I know I’m not the only one chomping at the bit to get theirs hands on ExpressionEngine 2.0, so any news about the new version and what it contains is welcome. So I was very excited to read the most recent entry in the EE blog, which chronicles two big changes/updates for EE 2.0.

First, the term “weblog”, which is used to describe the generic containers of data that make up an EE site, will be replaced with “channel”. This is a great idea, especially now that “weblog” has so much baggage with it. Because of its current usage, I think a lot of people assume that EE is only a blogging platform, when in fact, it’s much more—or at least, it can be much more.

And second, EllisLab is putting together one great big “example site” that will show off what is possible with EE, as well as serve as a learning resource (which will join all of the other great educational resources for EE).

I’m particularly excited about this, in part, because of a conversation I recently had with a co-worker, during which we discussed ways to make EE, and its capabilities, more concrete for clients. Explaining web technology in general to non-geeks is challenging, but it can be especially daunting to fully explain something as open-ended and flexible as EE. So I’m very glad that EllisLab is doing something about this, and with Erskine Design at the reins, I know it’s going to be something good.

So, while it’s not exactly the announcement we’ve all been waiting for—i.e., a release date—it’s still exciting EE 2.0 news.

Oh, and here’s some related trivia: Change.gov is running on EE.

I’ve been pretty vocal concerning my love for ExpressionEngine. I’ve been using it for about two years now as my primary CMS/web publishing system, and I’ve yet to be disappointed with the decision. But I know that a lot of folks out there still aren’t convinced, especially when there are so many free, open source CMS options of note (e.g., WordPress, Drupal, Joomla!) and you have to purchase a license to get all of EE’s capabilities.

There are a number of reasons why I think that EE being commercial software is an asset, rather than a liability. And right at the top of that list is support. True, systems such as WordPress have a very large and vibrant community, which is a definite plus. But one of the things that I’ve found most valuable about EE is that, in addition to having a vibrant community of its own, it also has its own paid support staff. Folks like Sue Crocker and Robin Sowell, whose job it is to hang out on the forums and answer people’s questions all day long. And they do an absolutely bang-up job.

Case in point: I was working on an EE-powered site at my day job when I ran into a rather irksome glitch where certain templates weren’t rendering correctly under certain conditions. I tried all the usual troubleshooting measures, to no avail, and so I went to the forums. There, the EE support staff has spent the last month or so patiently working with me to isolate the solution, and as of right now, it looks like we’ve found the culprit.

Now, the reason this took a month was all due to me; oftentimes I had to put this project on the backburner because something else came up at work, thereby delaying any further progress. But whenever I posted in the forums, I could always count on getting a quick response, sometimes within 30 minutes of my post.

That level of dedicated support is, in my book, simply amazing, and as much a feature of EE as its flexible templating system, custom field capabilities, or large library of third-party add-ons. And it just confirms my belief that EE truly is a superlative CMS choice.

EllisLab has just posted a sneak preview of ExpressionEngine 2.0’s control panel, and it looks even better than before. It’s great to see things in action, and already, the gears in my head are a-whirlin’ with the possibilities.

A few observations from the preview:

• The new CP was indeed designed by Veerle Pieters—or at least, the displayed theme was. However, several other themes will be made available when EE 2.0 is released. I like Pieters’ theme alright, but I’d also like to see something a little more streamlined and Web 2.0-ish.
• EllisLab’s attention to detail is really great. The new CP layout is very flexible, both in terms of screen and text size.
• Weblogs are now called “collections”... for now, that is.
• Members do indeed have their own dedicated interface, which should hopefully make it easier to manage.
• The AJAX/jQuery implementation—dynamic filtering, table column sorting, pagination, etc.—is teh awesome.
• I’m not sure if I like the way the submenus work. I wouldn’t mind seeing some sort of Suckerfish-esque dropdowns, rather than the multi-click necessary. But from the looks of things, it’ll be easy enough to update the admin area to get that.
• Templates, message pages, and themes are all consolidated into one area! Yay! And I love the in-line template preference editing.
• The revamped “Publish” screen officially blows my mind. I’m not even really sure what all of the implications or abilities are, but I can’t wait to try it. The “Write Mode” could be very nice. And what are those checkboxes doing there? Could that mean that EE 2.0 supports more field types for custom fields? I certainly hope so.

More discussion can be found in the EE forums.

The good folks from EllisLab previewed the next version of their acclaimed ExpressionEngine content management system yesterday at the SXSW festival. And not surprisingly, considering the vocal and passionate community that surrounds EE, folks were liveblogging, Twittering, and discussing the unveiling all day long (and still are).

