Blog Entry
Landing in my email inbox this afternoon was a request from EllisLab to confirm my email subscription and to sign up for announcements. The email was nicely designed and invited me to click through to their “Connect” page. This Connect page featured the same design and made me wonder…is this a new look for EllisLab?
If so, I like it. Maybe we’ll see some of this bleed over into the ExpressionEngine control panel.
The Connect page contains the latest tweets from @EllisLab, a way to sign up for their newsletter, and links to the Twitter, Facebook and Google+ accounts. A nice collection of their presence online and in all of the major social networks.
Blog Entry
Is “cracker” the new “-ee”?
Maybe.
Regardless, CacheCracker is a new extension from Issac Raway and it boasts the ability to “give you complete control over caching in your ExpressionEngine system.”
The extension, which is available via Github while in beta testing, has forced caching for all templates, expiring caches for edited templates, caching of global embeds and more.
Read the documentation for the entire list of functionality and download the public beta to help Issac test out the new extension.
Blog Entry
If you were following along on Twitter, you might have heard about the 4-day long process that Ryan Masuga went through moving his EE add-on repository and storefront, Devot:ee, from EE 1.6.9 to the latest version of ExpressionEngine 2.
Because Devot-ee is such an important resource to the community, Masuga wanted to be as open and transparent as possible about the upgrade. He provided regular updates via their Twitter account and even detailed some of the problems he was running into. This long and tedious process was, unfortunately, taken by some to mean that upgrading a site from EE1 to EE2 is a messy process that takes 4 days.
I think Paulo Elias put it nicely:
I am puzzled at all of the negative “upgrade process’ tweets re the recent @devot_ee upgrade. Complex shit takes time to get right
Indeed it does.
According to Ryan, Devot:ee consisted of a lot of third party and custom add-ons. Every single one had to be updated and tested. Some of those were mission critical add-ons for e-commerce and other functionality that supported their business of giving add-on developers a place to easily sell their software. Ryan plans to eventually publish his log of what he had to do to make the upgrade happen.
I asked Ryan if he would spend a few minutes talking to EE Insider about the experience of upgrading a complex site like Devot:ee, what he learned and, most importantly: was it worth it? He obliged and below is a transcript of some of his answers during that conversation.
EE Insider: When did you start the upgrade process? There was probably a lot of planning that happened.
Ryan Masuga: We started in March and I wrote down every step because I knew that we had to do it all again in a final sweep to get any data we might have missed. Other client work got in a way, so it wasn’t like this was the only thing we were working on. We set it aside for weeks.
Was there one thing that you spent the most time working on?
RM: I spent a lot of time…on the sales reports for the developers because they need to be accurate.
The plan was to update Devot-ee over the weekend. Did you have a master plan?
RM: I ran through the 20-point checklist and it just didn’t work out that way. I thought the smart thing to do would be to make a static site first so people could still search. I set that up as a subdomain and checked out a branch that just had everything disabled, basically. You could still search the site, you could still download your stuff. You could do everything except buy stuff, really. I think that lessened the pain of our site being officially down for three or four days because people were able to, essentially, use the catalog. However, I was planning to be down maybe eight hours or something like that because I was taking my time with checklist.
When you were running the EE update wizard, were there any problems?
RM: I had zero errors going from 1.6.9 to 2, which was pretty wild. And then it was all about upgrading add-ons. Matrix, Cartthrob, Better Meta., converting Better Meta to NSM Meta, Favorites, Low Variables, Channel Ratings and then converting Solspace Ratings to Channel Ratings.
We spent a lot of time adjusting PHP in our templates and in our custom add-ons. [The extended downtime] had to do with that peripheral stuff.
Why didn’t you leave the site up and use a staging server, get everything upgraded and just flip the switch?
RM: We had to put a content freeze on the site…
Because of sales…
RM: Yeah, because of sales, rating, favorites, reviews…
And sales being the most critical.
