EE Podcast: Framing Logic

Blog Entry

As developers, we’re always concerned about how to create a site that’s easy to deploy, fast, and update… for us. But what about the end user or administrator? It’s not always the case that what we think is efficient to set up is actually efficient to work with for clients. Maybe there’s a middle ground to be found: Leslie Doherty talks about Framing Logic, or the balancing act of improving the user experience for both developer and end-user in ExpressionEngine. Tune in now!

Your Weekly Devot:ee - June 28, 2012

Blog Entry

• RedirectURL EE2 Plugin (for EE2) by Rodrigo Passos
  Perform 301 Redirect to a given URL
• Hijri Converter (for EE2) by Laisvunas
  Converts Gregorian date to Hijri and vice versa.
• Interspire Email Marketer Subscriber (for EE2) by Laurence Cope
  The Interspire Email Marketer Subscriber plugin allows you to easily add user data, including custom fields, to an IEM contact list from an ExpressionEngine template.
• Shortcode ($, for EE2) by Isaac Raway (Airways)
  Shortcode aims to allow for more dynamic use of content by authors and editors, allowing for injection of reusable bits of content or even whole pieces of functionality into any field in EE. Shortcode provides two types of codes for use in any content in EE: user-defined Macros specific to each author and each site, as well as a simple API for third-party plugins and modules to expose their tags through the shortcode Rich Text Editor dialog (or manual entry in any type of field) - complete with automatically rendered options forms.

Unable to Load Site Preferences Error

Blog Entry

This isn’t a very helpful error when it comes up and it can throw off a lot of people. The first time I saw it, it made me scratch my head for a second.

The error is most likely caused by EE being unable to connect to your database server. Check your database hostname, username and password. It could also, however, be caused by something else (like a missing database table).

I’m unsure why a bad database connection doesn’t throw a database error first considering that is usually the underlying problem.

I was reminded of this by this tweet:

Moving #eecms to production gives “Site Error: Unable to Load Site Preferences; No Preferences Found” error… simple fix?

— Jason Varga (@jason_varga) June 26, 2012

What They’re Saying About EE

Blog Entry

This is a on-going series of entries where I highlight EE experiences.

Seriously– host at EngineHosting. And buy @solspace software. #eecms

— Matthew R. Weinberg (@mrw) June 26, 2012

EE Help Chats Today

Blog Entry

Today is Wednesday and Wednesday is the day the help chats take place.

There are now two EE Help Chats: European EE Help Chat at 21:00 in the UK and the original EE Help Chat at 9 PM EDT (in North America).

Here are the links you need:

• EU EE Help Chat
• EE Help Chat

The weekly EE Help Chat is sponsored by Mijingo and EngineHosting.

See you there!

Drupal vs ExpressionEngine by Couchable

Blog Entry

Drupal vs ExpressionEngine - A Designer’s Perspective:

I am primarily a web designer. I don’t know PHP really very well. Just enough to get by. So this comparison is best for front end developers or designers who need to learn a content management system and are considering one of these two.

A comparison and overview of ExpressionEngine and Drupal for front-end developers. This article should be helpful if you find the two coming up against each other when making a technology decision.

For the cons section, I would’ve chosen something else other than price as a con for EE. How about you?

Your Weekly Devot:ee - June 21, 2012

Blog Entry

• CE Lossless ($, for EE2) by Causing Effect (Aaron Waldon)
  CE Lossless is an extension to the CE Image add-on for ExpressionEngine that losslessly compresses images.
• Ending (for EE2) by Mark Spurlock
  Outputs just the end of a string. Like character limit in reverse. You can use it to select a certain number of characters from the end, or tell it to look for a particular substring and have it select everything after that (for example, selecting everything after the “@” in an email address to get the email provider).
• URL Tube (for EE2) by Mark Spurlock
  Using just the URL from a YouTube video, this plugin can create video embeds and thumbnails, of whatever size you like, for use in your templates.
• Segfault (for EE2) by Mark Spurlock
  ExpressionEngine 2 plugin to provide default fallback values for URL segment variables.
• Simple MailChimp ($, for EE2) by Jeremy Worboys
  Simple MailChimp is a simple way to display a MailChimp sign-up form on your website.
• Auto Pages URI ($, for EE2) by Laurence Cope
  It can be confusing to have a Pages URI and a URL Title for customers. They may ask why both, and you have to get all technical. Most situations will require the Pages URI to be the same as the URL Title. Therefore the Auto Pages URI fieldtype automatically converts your page Title into the Pages URI based on the Title. To put it another way, it will copy the URL Title to the Pages URI automatically when you enter the entry Title. It is actually based on the process to create the URI Title.
• Category Mirror (for EE2) by Joel Bradbury
  Ever need to apply an entries categories to other entries? Category Mirror. It’s an ExpressionEngine 2.x extension that will take a parent entry’s categories, and assign them to a set of children entries.
• Control Panel Menu Shortcuts (for EE2) by Laurence Cope
  An ExpressionEngine Extension. CP Shortcuts will list all your custom main menu buttons (added with the +Add button) under one main menu button, reducing main menu clutter. Especially useful if you have or want many main menu buttons.
• Forms JS validation (for EE2) by Rein de Vries
  This little plugin will add JavaScript validation to exisiting forms. No more hacking in the JS files, just one plugin witch will handle all the stuff for you. It is compatible with all kind of forms, even with the form module from DevDemon.