While EllisLab didn’t reveal all of EE 2.0’s features, what they did reveal is certainly exciting. Here’s a brief rundown, based on what I’ve read of the coverage that’s been posted elsewhere:

• New Control Panel Interface Sporting a new design by Veerle Pieters (screenshots), EE 2.0’s CP has an AJAX-enhanced interface that appears to be much more configurable and flexible than the current CP. Some of the new CP’s features include: a special “Write Mode” that uses a Thickbox-esque technique to making entering content easier; better text styling controls (though a true WYSIWYG editor apaprently has not been included—which is fine by me); better file upload controls (yay!); easier configuration for custom fields; and “Accessories”, which allow you to add additional resources to the CP (e.g., training materials, RSS feeds). Additionally, the entire structure, organization, and nomenclature of the CP has been changed (e.g., “Members” management is now its own section with its own interface, the “weblog” terminology has been abandoned). Which is fine with me. One of my biggest issues with EE has always been with the CP interface, which is daunting even for experienced users. Nny attempts to streamline things will be greatly welcome. (Of course, we won’t know how successful such attempts are until EE 2.0 is in our grubby little hands.)
• CodeIgniter Integration EllisLab scrapped the current EE codebase, and instead, rebuilt EE 2.0 on top of CodeIgniter, EllisLab’s open source PHP framework. While this might not seem like a big deal, this opens up some exciting possibilities. CodeIgniter is more robust and scalable, and contains features that the current EE codebase doesn’t have (such as better database support). By rebuilding EE on CodeIgniter, EllisLab essentially now has just one codebase to support and build upon. This also makes it much easier for the CodeIgniter community, and third-party developers in general, to develop new add-ons and functionality for EE. This means more people developing for EE, which = teh awesome.
• jQuery Integration I am still curious as to exactly how, and to what extent, jQuery has been integrated into EE 2.0 (though I’m sure it’s being used to help power the new CP). Whatever the case, this is very cool. jQuery is a very powerful and easy-to-use JavaScript library that lets you quickly take control of your website, add in cool visual effects and UI widgets, and perform AJAX functions painlessly. (But if you’re a fan of some other JS library, such as Prototype or Script.aculo.us, don’t worry: jQuery integration can be disabled.)

More commentary on the preview can be found on David Russell’s Twitter page and his blog, Silicon Florist, and of course, “The Official Live Blog the EE 2.0 Preview Thread” on the EE forums.

You can also find several videos of the presentation in that same thread.

EllisLab will be posting an official recap of the event once the dust has settled from SXSW. What won’t be posted, however, is a release date. EE 2.0 will be done when it’s done, and EllisLab is sticking to that (they don’t publish roadmaps or timelines for EE updates).

As much as I’d love to start playing with EE 2.0 right now, I’ve always appreciated how polished EE has been. And if it means waiting a little longer to ensure that EE 2.0 has that same degree of polish, that’s fine by me. (But please don’t take too long, folks—EE 2.0 looks awesome!)

It’s been over a year since I made the switch to ExpressionEngine as my CMS of choice for both personal and professional projects (read the tale here). And suffice to say, I couldn’t be happier with the switch.

It’s a rare thing when a software package has so much impact on your life. I can honestly say that EE has allowed me to reach new career heights over the last twelve months or so, to become better, more productive, and more profitable.

I’ve been able to tackle projects that would otherwise have been beyond my resources. EE has allowed me to develop websites more efficiently and thoroughly. And those websites more effectively meet client demands and specs.

So, just how does EE do that? What are its “killer features”, its primary selling points for me? Here are a few:

