Features A future recipe for ExpressionEngine?
Simon Rudkin
/ 28th January, 2009
I suppose I could send you the templates as text files, and give you a description of how I’ve setup the relevant weblogs and fields. Or I could dig into MySQL, dump out all the relevant data and hope you can work out how to import it all into your ExpressionEngine site.
Sounds like a bit of a faff, right?
Let’s think about something else. How many of you professionals in the audience make website after website with a fair amount of common functionality? I’m sure a few hands went up. Could be a news section, could be a staff directory, could be the kind of events calendar I talked about previously.
If you work anything like I do, you might have a common install, maybe a set of standard start-off templates, but there’s no kit of parts that could give a new team member a flying start. No easy, friendly and ExpressionEngine-esque way to package-up the apartments-to-rent functionality from Site A and squirt it into Site B.
One more scenario to labour my point with. My friend has a great idea for a blog, she knows a little bit of HTML from a course about ten years ago, and she wants to get up-and-running before her inspiration heads for the hills. Most of the bloggers she knows use Wordpress, but I tell her about this ExpressionEngine thing which is like loads better, dude.
She does the ExpressionEngine install and then starts looking for some themes, skins, templates whatever they’re called, just like her Wordpress chums use to personalise their sites. But strangely, there aren’t any, and after two weeks faffing about, trying to mate ExpressionEngine to a three-column CSS layout, she installs Wordpress, downloads the Kubrick theme, makes the header pink and gets blogging.
When my hypothetical blogging friend asks me about this dearth of themes, skins, templates for ExpressionEngine, I’ve got an explanatory quote to hand:
You fall into the category of the rare user that does want a pre-cooked theme anyway.
Sound familiar? I’m sure this reminds me of an old anecdote about a steakhouse that thinks the world doesn’t like eating fish, but I can’t quite remember it.
OK. Perhaps it’s time I stopped the sarcastic bitching, and got down to some practicality. After all, “most of you are designer superheroes and would never use a stock theme anyway”.
As an aside, who would win in a fight between a designer superhero and a javascript rockstar?
Where was I? Practicalities, right. We all know how the open-ended, super-flexible, build-what-you-want nature of ExpressionEngine means that creating a skinning or theming setup is more problematic than doing the same for a system which uses more restrictive and fixed mark-up. And I’m sure we’ve all banged our collective heads against content management systems with a hard-baked structure. But as a fellow ExpressionEngine fanatic said to me, “you can build what you want with lego, and that doesn’t stop it being sold in kits”.
Now, come the launch of 2.0 the situation will hopefully be different. The forum post that I’ve been misquoting gives a tantalising glimpse of how we’ll all be bundling templates in and out of ExpressionEngine come the new version.
And I’m really hoping this extends to include all the elements that go together to make an ExpressionEngine site or setup. That’s right, I want to mash together not just templates, but also weblogs (and the data in them), custom fields, categories and even the odd status group, for good measure.
This isn’t just a personal wish-list; I’m absolutely convinced this would bring massive, massive benefits to the ExpressionEngine community. So let me count the ways.
- Firstly, it opens up a much wider ‘ecosystem’ of add-on developers and therefore available add-ons. Currently, the entry-bar is very high. To develop plugins, extensions and modules you need PHP skills, you need an understanding of how EE works internally and most importantly you need a comprehensive general knowledge about EE’s strengths and weaknesses. The very nature of these bolt-ons means developers are almost certainly scratching their own itch.
- Secondly, it increases the appeal of ExpressionEngine for non-technical or semi-technical users. The Wordpress install-and-theme crowd would have an easy entry and who knows what the might go on to do with ExpressionEngine? And giving a helping-hand to this potentially huge new market would do nothing to hinder the suitability of EE for the current more advanced audience.
- Thirdly, an expanded ExpressionEngine ecosystem benefits everyone involved. Think how the vast array of iPod accessories fuels iPod sales and vice-versa. And think what a large part of this market is made up from cases, sleeves and skins where it’s far more about adding personalisation than protection or more complex features.
- Fourthly, making ExpressionEngine more consumer-friendly differentiates it neatly from CodeIgniter. Does EllisLab really want two developer-only tools in its line-up?
- Fifthly, it makes things much easier for the current hard-core of EE users. I’d love to start a project by selecting and installing relevant templates / weblog / field / status / category bundles from my ready-to-roll library.
- Sixthly (is that really a word?) it provides a much better learning resource for new users. The whole ‘it can be anything you want’ nature of ExpressionEngine can makes things daunting for new users. What’s the best way to transform proposed site sections into weblogs and categories? How should I handle navigation? Human nature makes editing easier than creating, and digging into a stock library of ExpressionEngine setups would certainly turn on the lightbulb more quickly for new users.
