Meeting Kaylee.
SXSW Interactive has wound down and I’ve left Austin behind for another year. As usual, it was great to see many old SXSW friends and meet a lot of new ones. Most importantly, I was able to hang out with, talk to and share a few drinks with a lot of ExpressionEngine designers, developers and users. For me, the highlight of the conference was the EllisLab party at Moonshine Grill and the Solspace nightcap that followed (By the way, thanks to both EllisLab and Mitchell at Solspace for putting together several hours of excellent EE community interaction).
Another highlight, of course, was sitting down with some of the EllisLab team and walking through Kaylee, the development version of ExpressionEngine 2.0. In short, I’m very pleased. And I think you will be, too.
As a developer, the most exciting part to me is that EE 2.0 is built on CodeIgniter. Yes, the redesigned control panel is nice (it really is quite nice), but developing on EE and CodeIgniter at the same time means so much for level of comfort with the CMS and the ease of customizing it to fit the needs of clients.
I’m also very excited about Accessories. These are tabs that you can add to the bottom of the control panel page to include anything you want: documentation, dynamic data, video or contact information to name a few examples. I think Accessories are the new hotness of EE 2.0 and the one thing I think will become very, very popular in EE 2.0 and will quite possibly be a way to bring a new interface to existing data or even an alternate interface for other add-ons.
For non-developers using ExpressionEngine, you should be able to continue coding your EE templates as you always have (with the one syntax change from “weblog” to “channel”) and the information you’ve learned should mostly apply to your work in EE 2.0.
For the majority of the EE community, who couldn’t be at SXSW, I’m hopeful that EllisLab will put together some similar information online, so everyone can share in the experience of learning more about Kaylee.
So, what’s next? Currently, EllisLab is in the process of starting the Developer Preview of Kaylee, which will allow ExpressionEngine add-on developers the chance to learn more about the new version, how to code their add-ons to work on it and, most importantly, give them a head start so their add-ons are ready when EE 2.0 is ready. “Kaylee is strictly for developers to familiarize themselves with the new code base and begin add-on conversion.” Until more information is released, you can read through the existing FAQs on the EE 2.0 Sneak Preview page.
Posted on Mar 17, 2009 by Ryan Irelan
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Omid — 06:13 on 03.18.2009
Thanks for the heads up Ryan. This is very exciting.
T.Gee — 07:05 on 03.18.2009
A link to the old preview, bummer I was expecting more buzz from the SXSW. I guess there was no new presentation then. Little wonder with all the coding going on.
Thanks Ryan.
Marcus Neto — 07:06 on 03.18.2009
So jealous. I really must plan on being there next year. This is the second year in a row that I have kicked myself for not going. Putting it on the Calendar .... now…
Ryan Irelan — 07:20 on 03.18.2009
T.Gee, I think the goal of the demos at SXSW wasn’t to create buzz but to be more open with the community (those that were there) and get feedback.
Jim Wyse — 07:45 on 03.18.2009
Can’t wait for the EE->CI marriage. Hopeing there will be some new CI classes unveiled as well. User Authentication is high on the wish list!
Thanks
Leslie — 07:53 on 03.18.2009
@T.Gee This SXSW was about community, not buzz. We did as much as humanly possible to meet EE users and as much as humanly possible to avoid buzz.
I’m writing this from the Salt Lake airport so we’re still on our way back. Once we’ve recovered and cleared our heads, we’ll update the community on SXSW and share a bit more about Kaylee, hopefully this Friday.
Remember, Kaylee is a developer preview, aimed at code head and we’re still not comfortable showing her off to a general audience like the blog so I’m not sure we’ll do a screencast just yet. But we will definitely update people with news and recap SXSW.
We’re also still committed to updating the EE Blog with 2.0 news every 2 weeks, starting this Friday.
And now, I think I need to head toward my gate!
Chad Crowell — 09:00 on 03.18.2009
Nice summary Ryan - and very nice to sit down with you and Boyink for an hour to talk about everything and then some.
When Derek Allard showed us how the codebase mapped to the functionality in the CP, I don’t know what I was expecting, but knowing CI pretty decently, let me just say that it was exactly as I should have expected it. It was straight MVC in CI- nothing different than I have done in several CI projects in the past. Which means I, and anyone else familiar with CI will be able to hit the ground running with customizations.
Having never met the EllisLab team before, I was insanely impressed with their openness, friendliness and willingness to listen. D’Allard wrote down several suggestions that I had regarding how things work in the CP and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them implemented for 2.0 or a release soon after that.
My biggest takeaway was that the new CP will save all of us somewhere between 20-40% of time when setting up a site. Doing common repetitive tasks quickly on the same page using some JQuery magic takes the place of something that took 6 clicks and ended by returning to where you were.
All in all, I am very excited, in a business sense to be more efficient and have more flexibility with 2.0. Great job EllisLab and thanks for everything!
Michael — 13:51 on 03.18.2009
Any word on whether users will be able to be assigned to multiple groups? <fingers crossed>
Tristan Bailey — 02:55 on 03.19.2009
Thanks Ryan,
Would you to a wednesday night chat on it next week or are you on NDA?
Looking forward to being able to see it.
Nevin Lyne — 10:49 on 03.19.2009
Ryan,
Was great to get time to chat with you as well, and glad we all had such a blast at SXSW this year! Looking forward to the next time we can catch up in person.
Boyink — 10:58 on 03.19.2009
Good to finally meet you in person as well - and I’m still telling people “Ryan Ireland kept kicking me..”
Just to make it clear folks - the NDA was around the Summit, not the content in the Dates with EllisLab.
Kevin — 14:01 on 03.19.2009
I’m really happy with what I saw of Kaylee at SxSWi. My two biggest nits with EE have been addressed with the new version which made me very happy.