Ten Uses for Low Variables

Blog Entry

I love Low Variables (yes, I gush a little about it) because it is so damn useful. Rob from Blue Dreamer thinks so, too. He wrote up a blog post with 10 uses for Low Variables.

Some of it is stuff you might’ve normally put in a Snippet (or previously a Global Variable) and some stuff you might’ve previously handled through entries.

Nice write-up, Rob. Definitely something you should bookmark.

Read the entire tutorial.

New Seattle EE Meetup Group

Blog Entry

The EE meetups are dotting the map and we need to add another one to the list. On Thursday July 26th, the inaugural meeting of the ExpressionEngine Seattle group will taken place.

The first meeting will be about introducing yourselves to each other, talk about ideas for the group and then a presentation by Matt Fordham on template partials.

I know there are a lot of Seattle-based EE users, so make sure you join the group! Sign up on the meetup page.

EU Cookie Law Compliance Tutorial

Blog Entry

In this .net magazine article, Andrew Fairlie runs through the basics of bringing your EE site in compliance with the new EU cookie law using the Cookie Consent module available from EllisLab.

[F]or this article I’m going to make the argument that if we want cookies for other things such as Google Analytics, serving ads, A/B testing and the countless other things you may wish to do in EE, then we may as well have one single up-front message covering it all in one go.

Read the entire tutorial.

Philly Meetup On ExpressionEngine

Blog Entry

On July 5th James Buckley will give a free intro presentation on using ExpressionEngine. The presentation is part of the Philadelphia Open Developer and Designer Meetup and their MVC Framework Based CMS topic.

The meetuup takes place at Devnuts on North 3rd Street and will feature a giveaway that includes one EE freelancer license, a copy of Low Variables, Content Elements and Expresso.

Attendance is capped at 30 people, so be sure to sign up if you want to attend.

Thank You, June Advertisers

Blog Entry

Since its inception 3 ½ years ago, EE Insider has only taken ads that I personally approve and whose products or services I like. This means helping you find out about cool stuff in the community.

I’d like to thank the following companies for supporting EE Insider this month:

• Go to Low - Low Schutte makes Low Reorder, which makes it easy to reorder entries through the control panel. If you’ve used previous versions of Low Reorder you will pleased to know that you can now reorder entries across channels. Low isn’t just a one trick add-on pony. His Low Variables add-on is easily one of the most useful and flexible add-ons we have.
• Pixel & Tonic - The longest running advertiser on the site and well-known for the add-ons Assets, Playa, Matrix and Wygwam. They make some of the hottest add-ons for ExpressionEngine.
• Solspace - By far, Solspace has the largest catalog of EE add-ons and is one of the original add-on developers. When an add-on comes from Solspace, you can trust that it’s going to work and that you’ll get the support you need. Their Rating module allows you to easily add rating functionality to your website.
• Vector Media Group - Based in New York City, they are not only experts (and leaders) on ExpressionEngine, they are also experts in SEO. Matt and Lee at Vector Media Group are a valuable part of our community.
• Structure - Travis and Jack have built and supported the easiest way to allow your clients to manage pages (with hierarchy) in ExpressionEngine. I love Structure and use it on Mijingo.com.

EngineHosting provides EE Insider with their fast and reliable hosting services. For a long time I ran this site on a virtual server I built and managed. That was a pain. I’m so happy to have the nice people at EngineHosting take care of this for me now. Check out their new Virtual Server Cluster plans, which start at $45/month and SSH access for basic tasks.

Do you have a product or service that you want to share with the smart, savvy, good looking, and moderately athletic EE Insider readership? In July, EE Insider has 2 ad spaces open and ready for you to get the word out. Interested? Get in touch.

Stash Primer

Blog Entry

If Adrienne’s awesome Stash tutorial had you still unsure of how you can use Stash in your own work, you might want to check out Gareth Redfern’s article Using Stash for the First Time.

