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Ask the Readers: Are you building EE 2 sites yet?

Ask the Readers I’ve only launched two sites so far on ExpressionEngine 2. The first was a very small site for my ExpressionEngine book. The second was part of a larger effort at Happy Cog to build and launch a site for the second annual Cogaoke karaoke competition at SXSW Interactive in Austin, Texas.

Using EE 2 for both sites was a positive experience. But that’s me. What about you?

Are you using EE 2 for production sites yet? Why or why not?

Give us your answer in the comments!

Posted on Mar 22, 2010 by Ryan Irelan

Filed Under: Ask the Readers

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I've dinked around with EE 2 a bit here and there since getting in the private beta a year ago. I've really enjoyed it, but it always felt lacking in comparison to EE 1.6, since it didn't enjoy the addon love that the first branch did at the time. However, now that we have most every "essential" addon (I use quotes because they're not essential, but they do make my deployment easier) available for EE 2, and because we have now moved out of Public Beta, I feel confident in pushing the new system for all future projects. Upgrades, however, will be on a case-by-case basis.
Posted by Christopher Kennedy on 2010-07-13 10:08:07 I'm brand new to EE, so I've decided to start with 2.0 and stay largely "in the box." Working on my first site with it (coming from MovableType).
Posted by Bob Monsour on 2010-03-29 09:14:50 I'm waiting until it comes out of Beta and 2.1 is released and not built any clients sites with it yet, the main issue being addons. I'll still plod on with 1.6 for the time being, I know it's capabilities. Saying that I do consider using 2.0 with every new project that rolls in.
Posted by bluedreamer on 2010-03-24 14:29:28 Hi, All my client-sites are on 1.6, but my own is build and managed with ee2.0 and so far i'm really happy with it. Good points : - The mobile CP theme - The admin interface (after a few days of use it's better than 1.6) - Images upload and integration - Accessory - Spinets, Third party management, and so on ... But : - Some majors 1.6 plugins and extensions not yet ready for 2.0 - Some small bugs into the CP (not disturbing for me, but for a client) - Same old question on the visual edition for "newbies clients" who still answer what is HTML (so, html buttons ...) Anyway, it's a bit hard going back on 1.6, i'm really enjoying the 2.0 experience. Wait, see, and improve my ee2 approach. Andrei
Posted by Andrei Curelaru on 2010-03-24 02:36:37 @Adam; Have you tried the professional template? Maybe you'll like that better.
Posted by Bj on 2010-03-24 01:16:28 I've got a couple personal projects on it and a couple for friends who understand it's in beta. After encountering a couple bugs that pretty much kill the whole experience, I'm definitely not running it on a real client site for a bit. Let's see what the next build brings though. Without the bugs it's definitely nicer to work in than 1.6.8.
Posted by John Knotts on 2010-03-23 05:54:18 I love the fact that it's on CI, but working with the new cpanel simply brings me down, that's why I'm not using EE2 yet. There are many of us who spend quite a lot of our working days in the EE control panel. Changing it for the sake of change reminds me of Microsoft moving the refresh button of its browser from the left of the address bar to the right. There should have been a strong movement during the long dev time of EE2 to campaign to keep the cpanel as it was, or at least have it change via evolution rather than revolution. I think we in the EE community are too sycophantic.
Posted by Adam Khan on 2010-03-23 04:30:45 I used it on 2 production sites. While i experienced some bugs in the system, it still enabled me to develop custom modules pretty fast due to my codeigniter background. So for me it's a definite yes for 2.0!
Posted by Nico on 2010-03-23 04:20:42 Will probably use it on my upcoming portfolio site, as good an excuse as any to get in deep with 2.0 :) For clients it's still no, too many essential add-ons are MIA and the CP still feels sluggish, even on modern browsers.
Posted by Erwin Heiser on 2010-03-23 03:16:28 I have built just the one site in EE2.0 so far, which has yet to launch. Fortunately it was a site that didn't require a multitude of add-ons like most of the sites I do, so I didn't feel overly frustrated by the experience, but my development time was definitely much slower than 1.6.x. I think given time to mature, and once the bigger addons are there, I can see me using it a lot more without worrying about it too much.
Posted by Richard Angstmann on 2010-03-23 02:15:39 I just finished building the website and mobile site for my upcoming iPhone app and working with EE2 felt great. I'm also rebuilding my studio website with EE but I'm still waiting for a few add-ons like FF Matrix and LG Better Meta to finish it.
Posted by Jan Vantomme on 2010-03-22 23:48:04 Not yet. Probably the first EE2.0 site I will do will be my portfolio site. I'll be getting on that as soon as my current client site wraps up in about 3 weeks or so. Other than that no, because the sites I have done recently all needed add-ons that are not yet available in EE 2.0.
Posted by Sean Smith on 2010-03-22 23:44:24 Just updated my 'sandbox' site to EE2 + started new project with ExpressionEngine. February version it
Posted by Max Lazar on 2010-03-22 23:09:34 Looks like I took the red pill - EE 2.0 all the way! ;)
Posted by bjorn on 2010-03-22 22:54:25 I'm on my second (smallish) site using 2.0 now. After having built tons of sites in 1.x it's good to force myself to shake things up a bit because I had gotten into a routine with everything. Some of the small features like the template creation process and synchronization are super nice, as well as the file manager. And, I'm warming to the interface.
