Blog Entry
Erik Reagan of Focus Lab has interviewed Mark Croxton, creator of the popular add-on Stash.
Learn more about the mastermind of what seems to be an essential add-on nowadays.
This is proof Mark Croxton is indeed human, and not some wicked smart robot.
Personally, I enjoy getting to know more about the developers in the ExpressionEngine community, beyond just the add-ons they create.
Thanks Erik for taking the time to write this!
Blog Entry
The wonderful Mitchell Kimbrough of Solspace let us know that there will be a 40% sale on all Solspace add-ons tomorrow! So, if you’ll be needing Freeform Pro, Calendar, User, or the like, on an upcoming project, pick it up tomorrow and save.
Blog Entry
The last Weekly Wrap of the month and we are cruising our way to next month’s EECI outside of Austin, Texas. If you haven’t gotten your ticket yet, what are you waiting for? Do it now.
The past couple of weeks I’ve had a couple of opportunities to talk about ExpressionEngine. First, as I mentioned before, I was on a CMS panel at Drupal Day here in Austin.
This past Wednesday evening I shared my experience building the e-commerce store for Mijingo at the Austin EE meetup. A great group of folks came out to hear me talk about what I’ve done to sell digital products online for the last four years. We’re in a good place with e-commerce right now. Especially if you think about where we were just 4 years ago!
Finally, I recorded an episode of the ATX Web Show, a podcast about the web design and development scene in Austin. I talked about all sorts of stuff, including ExpressionEngine. I’ll link it up when the show goes live.
It’s been a great ramp up to EECI next month. But for now I need to settle in and work on my talk for the conference.
Okay, let’s get to the news!
DevDemon Updater 3.1.2 Released
An update was released to Updater, which makes it easy to upgrade your EE site to the latest version.
Stash Examples from John Faulds
John shared some Stash examples in a new blog. Bookmark, instapaper, pinboard this one. Good stuff!
Solspace User 3.3.10 Released
The User module was updated with some bug fixes for EE 2.5.3 compatibility.
EE Bugster Released
Nathan Doyle (you might know him as Natetronn) released a Chrome extension called EE Bugster. The extension “adds bug tracker links to bug numbers in the ExpressionEngine change log.”
Food Studio Site of the Day
Værsågod let us know that they site a site they did was chosen as Site of the Day at Awwwwards. Nice work!
Entry API Updated
Version 2.1 of Entry API was release this week and includes many changes, including a new search method for entries.
Tweet of the Week
Chosen by me, shared with you.
On the EE Insider Blog
Have a great weekend!
Blog Entry
Iain Urquhart showed off a sneak peak of his Content Widgets add-on, allowing the use of widgetable content on the publish page.
Phil Sturgeon had released a Widgets module in the past, though he opened sourced it and is not actively working on it.
Look forward to seeing the final result Iain, as this is sure to be useful.
Blog Entry
- BugHerd by Tommy-Carlos Williams
ExpressionEngine CMS integration for BugHerd. If your site is built using the ExpressionEngine content management system (CMS) you can now also install BugHerd on your site in minutes!
- CE Variables by Causing Effect (Aaron Waldon)
CE Variables is software that utilizes the template partials approach of ExpressionEngine templating. It easily allows you to set and retrieve content, manipulate parse order, and pre-process conditionals.
- cpb Hash Browns by Curtis Blackwell
cpb Hash Browns is an ExpressionEngine plugin that enables you to easily create an AJAX navigable site with little to no markup changes.
- Global Member Vars by GDmac
Global_member_vars allows you to serve content to your logged in members, without expensive entries tags being parsed for other visitors. Adds member and group id to early parsed global vars for simple conditionals.
Blog Entry
The ever pertinent question of web hosting has resurfaced on the EE forums.
Who do you host your ExpressionEngine sites with? Add your 2 cents to this thread, and help out a community member!
