hello! Blogger

ExpressionEngine 2.0 preview highlights

Ok, since I’m not actually at the SXSW, I don’t get to actually see all the cool things they might have. But a few people have been kind enough to post about some of the things they’ve learned from the previews. First of all, allow me to link you to the EE 2.0 preview photos at David Russells flickr stream. As you can see, they’ve changed the layout of the CP. It looks good! Reminds me a bit of WP 2.5 and Blogger (it’s the orange), but I can live with it.

Some highlights:

1. EE 2.0 will be based on Code Igniter. What this means is that the structure will change. But they’re promising backward compatibility. This is good!
2. jQuery - this should speed things up! We all know that speed and ease of use is their goals for the CP. This will indeed be cool.

I seriously hope they release and make available the developer edition so we can pretty up our plugins and modules. Not that I think there will be a need for the linklist in 2.0. I’m sure they’ve made something better for it!

More to come as I find things out.

UPDATED: Derek has released some Official EE 2.0 screenshots! You should check them out. Now! What are you still doing here?

22.08.2008 19:40:34 - hello! Blogger

EllisLab T-Shirts at SXSW 2008

If you’re going to SXSW this year, I envy you. You’ll get to see the ExpressionEngine 2.0 preview (should you attend the Ellislab booth) and get some nice free Ellislab T-shirts! I’m particularly looking at the codeigniter and exp:developer shirts. Of course, I’m a junkie for T-shirts, so I’d take them all if I could.

Leslie is apparently going to be blogging tidbits on what’s upcoming at the SXSW presentation, so be sure to tune into the ExpressionEngine Blog!

22.08.2008 19:40:34 - hello! Blogger

Site issues

As some of you may know, I inadvertently started playing with the Multi Site Manager and accidentally deleted the old hello! blogger information. At the very least I was able to restore some of the old entries, however, most of the new entries are now long gone. It’s ok, it gives me the excuse of having to get this site up and rolling and in better shape.

That which does not kill me makes me stronger!

You also might realize that Ellis Lab will be at SXSW this year. If you’re in area, you should definitely check it out, it sounds like it’s going to be a blast. You might also wanna make sure you RSVP!

22.08.2008 19:40:34 - hello! Blogger

Getting ready for Wordpress 2.5

So, Wordpress 2.5 is coming out on March 17th. It was a bit delayed from the March 10 mark, but I figured that’s ok, because honestly, if you get more time to work out the bugs and issues, the better. But there are still issues with the back-end.

With the change in the administration panel, many plug-ins will most likely break. I realize now that a lot of people have updated their plug-ins, but not all plug-ins would be covered of course. If you’ve been keeping up with your plug-ins, you may or may not have any problems.

On the Wordpress Development Updates page you’ll note that the administration panel does have selectable color schemes. I’ve been waitin for something like this, although you are able to customize the back end pretty easily. The idea that you can pick whichever suits your mood is a bonus to me.

You might consider waiting to update your installation of Wordpress still. Just make sure your plugins are up to date and support the new administration panel. I think that’s just about the biggest issue. There are minimal things to worry about with the theme design, the biggest thing being able to use gravatars natively without a separate plugin. Get ready to upgrade!

22.08.2008 19:40:33 - hello! Blogger

Expression Engine 1.6.3 Released

For those of you who didn’t already know, ExpressioneEngine 1.6.3 and Forums 2.1.0 have been released. These are maintenance releases, and fixes a bunch of bugs. There are no new features. But it’s highly recommended by the EE team to go ahead and keep up to date to minimize the headaches you have when ExpressionEngine 2.0 comes out. Well, they might not have put it in exactly that wording.

ExpressionEngine 1.6.3 is codenamed El Llama. How can you not love a company with a sense of humour?

22.08.2008 19:40:32 - hello! Blogger

Wordpress 2.5 RC1

Ok, so I’ve downloaded, installed and tested Wordpress 2.5 RC1. I’m happy to announce that all my entries work just fine. The import process went great. It even asked me if I’d like to upload any images that were uploaded in my prior install. I didn’t see this in prior installs, so I’m guessing this is relatively new. Here’s a list of likes and dislikes (which I have already sent in to the 2.5 feedback email):

Things I don’t like :

1. too much wasted space at top. If there was only one line of stuff, that would work great. but there’s a lot of wasted space there. don’t like that. I would suggest that the name of the site show up next to “dashboard” or something similar to that and the visit site could go next to that. that would save so much more space.
2. on the write page. the categories are at the bottom. I’m likely to forget to choose a category and get pissed about it. I like in the 2.33 how you can move the items around. you can’t do that anymore. I don’t like that. I’d almost like to see the categories on the right under the post buttons.
3. Still no way to do sticky posts! This is really needed!

Things I like:

1. The menu options is just about right. i like that. “unimportant” items (settings/plugins) or items I don’t use everyday are small and set aside.
2. I like the “most used” clicking option on categories. neat.
3. i like the way tags are done. it looks like it still uses a bit of space though. but that’s ok.

Other than that, so far so good. I’d almost say that it’s ready to put out to the wild. I’m guessing and hoping that this is the kind of feedback they want.

Plugins that didn’t work for me?

Popularity Contest
WP Sticky
Top commentators widget

22.08.2008 19:40:32 - hello! Blogger

Things are changing

Things are going to be changing around here. Not sure if they’re all good, but if you visit this site and there is some kind of funkiness, you’ve been warned.

I’m trying to make some changes and they might impact the site a bit. Of course, preparing for EE 2.0 too. We’ll see how things go.

22.08.2008 19:40:32 - hello! Blogger

ExpressionEngine 2.0 Preview

If you are like me, and missed going to SXSW, there is now a screencast of the ExpressionEngine 2.0 Preview.

It looks exciting, except I’m not entirely sure on the look of the control panel. But they say it’s completely changeable via themes, so I’m not really worried about that.

22.08.2008 19:40:32 - hello! Blogger

Wordpress 2.5.1 Released

This release of Wordpress is set to squash out the bugs that have been annoying some people, and also is a security fix related to open registration that has not been made public yet. If you’re using 2.5, you’re urged to update. There are apparently over 70 other fixes in this update as well. Including fixing the flash media uploader for IE 7. Unfortunately for myself, it doesn’t fix the issue I’m having, which is most likely because of all the stupid stuff I’ve installed since I moved to wordpress in the recent past.

I tell you, upgrading and upgrading your installs of any software will eventually make it do things you’ve never thought would happen. I’m about this close to converting my personal blog back to ExpressionEngine. But no, I won’t do that. Yet.

22.08.2008 19:40:31 - hello! Blogger

Pop-up comments

I’ve been throwing around the idea of having pop up comments on this blog. I’d just like to get a poll going on which you prefer. Pop-up comments or non-pop-up comments which basically go to a separate page to do comments. I’d love to hear any feedback on this because it’s been one of those things that have been bothering me.

While on one hand I really hate pop ups, there are reasons why pop-up comments could be a good thing. The biggest reason is pretty obvious for Expression Engine users, mainly because you don’t have to have a separate page for comments as a permalink. It gets kinda annoying when you have 2 pages that are essentially permalinks, and yet only one has comments on it. The popup comments would always be on every permalink page, which would essentially become one page now instead of two.

The disadvantage of course, is with a popup comment window, when people reply to a comment and they get the email notification, the comment page they are going to becomes the popup comment. This can get really annoying. But there are ways around this, to direct the person to the permalink page instead of the comment page.

So please, take a vote, let me know what you think!

22.08.2008 19:40:31 - hello! Blogger