Posted by Bud Parr on 2010-03-22 16:45:57 waiting for more extensions to be compatible before using 2.0
Posted by Hendrik-Jan Francke on 2010-03-22 14:30:00 Ditto ditto ditto. Too many extensions (et al) that need to finish their walk over to the EE2 side before I can think about moving over. It's a shame it's taking so long (listen to me complain!) because I'd really love to get in there and working with it. For now, I can't even begin to cost out a project with only a base install. THAT'S how dependent I've become on third-party add-ons. C'est la vie.
Posted by Pink Droid on 2010-03-22 14:14:05 Been busy and haven't had the money for the upgrade, but I plan to upgrade this summer (or late spring).
Posted by E. Christopher Clark on 2010-03-22 13:56:10 Just my personal port. I don
Posted by julz on 2010-03-22 11:26:55 Ruthie -- by performance I don't mean on the front-end. I expect that being built on CI, that's likely improved if anything. I mean on the back-end. I've found it slow to load the admin screens, and the interface just isn't nearly as snappy as 1.6.8. (Why does everything have to slide?) Hopefully upgrading to jQuery 1.4 in a later build can improve this some. My hope is that 2.1 makes a leap.
Posted by Derek Hogue on 2010-03-22 10:48:05 Derek, can you expand on what you mean by performance? The sites I work with are pretty low-traffic, so I usually don't have to worry about site performance. I'd be very interested in seeing metrics comparing an EE 2 site to an EE 1.6.8 site.
Posted by Ruthie BenDor on 2010-03-22 10:05:56 At Happy Cog we just released Cog'aoke.com on EE2 and it ran beautifully. Things seemed snappy and responsive even during some pretty heavy load. True there's some visual glitches and many missing add-ons. But it was also quite refreshing to build a site "out-of-the-box." It forced us to think of EE in ways we hadn't for a very long time and served as a great reminder that not everything has to be custom built in EE.
Posted by Mark Huot on 2010-03-22 10:00:28 Not yet. Like others have said there are a few add-ons that are essential (like Structure) that I'm waiting for. Also, I want to make sure that I get familiar with EE 2.0 before I begin building sites with it. I know EE 1.6 like the back of my hand (more or less) and it feels like a stable, mature product. I'm going to let most of the bugs get squashed in 2.0 before I move over.
Posted by Kyle Batson on 2010-03-22 09:44:47 Not yet. The biggest problem for me is removal of Control Panel extension hooks from EE2.0. Many add-ons I consider critical cannot be ported without those hooks being restored. I will stick with 1.6.8 untill EllisLab desids to restore all Control Panel hooks.
Posted by Laisvunas on 2010-03-22 09:39:04 I'd love to use EE2.0, but unfortunately too many of my sites depend on extensions that are not yet compatible. A number of these extensions haven't even announced that they will support 2.0, so I fear I won't be able to upgrade for quite some time.
Posted by Scott McCracken on 2010-03-22 09:05:24 We are not deploying production sites in 2.0 yet for a number of reasons. One of my primary reasons is that we have a quick process for both initializing EE 1.6.x sites and also preparing training for our clients (pre-made videos, screenshots, etc).
Posted by Erik Reagan on 2010-03-22 08:48:26 I
Posted by Jan on 2010-03-22 08:28:34 "but falls way behind in others (speed, loading, performance overall)." "1.6.8 is fast, stable, and offers pretty-much all the same pre-rolled functionality..." You are so right!
Posted by Frank on 2010-03-22 08:22:50 I'm on 1.6x yet, I've discovered some really annoying bugs and problems with every build since first beta. If I could find some time in some months I go for 2.0 again...
Posted by Frank on 2010-03-22 08:20:48 I've started 4 or 5 new sites since the EE Public Beta came out, and each time it's only taken about 30 seconds of thought to realize I'm sticking with 1.6.8. EE 2 offers no enticing functionality yet. Sure, it makes gains in some areas (navigation), but falls way behind in others (speed, loading, performance overall). 1.6.8 is fast, stable, and offers pretty-much all the same pre-rolled functionality, plus FF Matrix, Playa, and other indispensable add-ons.
Posted by Derek Hogue on 2010-03-22 08:19:56 not yet. i would like to, but the add-on support just isn't there yet - too many must haves that aren't on 2.0 yet.
Posted by moogaloo on 2010-03-22 08:18:27 I've used EE 2.0 on my personal site (http://cotterinteractive.com/). It still has its quirks, but overall I really like 2.0. Once more addons come out for 2.0 and once more bug fixes are made, it will be even better. I don't feel comfortable using it on client sites yet, mainly due to Structure ;), but I still think its for developers at this point and not for huge clients. I can understand people not liking it. But me personally really enjoy, and do prefer it over 1.6.8 for my personal site.
Posted by Kyle Cotter on 2010-03-22 08:07:14 We've used EE2 for one small sites so far and are wrapping up a second. These are sites that required very few extensions and didn't get too far out of the box regarding their setups. For these purposes, 2.0 has worked well. Prior to building them we discussed with the clients the pro's and con's of going with 1.6 or 2--the clients opted for future compatibility with 2.0. Also, the fact we have support contracts in place with them made it a bit easier as well.
Posted by Matthew Krivanek on 2010-03-22 08:07:00 I've noticed a few visual glitches (Safari on OS X) and at least one functional glitch (removing the Pages tab while customizing the publish form breaks the form's submit function [http://expressionengine.com/forums/viewthread/149497/#727792]), so I definitely can't use it on a client's site in confidence.
Posted by Marc Amos on 2010-03-22 08:03:41