Blog Entry
EECI, the event all the cool kids are going to, is less than a month away! There’s still time to get your ticket! Come on, it’s at a resort! Learn. Relax. And rejuvenate.
You may be wondering who from EllisLab will be at EECI? Well, ponder no longer. Derek Jones has informed us of all the EllisLab team members coming down to Austin.
- Leslie Camacho
- Derek Jones
- Lisa Wess
- Kevin Cupp
- Kevin Smith
- Dan Decker (who let this guy come?)
They’re all fantastic people, and I look forward to catching up with them, as should you.
Derek also enlightens us on why the Horseshoe Bay Resort is such a great place. So, check out the full blog post.
See you all in Austin!
Blog Entry
The Toronto ExpressionEngine Meetup Group will have their next meetup this Wednesday, September 26th, at The Rose and Crown.
For more information, and to RSVP check out their site.
Blog Entry
This is an oldie but a goodie, especially when bug fix counts are in the hundreds. The ExpressionEngine Change Log is a marvelous place for seeing how ExpressionEngine has improved over the versions, but something it’s lacking is a link to the original bug report when one is fixed.
Bjørn Børresen addresses that with his Greasemonkey script that will link fixed bugs, to their original bug report. Sometimes those one liners in the change log addressing the fix doesn’t provide enough context. Linking to the original report is a handy addition.
This has been around for a while, but it’s still useful and until recently, I was unaware it existed.
Blog Entry
The folks over at Exp:resso have released Store 1.6.0. Store, one of the great e-commerce solutions for ExpressionEngine, offers a slew of new features.
Some of the features include:
- The ability to register a member during checkout
- A USPS and FedEx shipping plugin
- Support for more gateways
- Various fixes
Store is a great e-commerce solution, and I’ve only heard positive feedback about it. What really makes the folks at Exp:resso awesome in my opinion, is this comparison chart they put together featuring the three primary e-commerce solutions for ExpressionEngine, Check out their the chart, and see which one is best for your upcoming e-commerce project.
Blog Entry
This is an on-going series of entries where we highlight EE experiences.
This is indeed quite nifty. Setting up publish layouts can be tedious at times. So, the ability to duplicate channel preferences, including publish layouts, is a nice timesaver.
Blog Entry
Versa Studio has released Brandy, an add-on that lets you easily add a logo or other image, along with your choice of HTML and CSS to the ExpressionEngine sidebar and footer.
To celebrate the release, Versa Studio is giving away an AppSumo Lean Startup Bundle, which includes discounts and freebies from a variety of companies.
So, check out Brandy, let the folks at Versa Studio know what you think about it, and be entered for a chance to win the bundle!
Blog Entry
Another week, another set of great stuff from the community. As you can tell from the list of entries under On the EE Blog, there was a lot going on this week in the community. The Weekly Wrap is adding to that with anything else that didn’t get posted during the week.
I hope everyone had a great week. And I really hope I’ll see you all in Texas next month at EECI.
Okay, let’s go.
Export It Updated
Eric Lamb updated his Export It add-on to version 1.2. Export allows you to export channel entries, members, mailing lists and comments into different formats.
Editor 2.1.1 Bug Fixes
DevDemon’s latest release of Editor includes several bug fixes.
Super Search 2.0.5
The new version of Super Search by Solspace includes bug fixes and ExpressionEngine 2.5.3 compatibility.
New Adman Beta Available
A beta release of Adman is now available. The beta includes several changes, including code and SQL optimizations.
Halton Water Festival
Sean Smith announced a new website for the Halton Children’s Water Festival.
Friends 1.5.8
Solspace has another updated add-on this week: Friends 1.5.8. The update has bug fixes and is now compatible with EE 2.5.3.
Tweet of the Week
Chosen by me, shared with you.
Love Beanstalk. Use it every. single. day.
On the EE Insider Blog
A busy week!
Another week in the books. Have a great weekend!
