cover a wider range of topics for web designers and developers.
From the transcript of Episode 100 of the EE Podcast:
After three years, 100 episodes, one live show and .net magazine accolades, Lea and I have decided to make some changes with this Podcast.
So this 100th episode is the last EE Podcast. We are rebranding the podcast as the CTRL+CLICK CAST and expanding our programming format to talk about other content management systems as well as industry culture, business practices and web design and development techniques.
Lea and Emily were kind of enough to ask me to be the final guest on the podcast. We had a good time talking about the past episodes and noted some of favorites (my favorite was when we had Rick Ellis on). I really enjoyed doing the EE Podcast back before I handed it over to Lea in 2011.
When you cover a niche, focused topic like ExpressionEngine it is difficult to continuously come up with new content, angles, ideas and topics over a several year run of a podcast (not to mention for a site like this).
And, you know, we all change during those years. Our work changes, our lives change, the stuff we care the most about changes. Sometimes more than one solution floats our boat and we want to talk about that, too.
Emily and Lea face so many things in their day-to-day lives of working on their business together outside of ExpressionEngine that I think it would be crazy for them not to reflect on those, share them, and use a podcast a way to help others. I’m happy they’re making the switch and I encouraged them both to do it when they asked me several weeks ago.
I’ve always been one to change my situation if I don’t like the freedom and enjoyment it allows me. I’m glad they did the same.
The good news is you’ll still be able to keep up with the new podcast right here at EE Insider. Emily and Lea will keep contributing updates when they release a new show. I hope you subscribe and tune in.
Blog Entry
The summer (here in the northern hemisphere) is screaming by and before you know it October will be here. And if you don’t register for the ExpressionEngine Conference soon you will be sitting at home, staring at Twitter and wishing you could also participate in the stellar lineup of talks and seminars that Brad Parscale and his team put together.
The conference takes place October 14-15 2013 in Portland, OR at the beautiful Benson Hotel in downtown. I already booked my flight and my hotel room. I’ll be speaking once on day one and once on day two.
Registration is open and there are couple options available if you need to get there on a budget.
See you in Portland!
Blog Entry
It all goes full circle as Ryan Irelan, original host of EE Podcast, joins us to discuss the past 100 episodes! We chat about the origins of the podcast, how it got off the ground, plus our favourite episodes and learning moments. We also have a huge announcement, but you’ll have to tune in to find out more! Come celebrate 100 episodes with us! Tune in now!
Thanks to Mijingo for sponsoring!
Blog Entry
- Component by Rein de Vries
The Component module is specially designed to export some specific structure data from your EE installation and export it into a new Module. This created module can be installed on other EE installations to create in a rapid way your export it functionality.
- EEReelPro ($) by Ventture
EEReelPro is the best video player plugin for your ExpressionEngine websites, with ability to offer Free Preview of your videos without re-creating samples. Includes commercial license of FlowPlayer HTML5.
- Categories to Text by Shoe Shine Design & Development
Save an entry’s categories into a text channel field. Combine with EE’s Search module to search category names. Combine with Low Search to search categories with weighted values.
- Color Picker Plus by Shoe Shine Design & Development
An advanced color picker fieldtype with preset color options and member group editing permissions.
Blog Entry
One lonely new add-on this week, but that’s OK. Sometimes developers are allowed to go out and do other things. You might also consider checking out the devot:ee Editor’s Pick for August 2013: Updater from DevDemon.
- Entry Archive ($) by Rein de Vries
Extend your entries functionality with the Entry Archive module. Display your entries in an archived way sorted by year or by month.
Add Your Comment
Share on Twitter