- And finally, it presents ExpressionEngine as a tool for designers, as well as developers.
The current situation is liking arriving for a date with a super-model, only to find that she’s turned up in her gardening clothes. Like super-models really have gardening clothes, but you get the idea.
To round up my banging-on, here’s my dream functional spec.
I’ve just finished making a really tidy events calendar using ExpressionEngine. It keeps the events in one weblog, venues in another, uses custom fields to add a Google Maps link for each venue, and pulls it all together in a template group that splits events into upcoming and archived. Just the kind of project that EE handles with aplomb, and I’d love to share it with you.
- So I click the Recipe tab and select ‘Make Recipe’.
- I scroll down the list of templates, and select the template group I want to include in the recipe.
- Then do the same for weblogs, status groups, field groups and categories.
- I enter instructions for my recipe, and add a cover image.
- I choose to include my sample data, and give the recipe a name (which gets appended to everything to cut down the overwriting risks).
- I click ‘Make Recipe’, then download and email it to you.
- Finally, I upload it to the ExpressionEngine Recipe Store, set my price, and listen out for the ker-ching of my 70% commission.
Just a thought.
Simon ((JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)) has been chewing on ExpressionEngine like a puppy with a squeaky toy since it was launched. He splits his time between Nottingham and London, making websites for clients including Sony BMG, Universal Music and EMI, and is a visiting lecturer at Nottingham Trent University’s School of Art and Design. Simon and his wife wish they lived in New York City where their hypothetical Jack Russell, Biggles, could have his poop scooped in Central Park to his heart’s content.
Comments
Steven Hambleton on January 28 2009 at 9:30pm
I’m with you there!
Cameron Senior on January 28 2009 at 10:51pm
Agreed. This would be fantastic to have, and lower the barrier to entry for a lot of people.
Travis Schmeisser on January 28 2009 at 11:06pm
Functionality like that would be great! I love the idea of the weblogs (will be channels) even being setting that are easily imported and exported with these sets.
Adam Khan on January 28 2009 at 11:53pm
Thought about this myself, called it “Deployments” in my own head, and took it no further.
You’ve written the call to arms, I for one believe it’ll happen.
Andy on January 29 2009 at 5:40pm
Hm.. I’ve had something like that since late 2007, and its is very close to what you describe (sans the image).
I made it reversible – so that the operation can be undone at any stage – and upgradable – if you make an edit to your weblog preferences etc after preparing a snapshot it can be included, my module shows a notice: “*this has been changed since you prepared your snapshot”.
One feature I’m particularly satisfied with is the config. It is built so that I only update the settings on its config page if something in EE changes when a new EE build/version is released (unless that something actually breaks the module core functionality!).
I only recall having to update the code once since late 2007 and at that time I rewrote the class that broke it, adding approx 7kb to the module.
Anyways, I will never ever give out the code, I’m waaay to cheap. ;-)
No seriously, its not ready for release, I just wrote it and been using my raw unpolished UI since, it would need a week or two to become widely usable and I cannot justify the time right now, just thought I should let you know its doable and someone will release it sooner or later.
Yes Leevi, I’m talking to you. :-)
Ty (tzmedia) on January 30 2009 at 2:52pm
HI Simon, nice to meet you, great avatar EE mug too.
Throw down the gauntlet my man… oops I’m neither :(
David on January 30 2009 at 7:44pm
Why would you put the Gmaps link in a field? You are using a CMS here- just pass the address using the API and you won’t have to mess with any link.
Simon Cox on February 01 2009 at 10:36pm
I am sure that modular add on themes would add nicely to Ellis Labs bottom line and in the current financial climate that’s probably a good thing for them. However for those building EE sites on a regular basis this potentially erodes a unique selling point for for clients. Also from a support function it may also swamp the EE forums. I used Movable Type from a very early version (1. something I think) and the user community was fantastic – very similar to the EE community now. However version 3 brought about radical changes including ‘easy to install’ themes and then the company went public big time – the forums were swamped with new users (not such a bad thing) but support and the community spirit disappeared. On the other hand being able to run a customised basic install for each site I build would be a boon! Great to see Jamboree back.
John Faulds on February 02 2009 at 12:15pm
I’ve been doing this lately using a zip of my default install including all add-ons, a SQL dump, and an extended config file. Unpack the zip on the server, import the db, make a few config edits, and you’re just about there.
bjorn on February 02 2009 at 5:10pm
One-click template install from a bundle (ie zip) would be great. It’s pretty strange they haven’t got it yet if you ask me, shouldn’t be that hard to make.