Blog Entry
So, Lee Reamsnyder, gets legendary status for all the “How I Met Your Mother” gifs, but that’s not the point of this post, unfortunately.
Lee takes the common example of needing to nest tags, where one would normally use an embed, and explains why Low Variables makes this no longer necessary.
The ability for this comes in the “preparse:my_var=” parameter Low added to Low Variables 2.3.
Lee walks through a real example of how he used this method, and even broke down the performance impacts the embed method had versus the Low Variables method.
Check out his post, and see for yourself.
Blog Entry
This is an op-ed blog post written by EE add-on developer Eric Lamb.
A couple months ago while researching an add-on to I noticed a concerning trend in ExpressionEngine add-on sales. Some add-on devs charge more for their add-ons on devot:ee compared to their own sites. Let’s get right to the point: charging the customers a premium to use devot:ee to purchase add-ons is short-sighted and bad for both the ExpressionEngine ecosystem and the add-on market. The collateral damage this creates should be unacceptable to every single add-on developer.
The main argument centers around the fact that devot:ee is paid a 20% commission on all orders done through their site. So, an add-on like Backup Pro, which retails for $30, earns devot:ee $6. I personally find this to be more than a fair arrangement. devot:ee handles any returns, deals with fraudulent orders, allows customers to transfer licenses, pretty much markets the product for me, and allows customers to find related add-ons to what they are looking for. Compared to other outlets for third party code, like CodeCanyon, 20% is a straight up bargain. Further, considering just how much effort (lots and lots) and overhead (lots and lots) an operation like devot:ee requires it’s almost a wonder they’re able to operate under such a low commission. Yet some developers essentially want to tack that 20% on to the price of their add-ons sold on devot:ee which would, for example, make the cost of Backup Pro $36 (give or take) on devot:ee while undercutting them on their own site.
Without devot:ee we’d have to build out an infrastructure to handle support, painless returns, fraudulent orders (of which I’ve personally had a few), license transfers, and promotion, and would be prohibitively expensive to developers. Sure, a couple add-on devs would thrive, but the large community of add-on devs we have now wouldn’t exist. Frankly, devot:ee is needed for the ExpressionEngine community and ecosystem. I don’t believe it’d be possible to refute that. If you’re an add-on developer, keep this in mind; it’s important.
And why shouldn’t devot:ee profit? We, the developers, do. Without devot:ee it’d be pretty much impossible to reach the heights a lot of developers have hit doing what we love without building out our own e-commerce sites. Then we’d have to also handle all the ancillary parts of actually running an e-commerce store, something that would have prevented me, personally, from even entering the market. Were it not for devot:ee I’d likely still be doing Open Source work which would definitely affect the quality of some add-ons (you’d may be amazed how motivating profit is). I think we all understand, if not even respect, this. The point though is that it’s pretty back handed IMHO to use a platform to build a business and then undercut said platform at the last step.
That said, when developers charge a premium for their products on devot:ee it increases the mental costs when purchasing add-ons and creates a lack of trust in devot:ee. This then creates a lack of trust and ease of use for the ExpressionEngine community and platform as a whole. I’ve heard a couple stories of various customers returning add-ons to devot:ee because they found it cheaper elsewhere. It’s even gone so far as a couple customers drawing the conclusion that devot:ee is themselves increasing the prices on their end which definitely makes devot:ee look shady and untrustworthy. This should be unacceptable to all add-on devs.
Moreover, considering that the number one competitor of ExpressionEngine has solved the plugin “problem” so elegantly and completely it’s clearly ill advised to do anything to increase the transactional costs of extending the platform. Charging more on devot:ee does this unequivocally. It changes the paradigm for purchasing add-ons from a simple process of checking devot:ee and purchasing an add-on to instead being one that is motivated on price and comparative shopping (our clients/bosses demand this after all). This, to me, is the big one (I’m lazy like that). I use devot:ee because it’s convenient. The fact that I can go to one site and handle 100% of every aspect of add-on purchases (as a customer) is huge.