Marc Amos — 08:03 on 03.22.2010

I’ve noticed a few visual glitches (Safari on OS X) and at least one functional glitch (removing the Pages tab while customizing the publish form breaks the form’s submit function [http://expressionengine.com/forums/viewthread/149497/#727792]), so I definitely can’t use it on a client’s site in confidence.

Matthew Krivanek — 08:07 on 03.22.2010

We’ve used EE2 for one small sites so far and are wrapping up a second. These are sites that required very few extensions and didn’t get too far out of the box regarding their setups. For these purposes, 2.0 has worked well.

Prior to building them we discussed with the clients the pro’s and con’s of going with 1.6 or 2—the clients opted for future compatibility with 2.0. Also, the fact we have support contracts in place with them made it a bit easier as well.

Kyle Cotter — 08:07 on 03.22.2010

I’ve used EE 2.0 on my personal site (http://cotterinteractive.com/).

It still has its quirks, but overall I really like 2.0. Once more addons come out for 2.0 and once more bug fixes are made, it will be even better.

I don’t feel comfortable using it on client sites yet, mainly due to Structure , but I still think its for developers at this point and not for huge clients.

I can understand people not liking it. But me personally really enjoy, and do prefer it over 1.6.8 for my personal site.

moogaloo — 08:18 on 03.22.2010

not yet.
i would like to, but the add-on support just isn’t there yet - too many must haves that aren’t on 2.0 yet.

Derek Hogue — 08:19 on 03.22.2010

I’ve started 4 or 5 new sites since the EE Public Beta came out, and each time it’s only taken about 30 seconds of thought to realize I’m sticking with 1.6.8. EE 2 offers no enticing functionality yet. Sure, it makes gains in some areas (navigation), but falls way behind in others (speed, loading, performance overall).