Simon Rudkin on February 02 2009 at 9:01pm
@Andy – I’d pay real money for this, and I’d bet my hat I’m not alone.
@Ty – Nice to meet you, too.
@David – So a client can add a geo-location, which is then displayed within Gmaps.
@Simon Cox – Thoughtful comments, although I reckon the forums have coped very well with growth to date.
@John Faulds – That’s kind of how I do it at the moment, not tried doing it this way yet.
Paul McKeever on February 04 2009 at 12:34pm
Great post – being better able to reuse experience and assets from one project to another can only be a good thing.
It is a bit worrying that the release date for 2.0 seems like its still quite a bit away :(
Leevi Graham on February 06 2009 at 2:56am
I think you need something like LG Site Generator
It pretty much covers the distribution and install aspects. The only thing it doesn’t do is make the recipe automatically.
You have to handcraft that one.
Brandon on February 15 2009 at 12:42am
@Leevi: I don’t see site generator on your site – is that something you’re planning to release?
Leevi Graham on February 19 2009 at 12:44am
@Brandon:
We are trying to decide how to license the module. Currently we are thinking that you can generate your own “Recipes” but you cannot distribute them.
Basically that means you can use them internally in your own company but not resell them.
Hopefully the module will be available soon.
Bob Sutton on February 23 2009 at 5:33pm
John Faulds,Leevi:I played around with an approach like John described, running a bunch of SQL INSERTS etc through phpMyAdmin directly at a new EE database after installation to clear the clutter and populate stuff I know I’ll use. But there’s always sufficient variation in my projects that I end up doing manual prep-work via the CP, too. Leevi’s module could probably save me a half-hour of scut-work per project.
Shannon on May 26 2009 at 10:40pm
Anything new on this? It would be fantastic to be able to do this.
Shannon on May 26 2009 at 10:42pm
By the way, Jamboree looks quite pretty in Firefox, but not so good in IE7.
Marcus Neto on May 30 2009 at 1:50pm
Can’t believe i am just seeing this post for the first time. As the only template shop for ExpressionEngine I whole heartedly agree. Look at the Wordpress and Joomla ecosystem. The fact that they have easy to use templates is a great way for people to get their feet wet and familiar with a system. then when they are ready for a new more professional website they have a tendency to want to extend the one that they are familiar with. And I gotta tell you. making templates that are installable with ExpressionEngine is not any fun at all. You have to search through the SQL and test and test and test till you know you have all the pieces. And even then you can’t use it on a site that is existing for fear that there will be a conflict between the IDs for a custom field or category or something.
It would mean competition but I can deal with that because it would also mean more users. I really do hope that EllisLab makes installation of sites or portions of sites much easier in 2.0
HGH on August 30 2009 at 5:50pm
Thanks for the wonderful information- just wondering if anyone else has had any relevant experiences to share
Joomla Expert on September 04 2009 at 8:00am
Great ideas and experiences. Can ExpressionEngine will get fame like Joomla or Drupal etc.?
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Greg on December 12 2009 at 7:40am
Hello,
I’m considered now if it is worth switching my projects from Wordpress to EE. And looking somebody to share his experience with EE.
What a benefits in this switch?
I’m pretty good with Wordpress themes,plug ins. Use CodeIgniter. But newbie in EE.
Thanks in advance for your help
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antriya on February 23 2010 at 3:56pm
No seriously, its not ready for release, I just wrote it and been using my raw unpolished UI since, it would need a week or two to become widely usable and I cannot justify the time right now, just thought I should let you know its doable and someone will release it sooner or later.Bridges To Recovery
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I have been looking at Content Management systems for the last year and love wordpress as a blogging platform and CMS. After reading blogs from other web designers who use Wordpress for small sites, they mentioned using Expression Engine for larger, more complex projects. I became very interested in this platform and searched for a book to help me learn how to install it, administer and design for it. This book turned out to be the answer! The book is well organized with lots of screenshots, code examples, and sidenotes. The book is highly detailed with step by step instructions. It is targeted at web designers and marketing professionals so I felt that it gave me the right amount of information for the my level of experience.
Virginija on April 12 2010 at 11:16am
I’ve been playing with the 3.0 development version for a while now and quite honestly there is nothing that Wordpress can’t do that ExpressionEngine can.
Wordpress even has EE beat in a lot of areas (media, menus and tagging especially). If developing for WP wasn’t such a pain then I would completely rule out EE for any future projects.
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