But the issue doesn’t seem to be the amount devot:ee is paid but rather that some developers don’t see what their actions mean in broader terms. Depending on who you talk to it’s either the perception of a developer losing 20% or customers getting a savings that is at issue. Either issue doesn’t really exist though in any real way that can’t be alleviated with a little change in perception.
Taking the perception of loss first, this one’s simple. Include the cost of devot:ee into your add-on. This is just simple economics. You cover the costs of your expenses within the product you’re selling. The great thing about this though is that when you do sell consistently across both devot:ee and your personal/business site you actually gain an additional 20% from each purchase not on devot:ee. This is the picture of win/win; customers get to choose how they want to purchase their add-ons, a devs expenses are kept in check, and devot:ee loses nothing in terms of perception and trust. Plus, when/if a customer buys direct from the developer the profit increases. Win/win/win/win.
The flip side is the idea of saving a customer some money. There’s no other way to describe this than plain silly. Competing on price, especially at the margins an add-on sells for, is just not really needed IMHO. Think about it; using Backup Pro as an example, compared to the cost of ExpressionEngine alone, $6 give or take is just not worth noticing in any meaningful way. When you add in the cost of the developer, designer, and all the software, a saving of $6 is just laughable. Even at a larger scale, with, for example, 10 add-ons spread across all the premium add-ons that are over $100 each, the savings is less than even an hour of a professional’s time. Focusing on a single add-on developer the savings are straight up laughable. Seriously, it would cost more to even consider any discount than the discount would save. Still, our clients and/or bosses will expect us to pinch pennies regardless of time investment.
With all that said, I honestly can’t think of a single compelling reason to undercut devot:ee. There’s just too much at stake. Sure, there may be some short term gains for developers but customers have almost nothing to gain when compared to the already extensive expenses for building and maintaining a website. The potential for devot:ee to look shady is very real when customers see the discrepancies. Worse though, is that the ancillary costs of purchasing an add-on are increased which, when compared to the competition, is simply unacceptable.
Obviously, we’re all able to do what we want and price our products as we see fit. I just hope this has given some food for thought and the bigger picture is taken into account.
Blog Entry
Clearly, Stash is the new hotness around these parts, and if you’ve been trying to wrap your mind around how to create an even faster and easier to maintain site – guest Adrienne Leigh says this approach is a “game changer” and cannot overstate how drastic the performance improvement will be if you use this way of creating templates.
Tune in to hear about her first approach to template partials, how she plans out the templates, and even some updates to the article she wrote here on EE Insider. Bonus: we get an inside scoop as to what’s in store for Devot:ee and the podcast chats about our plans for EECI 2012 US!
Tune in now!
Blog Entry
- Parsemail by KeesTM
Use embeds, conditionals and EE tags in your email templates, just like any other page. Supports Email Notification Templates.
- Easy PW Change by EpicVoyage
Make password changes easy for users with limited Control Panel access.
- Yahoo Weather ($) by 25hweb
This plugin allows you to display current weather conditions, and forecast for the next day in a particular city.
The weather conditions are provided using the weather information from Yahoo Weather.
It’s possible to use custom icons.
- Lock Entry ($) by Denver
Ever changed one entry at the same time with another editor? No worries, this Lock Entry add-on will help you! It will lock an entry as soon as an editor starts editing this entry, and every other editor will be warned about the entry lock. Never overwrite each others entries again!
Blog Entry
The Meta Q is home to a numerous amount of ExpressionEngine related articles.
Today, they’ve posted one on why Low Variables is insanely awesome.
I like to think of Low Variables as Snippets and Global Variables on steroids, and then some. The Meta Q’s articles gives five different scenarios on how you can use Low Variables.
It’s a good read for those unfamiliar with Low Variables, and a good reminder of the power Low Variables offers, to those familiar with the add-on.
(On a personal note, Low Variables is crucial on a lot of projects I work on.)
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