• The ability to run multiple weblogs at the same time Granted, this is not something that is unique to EE.  However, I think EE takes the concept of weblogs to some interesting new heights. However, some folks get confused by the term “weblog”.  A better way to think of a “weblog” in EE is as a section, or better yet, a generic container for your website’s data.  How you shape, structure, and present the data in these containers is up to you.
• Custom fields If there was any feature that truly “sold” me on EE, this would have to be it, as it overcomes an issue that I have with many other publishing packages out there. Jeff Croft goes into great detail concerning the fundamental issue here. Basically, most content management systems out there force you to organize your data according to their layout.  Which typically means that you have to squash all of your data into a handful of predefined fields (like “Subject”, “Body”, and “Extended Text”). Some packages, like WordPress, do allow you customize that somewhat with custom fields, but I’ve found the implementation to be rudimentary at best.  EE, on the other hand, has a very powerful and flexible method for creating groups of custom weblog fields. These allow you to customize your website to fit your data, not the other way around. This is especially nice if you’re anal like me and want to keep your data organized right down to the last jot and tittle. It also makes it easier to develop websites, and can make it easier and more intuitive to manage and administer the website.
• The “Query” module EE is modular in nature; all of its major features and functions are handled by various modules. For example, there’s a “weblog” module for handling website entries, a “photo gallery” module for managing and displaying photo galleries, an “RSS” module for handling newsfeeds, and so on. One of my favorite modules is EE’s “Query” module, which allows you to create your own MySQL queries to retrieve and display your website’s data. I don’t use it all that often, but like a Swiss army knife, there are those times when it’s a real godsend. For example, there are times when I know exactly what piece of data I wish to retrieve, and therefore I know what query to use. I could use one of EE’s default tags, such as {exp:weblog:entries}, to pull out the data, but that would be overkill and less efficient in this case. That’s where the “Query” module comes in real handy.
• EE makes no assumptions about the websites I’ll create This isn’t so much a feature as a philosophy held by EllisLab (the folks behind EE). However, it impacts so much that I want to include it here. Essentially, this means that EE doesn’t assume that I’m going to use it to build a blog, a corporate website, a portfolio, or any other type of website for that matter (the first two items on this list are results of this philosophy). The upshot of this is that I can use it to build practically any website I want, in the way that I want to, without EE’s functionality or features getting in my way or forcing me down a path that I don’t want to take. This also means that there’s no one right way to build a wesbite in EE. Granted, some ways are better than others, but ultimately, EE allows me to build a website in the way that I see fit. Having been a developer and programmer for many years, I know how much of a challenge this can be. On the one hand, you want to give your users a lot of power and capability, but on the other hand, you don’t want to get in their way. I’ve found that EE walks that fine line very well.
• Community These days, having a community of developers, programmers, and users surrounding your web software is a must-have, and EE has a great community. This makes it incredibly easy to get help when you’re stuck, learn plenty of cool new techniques, and in the interests of good karma, offer your own advice and expertise to help others. The EllisLab folks frequent the forums as well. It’s not uncommon for the company’s vice president or one of the lead programmers to chime in on the forums, making suggestions, troubleshooting, and listening to user’s requests. What’s more, the community is always coming up with additional modules, plug-ins, and extensions to make EE an even better platform. Folks like Solspace, Mark Huot, and Lodewijk have all contributed incredibly useful add-ons for EE. Indeed, so many add-ons are being created that EllisLab recently instituted a certification process for third-party add-ons.
• Documentation You can have the greatest software, CMS, or platform out there, but if folks can’t figure out how to use it, it’s worthless. This seems like such a no-brainer, and yet it’s all too often overlooked. Put simply, EE’s documentation is second to none. It’s incredibly indepth but never needlessly complicated and it’s written in a very concise and practical manner. What’s more, users can also contribute their own notes, tips, techniques, workarounds, and best practices. Beyond the manual, there’s also a knowledge base and a wiki that are packed with helpful tips and articles that touch on working with third-party systems, optimizing and customizing EE, and SEO, among other topics.

All of that being said, I realize that no system is perfect; there’s always room for improvement. And I know that EllisLab is hard at work on EE 2.0 even as I type this. So what would I like to see in the next major release?

• Improved Template Management There are several different kinds of templates in EE. There are your website templates, which contains all of your site’s (X)HTML markup, and also help define the URLs that are created by your site. However, there are also templates for discussion forums, the member profile manager, and various “specialty” templates (e.g. e-mail notifications, etc.). Right now, managing all of these templates can be a chore, as they’re spread throughout the control panel. I’d love to see this streamlined somehow, so that all of my site’s templates can be consolidated and more efficiently managed.
• Streamlined Control Panel This is somewhat related to the above item. EE is an extremely powerful and flexible system, but that comes at a price. Specifically, the control panel, which can be daunting and tiresome for even experienced users. I always tremble a bit when turning an EE site over to the client, because I know that I’m going to get a rash of e-mails as soon as they start making their way through the CP. EE currently gives you some control over who can see what in the control panel, which is good from both usability and security perspectives. But I’d like to see it be taken even further. I’m not asking for EllisLab to remove any functionality. However, I do think it could be organized and laid out more efficiently.
• Better support for moving entries between weblogs This is somewhat possible right now, so long as the weblogs in question use the same set of custom weblog fields. However, if you’re dealing with weblogs that use different field sets, you’re out of luck. You either have to try some tricky database wizardry (which may not always work) or re-enter the entry by hand (which is always a pain in the butt). I’d love for there to be some sort of interface whereby you select which field(s) in the new weblog correspond to which field(s) in the old weblog, with EE handling the transfer behind the scenes.
• Improved File Upload Manager When I first started using EE’s file upload manager, which allows you to add images, PDFs, and other files to your site entries, I thought it was pretty decent—especially when compared to Movable Type’s, which was what I was coming from. You can create multiple file upload directories and assign permissions to each of them, as well as various other parameters (e.g. allowable file types, maximum file size, etc.). Which is fine when uploading new images. But when you want to add a previously uploaded image to an entry, the manager stumbles a bit. Right now, it just gives you a list of filenames to search through. I’d love to see this improved a bit, with better browsing, searching, and viewing functionality.