1.6.8 is fast, stable, and offers pretty-much all the same pre-rolled functionality, plus FF Matrix, Playa, and other indispensable add-ons.

Frank — 08:20 on 03.22.2010

I’m on 1.6x yet, I’ve discovered some really annoying bugs and problems with every build since first beta.

If I could find some time in some months I go for 2.0 again…

Frank — 08:22 on 03.22.2010

“but falls way behind in others (speed, loading, performance overall).”

“1.6.8 is fast, stable, and offers pretty-much all the same pre-rolled functionality…”

You are so right!

Jan — 08:28 on 03.22.2010

Erik Reagan — 08:48 on 03.22.2010

We are not deploying production sites in 2.0 yet for a number of reasons. One of my primary reasons is that we have a quick process for both initializing EE 1.6.x sites and also preparing training for our clients (pre-made videos, screenshots, etc).

Scott McCracken — 09:05 on 03.22.2010

I’d love to use EE2.0, but unfortunately too many of my sites depend on extensions that are not yet compatible. A number of these extensions haven’t even announced that they will support 2.0, so I fear I won’t be able to upgrade for quite some time.

Laisvunas — 09:39 on 03.22.2010

Not yet. The biggest problem for me is removal of Control Panel extension hooks from EE2.0.
Many add-ons I consider critical cannot be ported without those hooks being restored.

I will stick with 1.6.8 untill EllisLab desids to restore all Control Panel hooks.

Kyle Batson — 09:44 on 03.22.2010

Not yet. Like others have said there are a few add-ons that are essential (like Structure) that I’m waiting for. Also, I want to make sure that I get familiar with EE 2.0 before I begin building sites with it. I know EE 1.6 like the back of my hand (more or less) and it feels like a stable, mature product.

I’m going to let most of the bugs get squashed in 2.0 before I move over.

Mark Huot — 10:00 on 03.22.2010

At Happy Cog we just released Cog’aoke.com on EE2 and it ran beautifully. Things seemed snappy and responsive even during some pretty heavy load.

True there’s some visual glitches and many missing add-ons. But it was also quite refreshing to build a site “out-of-the-box.” It forced us to think of EE in ways we hadn’t for a very long time and served as a great reminder that not everything has to be custom built in EE.

Ruthie BenDor — 10:05 on 03.22.2010

Derek, can you expand on what you mean by performance? The sites I work with are pretty low-traffic, so I usually don’t have to worry about site performance. I’d be very interested in seeing metrics comparing an EE 2 site to an EE 1.6.8 site.

Derek Hogue — 10:48 on 03.22.2010

Ruthie—by performance I don’t mean on the front-end. I expect that being built on CI, that’s likely improved if anything. I mean on the back-end. I’ve found it slow to load the admin screens, and the interface just isn’t nearly as snappy as 1.6.8. (Why does everything have to slide?)

Hopefully upgrading to jQuery 1.4 in a later build can improve this some. My hope is that 2.1 makes a leap.

julz — 11:26 on 03.22.2010

Just my personal port. I don

E. Christopher Clark — 13:56 on 03.22.2010

Been busy and haven’t had the money for the upgrade, but I plan to upgrade this summer (or late spring).

Pink Droid — 14:14 on 03.22.2010

Ditto ditto ditto. Too many extensions (et al) that need to finish their walk over to the EE2 side before I can think about moving over. It’s a shame it’s taking so long (listen to me complain!) because I’d really love to get in there and working with it. For now, I can’t even begin to cost out a project with only a base install. THAT’S how dependent I’ve become on third-party add-ons.

C’est la vie.

Hendrik-Jan Francke — 14:30 on 03.22.2010

waiting for more extensions to be compatible before using 2.0

Bud Parr — 16:45 on 03.22.2010

I’m on my second (smallish) site using 2.0 now. After having built tons of sites in 1.x it’s good to force myself to shake things up a bit because I had gotten into a routine with everything.

Some of the small features like the template creation process and synchronization are super nice, as well as the file manager. And, I’m warming to the interface.

bjorn — 22:54 on 03.22.2010

Looks like I took the red pill - EE 2.0 all the way!

