Intro to ExpressionEngine and CodeIgniter

ExpressionEngine
An Awesome CMS for Designers
and Developers

Presentation by:
James Buckley
Twitter: @jamesbuckley
Web: brightrocketdesign.com
Email: jame@brightrocketdesign.com

Who Are You?
• Web and Graphic Designer for 10+ Years
• Mostly Front-End
HTML / CSS / Photoshop / Wireframes / Project Management

NOT a Programmer

The Basics
Content Management System (CMS)
– Let Clients (Or You) maintain a Website Easily
• Articles / Blog Posts
• Add pages / sections of content
• Contact Info, Products, etc
– Save time: the bigger the site, the more time.
– Let you do more interesting, better paying
work

A Brief Introduction
• Created By Ellis Labs (10 years of Awesome)
– pMachine Pro (Aimed at Bloggers originally)
– ExpressionEngine (First Real CMS)
– ExpressionEngine 2 (Major Overhaul in
CodeIgniter)
• Specs
– PHP
– MySQL
– CodeIgniter Framework (Open Source)
– Commercial (Not Free but that’s GOOD)

Who’s EE For?
• Great for Web Designers
who don’t know PHP

• Great for Programmers
who don’t want to write a CMS from scratch

• Used by:
Apple, Disney, Nike, MTV, Adobe, BBC, B
MI, A List APart,

Types of Sites Using EE
• Simple 5-10 Page Sites
• News Sites & Blogs w/1000s of Entries
• Government & Political Sites
• Arts and Photography
• Medical & Not-For-Profits
• Pretty Much Anything
• LOTS of Examples at show-ee.com

Intro to ExpressionEngine and CodeIgniter

Great for Web Designers
• Made with Designers in Mind
• Simple HTML-Like Tag Syntax
• Logical Template / URL Structure
• No touching PHP
(Unless you want to)
• Tons of Commercial and Free Addons that
expand capabilities, check devot-ee.com

Great for Web Designers
• Guaranteed support built into cost
– Wordpress VIP Support is $3,750

• Designer / Noob friendly product and
community
• Solid Documentation w/Comments
• Original design valued greater than themes
by developer
• Easy to keep design standards compliant
• CMS fits design, not other way around

Great for Developers
• Self-Hosted
• Not “Blog” software.

• Fantastic Security Record
– 10 yrs, no large scale exploits
– Only 3-4 High Priority Security Patches in product life

• Written on the Open Source PHP Framework
CodeIgniter
PHP Creator Rasmus Lerdof likes it:
“because it is faster, lighter and the least like a framework.”

• PHP Code is NOT obfuscated
(You can mess with core files)

Great for Developers
• Guaranteed Developer time to fix bugs ( vs
adding “Cool” but useless features)
• Best, proven developer customers contribute to
Core (Reactor Program)
• Addons
– Simple to complex options
– CodeIgniter based

Types of Addons
• Plugins: No User Interface, custom EE tags
• Fieldtypes: Adds custom fieldtypes to data entry
forms
• Extensions: Used to modify the EE “core”
without breaking it. Modifies control panel
• Accessories: Database tables, tabs
• Modules: Database tables, custom control panel,
tabs, fields and EE tags

Things I’ve Built
Simple and Complex Web Forms
Contact Forms, order forms

Class Registration Systems
Size Limit, Email alerts on Signup, Exportable class list in CSV, 700+
signups

Publication Databases
800+ Files, categories, fully searchable and filterable

News & Blogs
RSS feeds, Commenting, Gravitar Integration

Image Galleries / Sliders
Jquery / XML / Flash Based

Email Newsletter Systems
Pulls from news channel, integrates video, plain txt version

The EE Approach
• “Channels” of data not “Pages”
– 1 Page can have many “Channels” of content

• Custom Fieldtypes & Forms
– Rich Text Editors (lots of choice)
– Google Maps
– Address, Currency, File, Image
– Dozens and dozens more

Pointee and Customized Version

The EE Approach
Most Basic Functionality Built In
• Comments
• Categories
• Mailing List
• Membership Management
• User Profiles
• Mobile Blogging
• Simple Ecommerce
• Forums (add. Cost)

Channel Structure

• Channel
Each TYPE of content gets a dedicated Channel

–Entries (Unlimited)
• Fields (Unlimited / Many Types)
• Categories (Unlimited / Nested / Multiple)
• Status (Open or Close / Custom )

