All entries filed under “EE Modules”
All things newsworthy about ExpressionEngine modules and module developers.
Planet-EE released their first module for EE 2, Search Results, which makes it easier to get your search results organized how you would like.
This straight forward, easy-to-use module gives you greater control over your search results without having to add PHP scripts to your templates, modify the EE core files, or use the SQL query tags.
Some of what this module does: group results by any field, sort by any field, and manage excerpt sizes. EE Insider has not yet tested this module.
This module is available only for EE 2 and costs $15 per site license.
Our favorite Dutch add-on developer that lives in a houseboat, Lodewijk Schutte, has released Low Reorder. It is an EE 2-compatible module and based on Elwin Zuiderverlds Reeorder module (which is still freely available for EE 1.6) but with some extra seasoning.
Low Reorder comes with a custom field type that is used to store the sort order of each entry. You can assign multiple Low Reorder fields to a field group, allowing for different orders for different uses. In addition to this, you can also filter sortable entries by status, category and expired/future entries.
Create a custom tab and then it’s never been easier for you or your clients to manage the ordering of content. Gone are the days of editing each entry individually.
Low Reorder is 12 Euros (about $16 US) and available now.
Over the weekend Crucial Web Hosting released a new module, KeyAds, that lets you better target content (or ads) to visitors.
KeyAds is a module for ExpressionEngine that allows you to display content to your visitors—like an ad or block of HTML code—based on keywords they enter in a search engine, or based on the referring domain.
This is a fairly common tool, so it’s nice to see this come to ExpressionEngine. The module seems easy to use and you could even combine it with an ad server like OpenX to display certain ad zones depending on keyword or referrer.
The module is currently only available for 1.6.8 but I’m hopeful a 2.0 version will be just around the corner.
Learn more: KeyAds Module by Crucial Web Hosting
Viget author Doug Avery has written a great article on Structure and the perfect setup.
Even with the EE 2.0 release in December, I think the best ExpressionEngine event in 2009 was the rise of Travis Schmeisser’s Structure. While 2.0 lays the groundwork for a bright future, in the short run it’s more of a step backwards because so few of EE’s amazing community-built addons have been ported so far - even with new functionality, a 2.0 upgrade takes away far more than it gives at the moment.
Be sure to check out the rest of the article for a well-written and reasoned article on doing cool stuff with Structure.
There are two ExpressionEngine tag modules being released today. The first one Tagger Lite is being released by Parscale Media. What does it do?
Tagger Lite allows you to tag all your Expression Engine entries. This powerful module allows you to add “Keywords” to your entries in a new simple integrated solution right within your entry tabs. This allows you to showcase content by tag and create tag clouds within your Expression Engine templates.
In the other corner we have the beta of Taggable a new module by CodeIgniter Chieftain Jamie Rumbelow. What it does may shock you!
Taggable is an easy-to use, powerful folksonomy engine designed exclusively for ExpressionEngine 2.0. It works with any channel entry, so you can add tags to your blog, news archive, pages, photo gallery - anything that’s powered by a channel! It features a rich set of template tags that let you list, filter, and display tags and their entries with no code necessary.
Indeed, it is a glorious day to be a tag.
This one came up a couple of weeks back in the EE Help Chat. Someone asked if there was a way to do recurring payments with Simple Commerce Module and EE. The answer is yes and no.
In the 1.6.x version of the Simple Commerce Module (included with all paid licenses of EE1 .6.x) you could not do recurring Paypal payments. But now 2.0 supports recurring payments in the new version of the Simple Commerce Module.
Read the full Simple Commerce Module documentation to get all of the details.
Over in the forum, imagehat studio announced the availability of a new wiki theme called EEDoc. The theme takes the EE wiki module and makes it look more like the official EE documentation.
The theme is a free download and even comes in versions for both EE 1.6.8 and EE 2.0. Nicely done!
Read the forum thread announcing EEDoc.
Champagne has been released, and it integrates heavily with Campaign Monitor for $35. According to its web site, Champagne has the following features:
- Publish email campaigns in EE and use EE templates to render HTML & text versions of campaign
- Reuse existing EE content and/or add content specifically for email subscribers when creating campaigns.
- Content authors can use a single interface to publish web content & email campaigns.
- Use EE tags to create a Campaign Monitor subscriber form. Custom CM fields are supported.
- View summary email campaign statistics after delivery.
- Customize the tab that is added to the EE Publish Form to match your CM branded product.
Sending a Campaign with Champagne
We can’t recommend it quite yet, because we haven’t played with it, but its feature set looks great. Let us know in the comments how it is!
