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Pixel & Tonic, home to popular ExpressionEngine add-ons Matrix, Assets, Playa and Wygwam, has announced their transitioning all of their support to the EE Stack Exchange site. They’ve setup an official support page on their site that ties into the Stack Exchange API.
You can read blog post for full details on the change.
What do you think about this move? Do you think it’s a positive move for ExpressionEngine and the EE Stack Exchange site?
Let us know in the comments!
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The topic of extending add-ons, essentially add-ons for add-ons (also known as EEnception), has been a popular topic as of late. Brian Whitton talks about this topic, more specifically, extending BrilliantRetail, to achieve what he was looking to do.
Filled with code examples, and his thought process, this is a great first hand look for those interested in seeing what goes into extending an add-on.
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Long time member of the ExpressionEngine community, Marcus Neto, launched his redesigned business site: Blue Fish Design Studio. This responsive site, powered by ExpressionEngine, does a great job of showcasing Marcus’ skills.
I’ve always enjoyed the branding of the site, and this latest design iteration is great. Nice work Marcus!
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Caroline Blaker gives an overview of Snaptcha, the spam prevention add-on for ExpressionEngine.
Snaptcha was written by Ben Croker and won Devot:re’s 2012 Extension of the year.
If you hate spam as much as everyone else, then definitely check out Caroline’s article.
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This is an on-going series of entries where we highlight EE experiences.
Yes! Refactoring and improving content structure is great! Remember going back to your first EE projects and wondering “What the heck was I thinking?” I love this industry for the fact you’re always learning and always on your toes, and always finding ways to improve things.
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The great folks over at Vector Media Group are hiring a PHP Developer, and a knowledge of ExpressionEngine and CodeIgniter is a huge plus.
Check out the job listing and get in touch with them!
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It’s a new week, and a new chance to make awesome involving ExpressionEngine. We’ll compile the Weekly Wrap this Friday, so make sure your news gets added.
To add your news, simply add a comment to this thread, or tweet using the hashtag #eenews.
We look forward to showcasing you and your news!
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It doesn’t take long working in this industry to recognize that quality of product is what really matters for a successful career. Quality is what separates us. It’s what allows one agency to charge $350 an hour for a programmer and another only $20. It’s how C league developers and B league developers and A league developers exist.
So, what is quality? That’s the million dollar question, right? For the purpose of this article let’s just say it’s going through the site and making sure nothing feels “off” about the project. Be as honest as possible and ask yourself if what you’re seeing should change in some way. Then change it till it does feel right. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. And repeat again until everything feels “right”.
Us developers (and by this I mean anyone who works on a website/project) are only as strong as our portfolios; it’s in our best interest to have a strong history of work that’s worth pointing at for when the next job comes along. This is our business. But actually achieving quality is a real pain in the ass without a good Web Producer on your team.
Not always but, for the last 5 years or so, recognizing a good Web Producer for what they are has been a constant. I used to hate them. Passionately. They seemed so unnecessary and in the way when I was first confronted with one. But I was young in my career, crazy over confident (even arrogant), and, honestly, I didn’t know any better.
I first met Eileen Jackson around 2004 when I was hired at a web agency in Los Angeles as, I kid you not, IT Manager/Programmer. (Once upon a time some agencies actually thought mixing the roles like that was a good idea. It. Is. Not.) I’d been working at the agency for a couple months, just doing grunt level administrative programming like utility scripts to shuffle files around servers and monitor the network, and my boss finally trusted me enough to build an actual client project.
So I was teamed with Eileen and some talent from Creative to build out a promotional blog for a TV show (which was promptly cancelled after 1 season) that was built on pMachine as the platform.
I understood the role of Creative, that was obvious (create the pretty), but, at first, I had no idea what Eileen did. I assumed she was some sort of project manager or copywriter, but why we’d need a constant person to keep track of progress and work on content was beyond me. I didn’t get it.
I didn’t understand that Eileen was a Web Producer. If you don’t know what that is don’t feel bad. I didn’t for a long time. At the time though, Eileen was like an over attentive project manager that was constantly asking questions that, I felt, were none of her business. Up to that point I had never had this level of oversight into my work, especially from a civilian, and I really didn’t handle it well for far too long.
I could go into a couple thosand words about how much Eileen and I fought tooth and nail, each thinking the other was an unprofessional ass, while we both had the best intentions for the project. In hindsight, it’s one of those face palming moments that only youth and ego could create. So much unnecessary pain.
It took me far too long to realize the secret of a good Web Producer: they make us programmers and designers look good. That’s their job in a nutshell. They oversee every aspect of a project and ensure a level of quality that’s just not feasible without someone in that role.
Someone on the team needs to take ownership of the project. Someone needs to be there to look over everything and say “That’s not good enough” when it’s called for. Someone needs to be the client advocate. That’s the role of a good Web Producer.