Of course, that’s all easier said than done, and I’m not one whose going to be the doing. Mind you, none of the above are dealmakers or dealbreakers. I’d be perfectly content using EE in its current incarnation for a good long while. But, being the geek that I am, I can’t wait to see what Rick Ellis et al. have up their sleeves for future version(s) of the platform: I have a feeling it’s going to pretty dang cool, whatever might come.

Jambor-ee was shaping up to be a fine ExpressionEngine resource chock full of excellent articles and tutorials. And then the site went dormant for months, at one point even losing the domain. Thankfully, the Jambor-ee crew have returned, and in the vein of 24 Ways, they’ll be building a website on ExpressionEngine over the next 24 days, until Christmas, and documenting the entire process. (As an added bonus, they’ll be using jQuery in the project, which should mean some nice tips on using EE and jQuery together.)

Between this and series by Lisa Wess and Michael Boyink—as well as the excellent resources on the EE website—fledgling (and not so fledgling) EE developers should have plenty of info to help them make the EE websites of their dreams.

Exciting news on the ExpressionEngine front: the first “Certified Third-Party Add-On” has been announced, and it’s the new version of Solspace’s Tag module. I’ve used some of Solspace’s other offerings, such as Freeform and Rating. Mitchell’s kung fu packs a mighty wallop, and so I expect that the new Tag module will kick all kinds of hinder.

FYI, EllisLab recently instituted the certified add-on program as a way to ensure quality in the various third-party offerings for ExpressionEngine. EE has a burgeoning developer’s community that, while not as large as, say, Wordpress’, is stil sizable and constantly churning out interesting new stuff. The program is an attempt to encourage EE developers in the right way of making EE add-ons and helps ensure that EE users get a consistent level of quality.

Some more info can be found in this discussion forum thread.

It’s been over a week since I last posted anything on Opus, but I haven’t been lazy.  Far from it, in fact.  For the past few days, I’ve been working feverishly to get the new Twitch up and running, and I’m very pleased to say that, as of today, it’s live—check it out!

Obviously, the first thing you’ll notice is that the site looks completely different.  For example, the redesigned site is now optimized for 1024x768 monitors.  One thing that I tried to do with the new design was use some of the tricks I’d read about concerning grid-based layouts, specifically Cameron Moll’s advice concerning 960px-wide layouts and their grids.  The finished product deviates somewhat from those guidelines, but the emphasis on keeping the design as grid-like as possible was of a huge benefit, and an approach I plan on referring back to as much as possible.

The obvious benefit of switching to a wider base design width is that, naturally, you have more space to play with.  At least, in theory you do.  The reality is that you never have as much space as you think you do.  In this case, I had to figure out how to work in all of the necessary banner ads, which require all kinds of devoted space for them and them alone.

Banner ads are tricky little bastards.  On the one hand, you want them to be as unintrusive as possible, so that they don’t shout at the users or distract them from what they’re really there for—which, in Twitch’s case, is an insane amount of cult, indie, and foreign film coverage (like the recent announcement of the Midnight Madness line-up for this year’s TIFF).  But on the other hand, they do pay the bills and there are contracts and whatnot that must be followed.

I think the finished site struck a nice balance.  Only three banner ads are displayed on the site at any given time—a 728x90, a 300x250, and a 160x600.  The 300x250 was a new one, and in some ways the most problematic to work with.  My initial design for the site was a three column affair, and it looked pretty sharp (if I do say so myself).  Unfortunately, there was no way to work in the 300x250 in a way that wasn’t really annoying, and so the return to the original two column layout, albeit in a significantly redone manner.

Some folks have described the new design as “OS X”-ish, which I can see (and in my book, is a complement).  While the previous design had two color schemes, the new one only has a dark scheme (for now), with a few highlight colors.  I’m still working on some ways to subtly work in a bit more color, but the overall darkness lends the design a sleekness and modernity.

Another difference from the previous version was a downplaying of the primary site navigation.  Whereas before it had been a fairly prominent thing, the primary site navigation has been minimized in the new design (it’s located directly below the 300x250 ad in the left menu).  While this seems like a big no-no, especially coming from someone like me who tends to be fairly anal in these matters, the new design instead places more emphasis on the search engine, which runs a whole lot faster now.  As does the rest of the site.

Which brings me to the biggest change of all.

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