One of the best EE add-ons for anyone with a blog, Low NoSpam is now compatible with EE2.
Low NoSpam Interface
We here at the Insider can not say thanks to Low enough for this excellent add-on, as it keeps our comments lean and mean while spam-free. This add-on is highly recommended.
Last week, Ben Croker of PutYourLightsOn released a new module for ExpressionEngine 2.0: FireMail.
FireMail is a complete email tool that replaces the Communicate tab, but that reuses the best of EE’s built-in email libraries. It adds a WYSIWYG editor when composing emails, supports batch sending for sending of mass mails, and allows you to track opens, clicks and unsubscribes resulting from any email you send.
Ben was kind enough to send over a copy of the module for EE Insider to try out.
Viewing email report in FireMail
The reporting lets you view the number of unique opens, how many click the links in your emails received, the number of unopened emails, as well as how many people unsubscribed from your email list after receiving the email.
Composing an email in FireMail
Composing emails in FireMail is just as simple as using the Communicate tool but it includes WYSIWYG editing using CKEditor (the same editor on which Wygwam is based).
FireMail could be a replacement for CampaignMonitor or MailChimp, if you’re sending to low volume lists. If your email lists exceed 100-200, you should use a dedicated service (like the two just mentioned). But for small mailing lists (local clubs, churches, etc), this is a great option.
This module is available only for ExpressionEngine 2.0, costs $49.95 per site and is available now.
Additional Information
Brian Litzinger has released Redeemer for ExpressionEngine 1.6.8. What, precisely, is Redeemer?
Redeemer is the first ExpressionEngine module for managing coupon codes. You can create them from the control panel, and even let users create their own codes based on an action they perform. On Twitter I mentioned I was building this and I got a couple of responses along the lines of “why don’t you just use EE’s built in Weblog to create coupons?” I could have done this, and thought about it, but you can only create a basic coupon code system with EE’s built in features. You won’t be able to easily, if at all, manage the number of times a coupon can be redeemed before it is invalid, limit by the user’s IP address, or member ID. You also won’t be able to generate new codes in the templates, and creating randomized codes would still require an extension or plug-in.
I love these little pocket add-ons for small tasks. Keep on rockin’ Brian. Keep on rockin’.
Hurry up and get Structure for $51.94 on its website.
Structure 2 is the 2010 winner of Devot:ee’s module of the year, and a fine module it is. Travis, Structure’s creator, wrote an article for us on it.
Structure is an alternate method for building ExpressionEngine sites which focuses on pages to create hierarchy for your content. We recently released version 2.0, which is now a commercial module ($65 per site license) and includes several of the most highly requested features to date.
So quickly, get a license!
Purple Dogfish has released a great new add-on called Member Utilities. The add-on, which looks fantastic, lets you do the following:
- Review Member Profiles – often spammers will sign up and post nothing, but their profiles contain spam links to whatever they’re promoting this week.
- Review Posts – you’ve identified that it’s possibly a spam sign up and you can see they’ve posted, but you have to search the forum to find it. Member Utilities allows you to find all forum posts from the control panel members list.
- Bulk move – select the members you want to move within the control panel members list and bulk move.
- Ban IP addresses – Option to ban the IP address if you’re moving into the banned members group.
- Ban email addresses – Option to ban email addresses if you’re moving into the banned members group.
- Delete all posts – Option to remove all posts if you’re moving into the banned members group.
The Extension is only currently available for 1.6.x and is available for $14.99. Congratulations to Purple Dogfish on the launch.
Lodewijk Schutte has released his first commercial add-on, Low Variables. It does the following:
This ExpressionEngine add-on gives you and your users a better way of managing site wide variables. Currently, you can use User Defined Global Variables, which are parsed at the very end of EE’s Parse Order and can only be edited though the Templates tab. Alternatively, you can use Path.php Global Variables which are parsed much earlier, but do not provide an interface for your users. Finally, you can use Fresh Variables, which are also parsed early, but can be inappropriate for your users as it also gives them the power to break your templates.
Congratulations to Low on his first release, which you can read more about on his excellent blog post about it. It is currently only available for 1.6.8.
Chris Macpherson has release CJM Amazon a Module for ExpressionEngine. What, you may ask on this cold winter day, does it do?
I really wanted to display some books that I’ve been reading and liked the idea of learning more about using web services. The Amazon generated links to their items include some nasty images and the formatting isn’t that great so I decided to write a wrapper for the Associate Web Service to enable me to pull whichever bits and pieces I wanted for each item, be it the image or the price, description or size.
It looks pretty great. $5 to the person who writes one for Readernaut, my favorite book-chronicle service.
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