For those reasons I’ve developed the opinion that a Web Producer is the single most important role for a project where quality matters. A Web Producer, in my experience, works similarly to how you’d expect a movie Producer to work; they make the engine hum smoothly for everyone.
They handle coordination between the team, the bosses, and the client and makes sure the team is as insulated as possible from the bosses and client. They are masters of Quality Assurance (QA) and know the technologies and techniques in order to achieve a high level of quality. They will call you on your BS if you try and pull one over on them. And, a really good Producer, can motivate the team to create “awesome” when others would have called it a day, building passion for a project that transcends the paycheck.
Sure, you can build out quality projects without a dedicated Producer but at the least you need someone, anyone, on the team to take on that role with a project. Someone on the team needs to think about all these things.
With a good Producer, the production team (coders, designers, writers, etc.) will have little to no contact with the bosses and, especially, the client. The Producer acts as a filter for all of that and lets the team create instead of administrate. There’s no reason for a programmer to have to sit through a meeting to let the boss know that they’re still working on things and all that’s involved. A good Producer makes sure that rarely, if not never, happens.
Eileen was very good at that. I can’t tell you how many times I’d walk past the conference room and see her in there only to have her call me in later to her office and disseminate what that was all about. Instead of a 4 hour meeting I’d get a 10 minute breakdown and list of todos. And this was when I’d moved up to Director of Technology where meetings were the norm for most in such a position. It was pretty awesome.
Now that I’m no longer working with Eileen day to day I do think back on the lessons she taught me quite frequently. It’s pretty much a constant where I wonder “What would Eileen do here?”. Is this good enough for her?
If you’re trying to build a successful career it’s crucial that there be someone on the team (even if it’s you) who takes on the role of the Web Producer. Very, very, important. I don’t care if the client/project doesn’t have the budget or if “it’s too hard”. If you don’t I promise a downward spiral of mediocrity and a career of irrelevance.
Eric Lamb is the developer of professional and enterprise grade ExpressionEngine add-ons. Founded in 2009 Eric’s company mithra62 aims to be a leader in ExpressionEngine add-on development and has a reputation for stability, usefulness, and being highly configurable.
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It’s a brand new year! Perhaps you’re using this time to learn something new. And if that “new thing” happens to be ExpressionEngine, consider joining us for the last EE Help Chat hosted by Mijingo and EngineHosting.
Remember, ExpressionEngine Core is now available (and free) again, so hopefully that sends an uptick of new users.
Come over to help new ones with ExpressionEngine, or to shoot the breeze with the seasoned ExpressionEngine devs.
As always, the EE Help Chat is free, and will happen at 9pm EST.
Go to http://mijingo.com/go-chat and you will be forwarded to the chatroom.
For nostalgia’s sake, here is the original EE Insider EE Help Chat page.
The chat is sponsored by EngineHosting, a reliable and affordable place to host your ExpressionEngine sites, and Mijingo, the best way to learn ExpressionEngine and more.
See you tonight! In the meantime, you can channel your inner Gob by keeping this on repeat until 9pm.
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Can you believe another year has already flown by? We sure can’t. The ExpressionEngine community is a unique bunch. You always seem to push the limits of whatever you’re doing. It’s been a pleasure reporting on various news, releases, and hoopla the ExpressionEngine community has created this year.
Without further ado, here is the 2012 ExpressionEngine Community Wrap!
Back in January we asked you what your EE 2012 wishes were and a lot of you made yours known. Go back and review your wishes in the comment thread. Did they come true?
A big wish from this site (posted back on January 19th was to bring back EE Core. Well, wish granted. Thank you, EllisLab.
This year saw a total of seven ExpressionEngine releases from EllisLab. The year started with EE 2.4 on January 24th and ended with EE 2.5.5 on December 20th. If you have a spare minute while you’re waiting for midnight to strike, check out the entire changelog to read about everything that has changed with ExpressionEngine in the year 2012.
For a broader look at ExpressionEngine as a whole over the past years, Vim Interactive put together an info graphic that gives visual representation of who we are as a whole.
The ExpressionEngine CodeIgniter Conference
There were two EECIs this year. One in Leiden, and one in Austin, Texas.
Ryan compiled a round up of slides from EECI EU, and I had the opportunity to live blog a lot of EECI Austin.
A notable piece from EECI Austin was the Developer Round Table, which I was able to transcribe nearly 100%. It’s a good read if you want to get a vibe of how the top add-on devs think the community is doing.
And, as a result of such discussions, add-on companies have started making changes, for what I think, is for the best.
For a full look-back at EECI in Austin, check out our round up video.
EECI in Austin would the last conference run by Whoooz! Webmedia. Turner Parscale purchased the assets to EECI and will continue hosting events, though in a new format.
Ch-Ch-Changes at EllisLab
I think it’s pretty safe to say this was a big year of change for EllisLab. And it seemed a lot of these changes came all at once. They launched a brand new site. Ryan posted an opinion piece on all the changes at EllisLab.
