Committing to Your Code

Blog Entry

Mike Mella wrote up an honest blog post about why he doesn’t use Structure. While some of his points were based on an older version of Structure (read the comments to see clarification by Structure’s Jack McDade), I naturally latched on to the larger issue at play: commitment.

Mike claimed that using Structure is a commitment. My response in the comments:

I think using almost any add-on (especially field types) in your site build is a commitment. This isn’t just in the case of Structure.

Essentially, that’s the game we play when building sites (or writing code). Make as many good decisions along the way as possible to ensure the site is usable, flexible and maintainable in the long term. That involves making a commitment to your own code or someone else’s.

New EllisLab CCO Wants Your Feedback

Blog Entry

James Mathias just started his new position at EllisLab as the Chief Creative Officer. He posted on the EllisLab blog looking for your suggestions on what you think needs to improve in the ExpressionEngine control panel.

In all sincerity, I need your help and this is a chance to have your voice, ideas, needs and wants heard in the quest to improve the greatest content management system ever made. Let’s make the magic happen together.

So tell me, what can we do in the short term to improve using the system? And further, what should the long term look like?

He wants to hear from you via email, Twitter or in the comments of his blog post. Several people have already chimed in, so now it’s your turn.

Boyink on Pages Module

Blog Entry

Mike Boyink has begun documenting the notorious and sometimes nebulous Pages module in ExpressionEngine. The Pages module is, without a doubt, a major challenge when training clients on using their new ExpressionEngine website. Hopefully we’ll see a revision to it in upcoming versions of EE.

Back to Boyink’s write-up. He’s taking a few blog posts to do a brain dump on everything about the Pages module and his first installment is packed full of great information. For me, however, the best part was his short Q&A with former EllisLab CTO Paul Burdick. Paul gave a nice history on the Pages module, the original expectations for it and why it’s stuck where it is.

Read Mike’s entire write-up and be sure to follow along for the remaining installments: Pages Module 1 - an Introduction and History

Responsive Web Design Book Released

Blog Entry

Today Ethan Marcotte’s Responsive Web Design book was released. The book walks you through everything you need to know about the responsive web, including media queries, flexible layouts and images. He then uses all of that information to help you make decisions about making your website responsive.

I had an advanced copy of the book and can personally vouch for its greatness. It’s brief (less than 150 pages) so you can read it quickly and then act on the new information.

The official marketing blurb:

From mobile browsers to netbooks and tablets, users are visiting your sites from an increasing array of devices and browsers. Are your designs ready? Learn how to think beyond the desktop and craft beautiful designs that anticipate and respond to your users’ needs. Ethan Marcotte will explore CSS techniques and design principles, including fluid grids, flexible images, and media queries, demonstrating how you can deliver a quality experience to your users no matter how large (or small) their display.

If you want to get a taste of what the book has to offer, read Ethan’s A List Apart article “Fluid Images,” which is an excerpt from Chapter 3 of the book.

The book is available in both ebook (pdf and epub) format and printed copy. The book design was done by the talented Jason Santa Maria (read his write-up on the book) so it is definitely worth picking up a printed copy.

Get the book: A Book Apart’s Responsive Web Design by Ethan Marcotte

Disclaimer: A Book Apart is part of the Happy Cog family where I work as part of the Happy Cog team based in San Francisco.

Your Weekly Devot:ee - June 3, 2011

Blog Entry

If you use Snippets and prefer to develop your sites with templates as files and version control (Git, SVN, et al) you will want to give SnippetsSync a spin. It’s free, and Bjorn is a good guy.