Example Channel Structure
Job Posting (Channel)
• Job title (TXT field)
• Job Description (Rich Text Editor)
• Job Category (Native Categories)
• Company Logo (File Field)
• Website Link (Txt field)

Code Examples – Parameters & Variables

Basic Channel Entry Tag
{exp:channel:entries channel=“chan_news"
limit="1"}
<h2>{title}</h2>
{body}
{/exp:channel:entries}
Produces
<h2>My Article Title</h2
<p>My article body, pretty simple eh?</p>

Complex Channel Entry Tag
{exp:channel:entries
channel="news|blog" limit=“2" category="2" orderby="entry_date"
sort= "desc" disable="member_date|pagination" dynamic="no"
}

<h2>{title}</h2>
<span class="Permalink">
<a href="{permalink="news/archives“}">
{entry_date format="%m / %d / %Y"}
</a>
</span>
<div class=“article”>
{body}
</div>
{/exp:channel:entries}

Complex Channel Entry Tag - Results
<h2>News Article 3</h2>
<span class=“Permalink”>
<a href=“domain.com/news/archive/news_article_3”>
10 / 5 / 2012
</a>
</span>
<p>News body content goes here </p>
</div>

<h2>Blog Article 1</h2>
<span class=“Permalink”>
<a href=“domain.com/news/archive/news_article_3”>
10 / 4 / 2012
</a>
</span>
<p>Blog body content goes here</p>
</div>

Addon Example – Solspace Freeform
{exp:freeform:form
collection="ContactForm"
required="name|email|phone1|note"
return="contact/thanks”
notify="james@brightrocketdesign.com"
template="default_template"
}
<h2>Send me a quick note!</h2>
<label for="f-name">Name</label>
<input type="text" name="name" id="f-name" /></p>
<label for="f-email">Your Email</label>
<input type="text" name="email" id="f-email" /></p>
<label for="f-comments">Tell me a bit about this project</label>
<textarea name="note" id="note" rows="5" cols="40"></textarea>
<button type="submit" class="button-a">Launch!</button>
{/exp:freeform:form}

The Community Rocks

• Active User Forums
(Ellis Staff and volunteers)
• Twitter community #eecms
(Great for Support & Finding Talent)
• Good size but not overwhelming
thousands of devs and sites, but we all “know” each
other
• More Professionals
Lots of Pros - Not so many Hobbyist, Creepy SEO guys
(Not You) = Higher Skill and Professional Level of
Average User

The Cost of Awesome

• Professional Support
• Don’t struggle with design/CMS integration
unlike many OS CMS systems
• Saves me Time, Time = Money
• Allows me to build sites that “Do Stuff”
• Pays for itself a dozen times over
Support the tools that make you Money
You cheap so-and-so ;)

The Cost of Awesome

• Commercial - $299.95
• Non-Commercial - $149.95
• Freelancer - $99.95
• Always budget $ for additional Addons
– Simple addons often FREE
– Generally inexpensive $10-$50
– Ecommerce, more complex addons around
$100 -$150

Things I Wrote about EE
• The ExpressionEngine Designers Website
Checklist
• A Comparison of WYSIWYG Editors for
ExpressionEngine at EE Insider
• Using Pages and Low-Reorder for Flexible
Navigation and Site Structure
• Switching to Sublime 2 for Expression Engine
Development

brightrocketdesign.com/blog/category/expressionengine

Free Stuff Time!
• ExpressionEngine Freelancer Licenses (2)
Ellis Labs (ellislab.com)
• Low Variables (2)
GoToLow (gotolow.com)

• Content Elements (2)
Krea (krea.com)
• Expresso (2)
Put Your Lights On (putyourlightson.net)

Free Stuff Time!
Securing EE2 by Mark Huot (EVERYONE!)
by Mark Huot, provided by Mijingo (Mijingo.com)

Similar Presentations

Lea Alcantara LeaLea.net
slideshare.net/lealea/edmontonee-
main-presentation-10242009 (Special
Thanks!)

Emily Lewis emilylewisdesign.com
www.slideshare.net/emilylewis/designe
rfriendly-ee

Resources
EEInsider News, Articles, Reviews
Devote:ee Addon Directory
EEPodcast Podcast about EE and Web Design
Director-EE Director of EE Designer/Devs
@Twitter #eecms @EllisLab #frup
EE Hub Aggregator of EE Info

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