RM: Yeah. We don’t want to recreate any of that stuff or merge data if we don’t have to. We ended up being down 4 days and we would’ve had to recapture 4 days worth of data from an EE1 database.
Was the upgrade and downtime worth it? What does it mean for Devot:ee going forward?
RM: The good work and the time [the community developers] are spending is on EE2 stuff. There are so many cool things out that we couldn’t use. I love Zenbu. I like Switchboard. None of this stuff was available for EE1, so it’s making my life easier in the Control Panel. The Control Panel seems nice and quick.
I know that EllisLab is putting a lot of dev time into EE2 and it’s just going to get better. We need to be there [on EE2] so we can take advantage of all of the stuff that EE2 provides.
And at some point if you wait too long the two versions of EE and any add-ons would be further apart and the upgrade would be even more difficult.
RM: Absolutely. We would be like a boat lost in the night with no paddles. Where do we go from here? We would be so far down a hole that we are basically going to have to rebuild the site rather than upgrade. Now we’re at a point that we’re at the latest of everything.
Now, it’s causing a couple of problems because we had some template syntax that needed to change but on the whole, it’s going to be better for everyone because we can make full use of SafeCracker. That’s a big part of the site because people can submit and edit their add-ons.
So now you can develop new features for the site without worrying that one day you’ll have to go back and redo everything for a big upgrade.
RM: Yep, we would try to keep new stuff to a minimum because we would have to do it in two places. We got a huge feature request list and stuff that we want to do. We want to vastly improve the image galleries on an add-on page. There are way too many clicks and it’s just lame. It takes the height of the highest image, adds a bunch of whitespace…it’s just kinda weird. We get a lot of emails about it. “Hey, we just want a previous and next button so I don’t have to close each one.” We can spend time on that stuff now without having to do it twice.
Thanks to Ryan for chatting with us. He’s inspired me to work on upgrading EE Insider to EE2.
Blog Entry
Tucked into an announcement to developers about some upcoming changes to EE, developer Robin Sowell mentioned the “Discussion Forums 4.0 currently in development.”
I couldn’t tell what this meant. A new version of the Forums? A complete rebuild?
I reached out to EllisLab for clarification and they told me that the Discussion Forums 4.0 is an upgrade to the current Discussion Forums (version 3.x) module and includes some new features. It is not a rewrite or redevelopment of the module. There isn’t a release date set yet for the upgraded forums, so stay tuned to EE Insider and the official EE Blog for more information.
Blog Entry
Announced in a forum post, user “metadaptive” posted an Espresso sugar he created for EE2. But he needs your help testing and improving it.
For now it’s a fairly vanilla port of the ee1 version (with which it ought to play nicely) but I’m planning on adding more features over the next few weeks, along with support for some popular addons.
It’s likely in a somewhat alpha state in terms of the amount of testing it’s had so far, but given that it’s built on a pretty strong foundation it should be pretty usable for most. If you find a bug please report it on github rather than here.
Want to lend a hand and help improve this Sugar? Post to the forum thread or report a problem on Github.
Somewhat related to this: for those people who use Espresso to code EE sites, I’d like to know why you use and what the benefits are. Share in the comments!
Blog Entry
In an announcement on Friday, EllisLab revamped how they do paid upgrades for ExpressionEngine (and MojoMotor). Straight from their blog post:
When you own ExpressionEngine 2 or MojoMotor 1 you won’t pay for an upgrade until ExpressionEngine 3 or MojoMotor 2 get released. A more developer-centric way of saying this is that all “right of point” upgrades are free and all “left of point” upgrades are paid.
Got that? Point releases are free, major releases (3.0, 4.0, etc) will be paid.
This doesn’t mean that you get a pre-determined number of updates for free; EllisLab could jump from EE 2.5 to EE 3.0 if the improvements, new features and work deem it necessary. But what it does do is make it easy for everyone to know when an update will be free and when it will be paid. And, most importantly, it does away with the annual subscription thing.