• SnippetsSync (for EE2) by Bjorn Borresen
  SnippetsSync is a very basic extension that lets you save your global variables and snippets as files, keeping them in-sync during development and enabling you to use version control on the files.
• plusone (for EE2) by ThoseGeeks
  Easily use Google +1 buttons in your EE2 templates.
• Blis Download File (for EE2) by Blis Web Agency
  You want to link to a file (e.g. a PDF or a JPG) but the browser is loading it instead of actually downloading it into the users Downloads folder. Download File to the rescue!
• Show Edit Date ($, for EE1) by Laisvunas
  This extension adds Edit Date column to the edit entries page. The fields in this column display the date of the last edit of the entry.
• Matrix Tidy Cols (for EE1) by Pixel & Tonic (Brandon Kelly)
  EE1 extension that cleans up your Matrix field-column associations after duplicating a site with MSM.
• Link Icon Detector (for EE1 & EE2) by Brad Morse
  Detects the file extension of the URL provided and adds an icon automatically to the right of it.
• String Replace Exp (for EE2) by Christopher Reding
  String Replace Exp is a tag based approach to PHP’s str_replace for ExpressionEngine 2

EE 2.2 Add-on Developer Preview

Blog Entry

Announced on the ExpressionEngine blog, EllisLab is now accepting requests to be included in the add-on developer preview for EE 2.2. The move allows add-on developers some time to get their add-ons up-to-date with changes in the EE application. This is particularly important has EllisLab continues to improve the codebase and roll out changes that can break third party add-ons.

The blog post from Marcus Neto has all of the information you need, including the steps to apply to be in the developer preview group. While they work on a more formal way to join, the process is manual (file out some info, email Marcus, etc).

Marcus also included a nice technical round-up (courtesy of Greg Aker) with examples of changes in EE2 and why it’s important that add-on developers take part of the developer preview program.

Read the entire write-up: ExpressionEngine 2.2, Add-on Developer Preview

Guess the New EE Podcast Co-Host

Blog Entry

A couple of months ago, in anticipation of my move to Austin, TX and work on a new show, I turned over the EE Podcast to my capable co-host Lea Alcantara.

Lea has been working to bring the show back and she has also recruited a co-host. But she’s not going to tell you who it is.  You have to play Guess the Co-Host. One lucky winner will take home a spectacular (I’m totally biased) and wonderful (see?) ExpressionEngine training package from Mijingo.

Lea is giving clues on the EE Podcast twitter feed, so follow along and submit your guess (but be sure to follow the rules).

Good luck!

The Brief Existence of Share-ee

Blog Entry

The site starting making the round this morning on Twitter and before the day was halfway over it was already returning a blank page. Share-ee was the early stages of a forum that hosted pirated copies of ExpressionEngine and commercial add-ons.

I didn’t write about it until now because as someone who also faces constant pirating of my products, I didn’t want to give free publicity to the site. I did, however, snap some screenshots of the site before it was taken down.

I don’t know exactly how the site was taken down but I’m assuming one or more people contacted their host (Bluehost) and complained. Apparently, the idea of sharing commercial software didn’t seem wrong to the person running the site, who commented via the site’s Twitter account (from Twitter for iPad) that they wanted to do something “useful for the poor devs like myself” and asking why we don’t “want some free code?”

Sites pirating ExpressionEngine software and related materials are out there and it’s nothing new. The only thing new here is that the site was completely public and the blatant promotion of it on Twitter using the very common #eecms hashtag.

EllisLab Sites Maintenance

Blog Entry

Just in case you have trouble reaching expressionengine.com or any other EllisLab sites, they just announced on Twitter:

Our sites may have brief periods of downtime today as we are taking advantage of the holiday to do some database pruning and tuning.

Upcoming Meetups

Blog Entry

Tis the season for ExpressionEngine meetups. Here are a couple of more that have popped up recently. If you are planning an EE meetup, please get in touch so I can make sure to include it in a future posting.

Salt Lake City Meetup

Join Mike Boyink for a meetup at the Squatters Pub and Brew in Salt Lake City. The meetup takes place this week (tomorrow!) May 31st at 6:30 PM.

More information about the meetup

Inaugural Irish Meetup

John Henry Donovan is coordinating the first Irish meetup. The event takes place on Thursday June 9th (next week) at 8 PM. It’s a safe bet that beer will be involved. Help John Henry plan by signing up on the meetup page.

More information about the Irish Meetup

San Diego Meetup

This meetup group doesn’t yet have an event scheduled (it’s only a few days old) but if you’re in the San Diego area and want to hang out with others in the EE community, join the group. Here’s a description of the group:

As you might imagine from our group name our members are based throughout San Diego county. If you are new to the cms world you might consider joining our group and learning why EE might be a great fit for you and your business. If an you are an agency or company looking to learn more about this great CMS and want to meet the people in your area who can help you do just that then please feel free to join our group. If you’re an EE beginner or a skilled #eecms veteran you belong here. Everyone is welcome!

