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Review: ExpressionEngine 1.5

Yeah, I know — ExpressionEngine’s not an HTML editor. But it is a damn handy piece of software for putting websites together. Plus news of EE has been making its rounds in the blogosphere of late, thanks to the re-branding of EllisLab (formerly pMachine). Plus I’ve recently built two sites using EE, so it’s fresh in my mind. Plus, it’s my site and I’ll do what I want. ;)

What I Like

• The best part of EE in my mind is the templating system — absolutely brilliant. Basically, you code an HTML page the way you would normally. You then save it as a template within EE and place EE tags throughout your template to pull in the content from the database. Check out the video tutorials; they’re great for someone new to EE.
• The second best part about EE: Extensibility. There are a tonne of first- and third-party modules, plug-ins, and extensions that extend what you can do with EE. My favourite module currently is Static Pages by Mark Huot, followed by Solspace’s FreeForm.
• Related to my point above, there’s an incredible, thriving community of developers and designers around EE, which will make it a better product in the long run and which will help users get the most out of the software (e.g., check out Jambor-ee).
• There’s extensive documentation (with code examples), making learning the software easier and infinitely more bearable.
• The flexibility of EE is quite spectacular; you can pretty much make it do what you want, especially through its use of custom fields. For example, you can have a simple news blog, with basic title, summary, and body fields. But, you can also create and event calendar “blog” with its own fields, such as event description, location, and contact details. You can even link custom fields between blogs!
• EE is built on PHP/MySQL, so if there’s something EE doesn’t do by default, you can probably hack out something in PHP to accomplish your task. Even the templates support PHP. You can also create custom queries to pull up your data.

Gripes

• While creating themes for EE is a breeze, EE doesn’t have the one-click theme-switching capability of WordPress.
• The price can be off-putting. While the core version is free for personal or non-profit use, the personal license is $99 USD per site and the commercial license is $249 USD per site [Actually, this is the price per installation. You can potentially run more than one site for these prices, as long as you are the owner of the sites -- if I read the License correctly]. So, you definitely have to be sure EE is right for your project before you open your (or your client’s) wallet. Having said that, bulk pricing starts at three licenses, so if you have a few projects on the go, you could save a little coin.
• Related to my above point: You have to pay even more if you want the discussion forum module ($49/$99).
• The control panel is a tad overwhelming at first, as is often the case for major CMSes. The particularly frustrating part, though, is trying to find appropriate admin settings, which can often be buried a few levels down in the menu system or under labels where you wouldn’t think to look.
• Unless you use the Static Pages module, there’s really no easy way to create static content that’s easily editable by non-technical clients. The Static Pages module does an excellent job of countering this, but it’s not a perfect solution. Overall, a program like WordPress seems to do a bit better job of handling “static” content.
• Because EE is so flexible, there’s often more than one way to accomplish a single task, making it difficult (as a beginner) to know what’s the best way of doing something.

Wishlist

• Ultimately, I’d love it if EllisLab integrated the Static Pages module into EE itself, supporting it’s features entirely and removing any conflicts.
• I don’t know if this is possible, but I’d like it if the code editor built into EE could highlight syntax. I typically use an external editor, but for quick edits I use the internal one. Coloured code would make things a lot easier.
• Like many EE users, I’m looking forward to the Full Commerce module, though the Simple Commerce module is more than I use now.
• Now that EllisLab has been rebranded, and EE has a new site, I want to see a new look for the Control Panel that’s more like the rest of their web network.
• More video tutorials! The first four run you through the basics, but a few more intermediate/advanced-level video tutorials would be great.

Overall

ExpressionEngine is an incredible web publishing tool surrounded by growing and passionate community of users and developers. Like all software, it’s not going to be right for every project, but it’s flexible enough to be used for many different types of website. For someone like myself, EE’s robustness and templating system make it a delight to use. Of course, EE isn’t perfect, and I can’t express how much more usable it is thanks to Mark Huot’s fabulous Static Pages module. If you haven’t tried EE yet, give the core version a spin and see what it can do. If you have tried EE, let me know what you think.

UPDATE (03/22/07): Jesse Bennett-Chamberlain at 31Three, who redesigned EllisLab’s websites, has created a control panel theme based on the new look and feel. Awesome!

15 Comments

1. WOW! I’m surprised not to have read any comments by any EE users! I for one LOVE EE and its amazing abilities. From the ground up, it has been built with the flexibility to allow a graphic designer, web designer, programmer, etc. … ANNYYY web professional build nearly any possible with. With its many available modules and its high extensibility, I don’t see any other CMS comparing so high. 10 of 10 stars on my end.

   Comment by jamjammo — April 19, 2007 @ 12:24 am

2. I love EE and everything it offers. Its great.

   Comment by Troy — June 4, 2008 @ 8:49 pm

3. EE and everything about it is great.

   Comment by Cindy — June 4, 2008 @ 8:51 pm

4. If you want more tutorials videos, I just received training and videos from train-ee.com. Excellent source of information about all things EE.

   Comment by Rod — September 11, 2008 @ 5:09 pm

5. With havin so much written content do you ever run into any problems of plagorism or copyright infringement? My site has a lot of exclusive content I’ve either written myself or outsourced but it seems a lot of it is popping it up all over the internet without my permission. Do you know any ways to help prevent content from being ripped off? I’d truly appreciate it.

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