Bravo. This is a great change.
Blog Entry
A forum thread popped up with a potential issue with how EE 2.2 treats members with the status of pending. Forum user “CrescendoNZ” (who tweeted about it) reported an issue where pending members are able to log in with all of the privileges of normal members. Well, that’s not good.
EllisLab technical support jumped in to look at the issue and confirmed the problem, created a bug report and now the fix is available in EE 2.2.2.
From the blog post announcing EE 2.2.2:
A change in behavior was introduced in 2.2 with respect to the “Pending” member group’s ability to log in to an ExpressionEngine web site. While template access restrictions, and member group access permissions are customizable for this special member group, previous versions of ExpressionEngine did not allow members assigned to this group to log in, but 2.2 did. The change was substantial enough to treat it as a critical bug for the small percentage of sites that are affected by this behavior, prompting today’s release.
If you are running EE 2.2 and requiring activation for new members (which would use the Pending member group), you should check your install and see if it is affecting you. This has been confirmed in EE 2.2.1. The best thing to do is to update to the latest version.
Blog Entry
- FreeMember (for EE2) by Exp:resso
Using FreeMember, you can finally release your member templates from the shackles of “member profile templates”, without dropping all your cash on basic CMS functionality.
- Store ($, for EE2) by Exp:resso
Exp:resso Store is both exceptionally powerful and simple to use. Flexible product variations and stock control are integrated with the power of ExpressionEngine channel entries. Clear, easy to follow documentation and examples, combined with comprehensive reporting and back-end functionality make Expresso Store is the perfect choice for your next e-commerce website!
- Google Sitemap Lite (for EE2) by Rein de Vries
This plugin creates a (Google) sitemap based on the Structure/Taxonomy/Navee module. You can generate a sitemap for all content or only the pages (Structure).
Blog Entry
Paramore|Redd had a chance to do revisit their original work with the Frist Center and redesign the site they worked on previously.
This time around we wanted to give visitors a better sense of all the activity that occurs at the Center. They have exhibitions, music, galas, events, theatre, classes and much more. Read on to understand how we took a fresh look at presenting this content to allow the site’s visitors to grasp all that The Frist offers.
In their blog post on the topic, you read through the thinking in their design process. Yesterday, however, their senior developer Jesse Bunch posted a follow-up to include more information on how they used ExpressionEngine to help them see through those original design goals and develop the Frist Center website.
Jesse used a custom callout module to “control the ordering of the call-outs, embed media directly in the call-out, and support some slightly complex filtering/pagination” and used “a cocktail of strategic Channels and Pixel and Tonic’s Playa module” to create flexible navigation.
He included a lot of detail (don’t even think about skipping over item 4) and some screenshots of the control panel, so be sure to read the entire write-up.
Blog Entry
This is a on-going series of entries where I highlight EE experiences.
#eecms sucks at exporting entries. Luckily @wordpress is amazing at importing them. I’ll never use expressionengine again. Good riddance
Kyle Tress via Twitter
Would I like to see ExpressionEngine be able to export entries into formats that other systems can slurp in? Yes. But because of the flexibility of EE templates, you can export to almost anything if you’re willing to dig in and make it work. Even to that specialized WordPress XML format that WordPress exports and imports.
I don’t think EE sucks at exporting entries (but good on you for not saying software sucks anonymously) it just might take a little work. Flexibility comes at a cost but it’s usually worth it.
To the readers: What have your experiences been exporting from ExpressionEngine?
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You’re a PHP developer who loves ExpressionEngine, CodeIgniter and geeking out. Maybe you also like working from home, in your pajamas with your cat sitting on your lap loudly purring because of his good life.
No, I’m not describing me (but it’s close). If that sounds like you then you might be interested in a new job opportunity with EllisLab.