More information about the San Diego group

EECI Ticket + Software Contest

Blog Entry

Justin Long is giving away a full EECI ticket plus a barge full of software and other EE materials. To have a chance to win, you either need to create an ExpressionEngine resource (add-on, how-to guide, etc) or, if you’re new to EE, write up why you should win and want to go to EECI.

I won’t list out all of the prizes (there are a lot) and it looks like there is only one winner and that winner gets everything (about $2300 worth of stuff). It would be good for that winner to be you.

Great contest, so be sure to enter!

Recycle those Submissions

Justin says that everything you submit remains your property, so for everyone else that didn’t win but did submit a how-to article or other write-up, I invite you to send them to EE Insider. If they are published you also retain copyright (as do all of the authors of how-to articles on this site) and I’ll also give you $100 or a bundle of Mijingo learning materials (your choice) for sharing your knowledge with the community.

Even if you don’t enter but have a how-to you want to share, get in touch.

Read all of the details on Justin’s contest, including the full list of prizes: EECI Full Conference Ticket w/ DevDay Giveaway

Your Weekly Devot:ee - May 26, 2011

Blog Entry

• PDF Icon Link Detector (for EE2) by Brad Morse
  Detects for a link to a PDF file, if found, adds a pdf icon to the right of the link
• Expresso Deep Linking (for EE2) by Rein de Vries
  This little Extension add a new field in the link dialog from CKEditor. With this field you can link to any page that you’ve created with the Taxonomy module.
• solveCAPTCHA (for EE2) by Aaron Lax
  solveCAPTCHA is an extension that replaces the built-in captcha with the solve media captcha system on member registration and comment forms. This captcha allows you to re-purpose your commenting and new member registration captchas for use as an advertisement.

EEUK Conference in August

Blog Entry

EEUK | ExpressionEngine Conference, Manchester, 2011:

A chance to learn from and network with the cream of the EEUK community. Join your peers for the UK’s first ever national ExpressionEngine conference, taking place at the stunning Manchester Town Hall.

It sounds a chance you don’t want to miss. Speakers will include John Henry Donovan (TSS for EllisLab and freelance web developer), Stephen Lewis (of Experience Internet and world fame) and Jamie Pittock (Erskine Design and new papa). There are even more speakers, so check out the full lineup.

The event takes place on one day (August 26, 2011) and costs £99. The ticket also includes lunch and refreshments.

Charlotte ExpressionEngine Meetup

Blog Entry

My former (as of, um, today) state of residence is holding an ExpressionEngine meetup in Charlotte. The Charlotte ExpressionEngine Meetup takes place on Tuesday June 21st at 6 PM.

If you’re in the Charlotte area you should make time and help make this a great meetup.

EE in the Wild: Offshore Wind Scotland

Blog Entry

A new Scottish government site about offshore wind opportunities launched and it’s powered by ExpressionEngine.

User “Robstero” posted in the EE forums and had this to say:

It’s been a great project and Expression Engine has been a really good fit for what we needed to do. We’ve got a ton of features built on the backend that minimise content editing chores for our client. At the same time the site’s super-configurable and extensible.

View the site: Offshore Wind Scotland

What They’re Saying About EE

Blog Entry

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

It’s getting to the point I can’t afford not to use #eecms. I can get most client sites working in EE in 1-3 days, depending on complexity.

Objective HTML via Twitter

Version 1.7.1 Build 20110520 Released

Blog Entry

This release of EE 1.7.1 is a security and maintenance release, which addresses “a critical bug where each member’s settings for ‘Enable Avatar’ and ‘Enable Signatures’ were reset to ‘No’ when preferences were updated in the control panel’s General Configuration page.”

See the blog post from EllisLab or the (one line) changelog entry for this build.

Since it is a security release, it’s recommended that you upate your sites running EE 1.x. Don’t forget to test first and back up your site!