This will not be a comprehensive tutorial on using Stash but I will try to explain what worked for me from a beginners point of view, and how I have worked through the different resources available.

Read the entire article.

Have your own Stash tutorial? Let us know.

EECI US Moving to New City

Blog Entry

In an email to potential conference goers, Robert Eehart (organizer of EECU, through his company Whoooz! Webmedia), announced that the EECI conference originally planned for Austin, TX will take place elsewhere.

We already started our preparations for it when people made us aware of a huge event happening in Austin in the same week as we have planned EECI. Although we secured a venue and lodging for speakers and staff, we can’t promise that attendees will find a place to sleep near the venue. That isn’t acceptable for us.

As anyone who has attended SXSW in recent years knows, Austin has a shortage of hotels downtown if too many events (or too large of an event) take place at once. For just a handful of small conferences or events there are plenty of lodging options downtown and all are a short walk from conference venues. However, with a big conference things fill up quickly.

As a resident of Austin I am, obviously, disappointed by this. Austin is a great city for a conference. I was looking forward to seeing everyone here. But I’m glad Robert didn’t push forward and make it difficult for attendees to find a hotel that didn’t require a cab ride to the venue. That would’ve made the entire event a drag and certainly soured everyone’s experience in Austin.

We’ve tried to find an alternative date / venue for the conference to be held in Austin, but for the same reasons we had no luck.

So what next? First of all do NOT make any travel/lodging plans for Austin. The conference will take place in a different city. We’re close to finish all details needed to make the announcement. You can expect it on the http://eeciconf.com website in about two weeks from now.

Stay tuned for the announcement of the new city and location. Maybe we’ll try Austin again next year?

EE Project Checklist

Blog Entry

Owner of Bright Rocket and EE Insider guest author James Buckley posted his own ExpressoinEngine Designers Website Checklist after seeing Emily Lewis talk about it at the latest Engine Summit.

After attending the 2012 Engine Summit and hearing Emily Lewis talk about the value of having checklists to keep her work organized, I was inspired to pull together a checklist of my own which I’ve shared below. I set these up in my project management software ActiveCollab and copy them to each new project as needed.

I’ve organized the list by a few of the key project milestones I tend to plan around. My unique twist on this checklist is that as I develop websites in ExpressionEngine, point out where various EE addons can help make certain tasks easier, faster or better. You’ll notice I list several alternatives for each item as each tends to do things a little differently and I like to make a case-by-case decision about which addon is right for each project.

A reliable checklist is always something you need for a project and you could easily put this one into Basecamp or even set up a project template in OmniFocus.

I especially like his follow-up tasks for making sure the client doesn’t need anything 3-6 months after the site launched This also a good way to get additional work on a site you built.

EE Podcast: Hosting

Blog Entry

With the myriad of hosting options out there, how do you know where to go for you and your client?

Nevin Lyne, Founder and Director of Technology for EngineHosting, talks about what to look out for, as well as share tips on how to optimize the hosting experience with ExpressionEngine, including configuration best practices and add-ons to consider. Tune in now!

We also reveal the winners of the 2012 EE Podcast Listener Survey t-shirt giveaway! Listen in to find out if it’s you.

Your Weekly Devot:ee - June 14, 2012

Blog Entry

• Link Vault Zipper (for EE2) by Masuga Design
  The Link Vault Zipper extension is a companion add-on to the Link Vault module. It allows you to zip multiple files on the fly for a user to download using Link Vault’s regular template tags. The zipped files are tracked individually in the download log as if the user downloaded multiple files separately.
• Registration Emails (for EE2) by koivi
  This extension sends notification and welcome messages when a new user is registered.
• Jewish Calendar Conversion (for EE2) by Boots Highland
  The Jewish Calendar Conversion plugin takes a Gregorian/Civil Calendar date and returns the corresponding Jewish/Hebrew Calendar date.
• Google Latlng Lookup (for EE2) by No Two The Same
  Geocode look up of Latitude and Longitude using Googles Geocode service for the CP. The fieldtype has 3 fields: one is editable for the address and the other two show the returned co-ordinates. All three fields or the combined co-ordinate is available. There’s also a little map preview of the returned co-ordinates so the user can check if Google has found the right place!
• VL Category Groups ($, for EE2) by Viget Labs
  The VL Category Groups plugin allows you to retrieve category groups and their categories from a certain channel or list of category groups.
• Shine PDF (for EE2) by Shine Marketing
  Generates PDFs on-the-fly from ExpressionEngine templates.
• JVL Currency (for EE2) by Jan Van Lysebettens
  A simple fieldtype that makes it easy to add a currency to a field, for example, to add a “price” to a channel entry.