EllisLab is looking for a Senior Software Engineer/ExpressionEngine Specialist. You will work to make ExpressionEngine better everyday, and you will be an active part of the Community. Knowing that the best web professionals use your code motivates you. You get to work from the comfort of your own home (US citizenship/Visa/Work permit required).
Read the entire listing for all of the requirements (this is not an entry-level position) and if the job description fits you, be sure to apply!
Blog Entry
Yesterday, add-on developer Exp-resso released Store, another offering for doing e-commerce on ExpressionEngine.
Two years ago we had very few options for e-commerce. Other than the Simple Commerce Module we didn’t even have a solution that worked with and inside of ExpressionEngine. In the last year and a half we’ve seen a mini explosion of options, like Cartthrob (released last April) and BrillianRetail, which was released earlier this year .
So, while they felt it necessary to explain why you might need another e-commerce app for ExpressionEngine, I don’t think there’s any explaining to do. There’s room for more, and the more options we have, the better. We now have three robust e-commerce options. That’s hardly too many.
One of the marketing points of Store is ease of use. From their write-up:
We also felt that the template tags should be easy to learn and remember. For this reason, we have only 7 tags to learn, and most sites will only need to use 3-4 of these. We have also included a full set of example templates with the install, which you can use as a basis for your checkout process.
Just like with, for example, Cartthrob, Store is fully integrated into ExpressionEngine and uses Channel Entries to store your products. It also includes support for inventory management (pretty cool).
This release is a paid beta ($20) but they consider is stable and production-ready.
Blog Entry
In the latest edition of the EE Podcast, Lea and Emily talk to EllisLab CCO James Mathias. They spent about 30 minutes talking to James about various things related to ExpressionEngine and his work at EllisLab.
James talked about how the user voting for features works and how they solicit and listen to community feedback. He even talked about some features that will be coming in the future (but you’ll have to listen to the podcast to find out). All in all, it was good insight into the work that he’s doing in his first month as the Chief Creative Officer at EllisLab.
About 15 minutes into the podcast they talked about the built-in file manger and the Assets module from Pixel & Tonic. As is fairly well-known, Assets was released to much acclaim and the native file manager in EE was (justly or unjustly, depending on your viewpoint) heavily criticized online, especially on Twitter. Some of the criticism, I think, went too far. People forgot what it is like to be civilized and constructive.
With that in mind, it was interesting to hear James talk about how EllisLab views Assets (they think it’s really nice) and their approach to the file manager now that the expectations for it have been raised by the release of Assets (this isn’t just my conjecture, James says as much in the podcast).
Here are a couple of choice quotes from James during the podcast (these happen between 15 and 18 minutes into the episode). In reference to their work on the file manager for EE 2.2, James bluntly said:
Brandon Kelly’s Assets set us back a little bit.
James acknowleged that the bar has been raised but then softened that stance a little by lobbing some criticism about the user experience (UX) of Assets:
I think the way that Assets was approached is a good UX. I think there are some inherently wrong things about it, like mimicking Finder. Finder is a great tool and great UX but it’s unfamiliar to a large portion of computer users. So it’s not necessarily the best solution.
In a response to the podcast, add-on developer Lodewijk (“Low”) Schutte very eloquently described why unfamiliar doesn’t mean bad:
Lack of familiarity does not mean bad UX. It just means unfamiliar. If you take the two extreme positions, you could make a file interface either like Windows Explorer or Mac OS X Finder. Choosing either of the two will exclude the other, so no good choice could be made, according to that stance. Trying to come up with something entirely new is very difficult indeed and will very certainly be unfamiliar to all of your users. And this idea is true for any kind of interface, not just a file manager.
Low is correct here and I would agree with him that “it’s wrong to dismiss an interface/design/UX, just because it’s unfamiliar to a certain portion of your users.”
While I did describe it as “Finder-like” in my Assets First Look video, I think the calling it flawed because it mimics parts of the Mac OS X Finder is misleading and generally incorrect. There are indeed elements of the Assets “window” that do look “Finder-ish,” but the general interaction with the folders on the left and the files on the right isn’t anything specific to OS X (just take a look at this screenshot of Windows 7 ).