Max Lazar — 23:09 on 03.22.2010

Just updated my ‘sandbox’ site to EE2 + started new project with ExpressionEngine. February version it

Sean Smith — 23:44 on 03.22.2010

Not yet. Probably the first EE2.0 site I will do will be my portfolio site. I’ll be getting on that as soon as my current client site wraps up in about 3 weeks or so.

Other than that no, because the sites I have done recently all needed add-ons that are not yet available in EE 2.0.

Jan Vantomme — 23:48 on 03.22.2010

I just finished building the website and mobile site for my upcoming iPhone app and working with EE2 felt great. I’m also rebuilding my studio website with EE but I’m still waiting for a few add-ons like FF Matrix and LG Better Meta to finish it.

Richard Angstmann — 02:15 on 03.23.2010

I have built just the one site in EE2.0 so far, which has yet to launch. Fortunately it was a site that didn’t require a multitude of add-ons like most of the sites I do, so I didn’t feel overly frustrated by the experience, but my development time was definitely much slower than 1.6.x.

I think given time to mature, and once the bigger addons are there, I can see me using it a lot more without worrying about it too much.

Erwin Heiser — 03:16 on 03.23.2010

Will probably use it on my upcoming portfolio site, as good an excuse as any to get in deep with 2.0
For clients it’s still no, too many essential add-ons are MIA and the CP still feels sluggish, even on modern browsers.

Nico — 04:20 on 03.23.2010

I used it on 2 production sites. While i experienced some bugs in the system, it still enabled me to develop custom modules pretty fast due to my codeigniter background. So for me it’s a definite yes for 2.0!

Adam Khan — 04:30 on 03.23.2010

I love the fact that it’s on CI, but working with the new cpanel simply brings me down, that’s why I’m not using EE2 yet.

There are many of us who spend quite a lot of our working days in the EE control panel. Changing it for the sake of change reminds me of Microsoft moving the refresh button of its browser from the left of the address bar to the right.

There should have been a strong movement during the long dev time of EE2 to campaign to keep the cpanel as it was, or at least have it change via evolution rather than revolution. I think we in the EE community are too sycophantic.

John Knotts — 05:54 on 03.23.2010

I’ve got a couple personal projects on it and a couple for friends who understand it’s in beta. After encountering a couple bugs that pretty much kill the whole experience, I’m definitely not running it on a real client site for a bit. Let’s see what the next build brings though. Without the bugs it’s definitely nicer to work in than 1.6.8.

Bj — 01:16 on 03.24.2010

@Adam; Have you tried the professional template? Maybe you’ll like that better.

Andrei Curelaru — 02:36 on 03.24.2010

Hi,

All my client-sites are on 1.6, but my own is build and managed with ee2.0 and so far i’m really happy with it.

Good points :
- The mobile CP theme
- The admin interface (after a few days of use it’s better than 1.6)
- Images upload and integration
- Accessory
- Spinets, Third party management, and so on ...

But :
- Some majors 1.6 plugins and extensions not yet ready for 2.0
- Some small bugs into the CP (not disturbing for me, but for a client)
- Same old question on the visual edition for “newbies clients” who still answer what is HTML (so, html buttons ...)

Anyway, it’s a bit hard going back on 1.6, i’m really enjoying the 2.0 experience.

Wait, see, and improve my ee2 approach.

Andrei

bluedreamer — 14:29 on 03.24.2010

I’m waiting until it comes out of Beta and 2.1 is released and not built any clients sites with it yet, the main issue being addons.

I’ll still plod on with 1.6 for the time being, I know it’s capabilities. Saying that I do consider using 2.0 with every new project that rolls in.

Bob Monsour — 09:14 on 03.29.2010

I’m brand new to EE, so I’ve decided to start with 2.0 and stay largely “in the box.” Working on my first site with it (coming from MovableType).

Christopher Kennedy — 10:08 on 07.13.2010

I’ve dinked around with EE 2 a bit here and there since getting in the private beta a year ago. I’ve really enjoyed it, but it always felt lacking in comparison to EE 1.6, since it didn’t enjoy the addon love that the first branch did at the time.

However, now that we have most every “essential” addon (I use quotes because they’re not essential, but they do make my deployment easier) available for EE 2, and because we have now moved out of Public Beta, I feel confident in pushing the new system for all future projects.

Upgrades, however, will be on a case-by-case basis.

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