The Affiliate Program was ended for various reasons. This definitely had an impact on community run sites, such as EE Insider and Devot:ee, which used the affiliate commissions to keep these sites going. Check out Ryan’s opinion piece on the matter.
Then there was the whole Professionals Network incident. Originally, Professionals Network links went to the Enterprise page on the new EllisLab site, but that has since been changed, and work on a new Professionals Network has started.
2012 marked the end of the EngineHosting/EllisLab relationship, which unfortunately, also resulted in a lawsuit and another lawsuit. EllisLab forged a relationship with Nexcess.
EllisLab transitions from a forum based support system that was included in an ExpressionEngine license purchase, to a separate, paid, private support solution.
EllisLab restructured the licensing and pricing for ExpressionEngine. One flat fee. Regardless of the project type.
ExpressionEngine
ExpressionEngine 2.5 introduced a new Rich Text Editor fieldtype. Described as “a very lightweight WYSIWYG”, the RTE fieldtype is useful to clients who need basic text formatting.
EE 2.5 also introduced the Cookie Consent Module as an optional download to comply with the EU Cookie Law.
The black magic that is Stash took the community by storm and became a powerful way to create more flexible EE templates.
Language packs for ExpressionEngine moved to Github to create a more centralized method for making sure they’re up to date. As a result, many add-on developers followed suit.
DevDemon Updater was released to streamline the update process for ExpressionEngine and add-ons.
Stack Exchange was a hot topic this year, leading to the public beta of the ExpressionEngine Stack Exchange site.
An Event Apart relaunched in a big way, and is now powered by ExpressionEngine.
Eric Lamb and Ben Croker talk about ExpressionEngine add-on development, and a whole lot more.
How-to Articles in 2012
Education and training are a big part of this community. Here’s a round up of in-depth training on EE Insider this year.
From everyone here at EE Insider, thanks for a great year!
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- Store: Gift Wrapping by Michael Rog
Store: Gift Wrapping extends the Exp:resso Store module to allow for a last-minute addition (during Checkout) of a selected item. This can serve as a gift-wrapping addition, an impulse purchase, etc.
- Facebook Tools ($) by Rein de Vries
Struggling to get your site more social with the Facebook plugins? Stop struggling and use the Facebook Tools module for ExpressionEngine. With this module you can easily add Facebook plugins to your site in an eyewink. It supports both HTML5 and XFBML.
- Scraper ($) by Michael Rog
Scraper allows you to easily pull in HTML content from remote pages, selecting elements by CSS selector.
- RETS by Michael Rog
The RETS plug-in allows basic fetching and searching of MLS data from a RETS XML feed.
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ExpressionEngine 2.0 has been around for 3 years now. EllisLab had recently stated that ExpressionEngine 1.x is now a legacy product, and is no longer for sale.
Solspace is now no longer supporting ExpressionEngine 1.x in their software, starting with the release of Calendar 1.8. (Super Search 2 and Freeform 4 were new add-ons, and never had an ExpressionEngine 1 counterpart.)
Read the full blog entry.
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City Zen is selling a Developer license of Detour Pro for 25% off!
Based on this tweet, there are a limited amount left (and I just took one), so act fast!
Detour Pro allows you to redirect the heck out of your sites.
The description on Devot:ee is as follows:
Are you tired of managing your redirects with a clunky .htaccess file? Do you want to have Control Panel access to set up and manage redirects? Detour Pro (upgrade from the Detour extension) is here with new exciting features including 301 and 302 redirects, wildcards, start dates, expiration dates and more.
Jump on this great deal!
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Editors Note: EE add-on developers Eric Lamb and Ben Croker have a message and some audio for you to listen to. They sat down on Skype, hit the Record button, and shared their thoughts about EECI and EE add-on development.
After the last Developer Conversation, almost 2 months ago, Ben and I recieved some really encouraging feedback. The reception was even a little overwhelming at times. It seems there’s very much an audience for this type of content. So we figured we’d release another one and see what happens. Again.
This time Ben and I discuss the recent changes to EllisLab, Blocks CMS, some good friends and interesting code, official add-on support with Stack Exchange, EEUK, the AcadamEE Awards and some other goodies.
As always, let us know what you think in the comments or on Twitter (@mithra62 and @ben_pylo).
Eric Lamb & Ben Croker.
Have a listen to their recording and be sure to give them feedback.
Check out the episode.
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Hopefully you all are enjoying some much needed time off and a nice cup of coffee (or hot chocolate, whichever you prefer). Here’s the weekly wrap for the week of December 17th.
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- Remove HTML (also for EE1) by No Two The Same
Remove (strips) all HTML tags from supplied text. Handy if fieldtype data is formatted as ‘XHTML’ but in one template you need that data displayed as ‘none’, ie plain text.
- Nagger by mithra62 (Eric Lamb)
Adds confirmation to leave edited ExpressionEngine Control Panel form pages.
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