I would argue (and, yes, I realize I’m being pedantic) that there’s not even a lack of familiarity with the UX in Assets. The general function of a list of folders or groupings in a left pane and a detail list of files in the right pane is a common UI and UX across both Windows and Mac (and even some flavors of GUIs on Linux).
All that being said, this is only a small part of what they discussed on the show. James had a lot more to talk about new features, some things to expect and what his job entails. Please go listen to the entire EE Podcast episode over at the podcast website.
Disclosure: We are an Official Community Partner of EllisLab and Pixel & Tonic is an advertiser on EE Insider.
Blog Entry
This is a on-going series of entries where I highlight EE experiences.
Now that I know what I’m doing, I’m really digging ExpressionEngine.
Chris Reynolds via Twitter
I agree. Empowered and educated users have the most fun. And I just happen to know the best way to learn ExpressionEngine (shameless, I tell ya).
Blog Entry
EE Insider is fortunate to have and have had the support several companies in our community. These businesses (add-on developers and client services shops) have been around to help keep EE Insider running and to share their products and services with the community.
To be frank, the money earned from advertising helps pay for associated site costs, including the time it takes to maintain the site. In the past I’ve had people help me write for the site and they were paid directly from advertising. I am also looking (in the very near future) to add a new person to the site (paid, part-time position), so stay tuned for that announcement.
In no particular order, I would like to thank the following advertisers:
- 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.
EE Insider is halfway through its third year online and it wouldn’t be possible without the help of our advertisers. Would you like to share your product or service with the community? Get in touch.
Blog Entry
- Automatee ($, for EE2) by mithra62 (Eric Lamb)
Automatee is an interface to automate your ExpressionEngine site. With Automatee you can set your installed plugins and modules to execute on a schedule as well as create standard Cron routines like shell commands and URL requests all using traditional Cron syntax and your ExpressionEngine administration panel.
- NSM Footnotes (for EE2) by Leevi Graham (Newism)
Powerful footnotes for ExpressionEngine v2.
- Weather Info ($, for EE2) by w3care
Using Google Weather API, this plugin can be used to get weather report and temperature (highest & lowest) report of that day and the next 3 days. CURL should be enabled on the server.
- Greeny (for EE2) by Blis Web Agency
Having problems with relative upload paths in the EE2 CP? Greeny lets you use absolute paths to your upload directories and then corrects them for you automatically as you move from one server to another.
Blog Entry
Adam Rotman put together a quick tutorial on how to build a “kick-ass calendar” with ExpressionEngine. I think his first paragraph sums it up nicely:
It’s actually surprisingly simple to create a really awesome calendar in ExpressionEngine 2 if you have about 15 minutes and $79.95 to spare for the amazing Calendar module from Solspace. For the most part, it’s almost a no-brainer but there’s a few small tweaks you’ll want to make
It does require that you have the Calendar Module from Solspace, jQuery and a jQuery plugin. After that, just follow Adam’s instructions and you’ll be set.
Looks nice!
Read Adam’s tutorial: Build a Kick-Ass Calendar with ExpressionEngine & jQuery
Blog Entry
A couple of EE-related jobs popped up on Twitter. First, from Travis Schmeisser of Structure(unsure if this related to Structure, however):
Looking for a javascript guru (preferably with ExpressionEngine experience). Email me if interested: travis [at] rockthenroll [dot] com
EllisLab CEO Leslie Camacho posted on Twitter about an upcoming PHP developer position:
EllisLab is looking for an experienced dev who loves #eecms Contact me if you want a head start on applying (no formal post yet).
He later noted:
I should clarify that EllisLab is specifically looking for a talented/experienced PHP dev who loves #eecms
Lots of great work out there. Have a job you want to promote? Send it to us and we’ll spread the word.
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