Trying out Expression Engine
· 30 January 08 by Matt Robin ...With 2 Comments so far!
Things have been quiet on my site so far in 2008, I haven’t posted too much yet and Version 4.0 still hasn’t launched, so what is the delay?
Well, apart from a general slow-start to the year, almost overwhelmed by catching-up on blog-posts about the latest misadventures of Internet Explorer 8 (No – I still haven’t written up anything on it yet!), and my own side interests in broadening my web-dev skills, I’ve also strongly considered switching to a new Content Management System (CMS) for my site as well!
As previously noted in this article: New Textpattern – Textpattern is the CMS that have used on mattrobin.com so far. While it is good enough for most aspects of the site, I’ve now reached a point where I want to do more than Textpattern is comfortably capable of doing…and I’ve ran in to trouble with it’s privacy/test settings lately – which even the Textpattern Gurus on the TXP Forum haven’t been able to resolve…it’s time for a change, it’s time for something better!
Enter Expression Engine….CMS Superstar!
Many good things have been said on the Web about Expression Engine for awhile now, and over the past year or so there has been a notable shift by some of the Web Design A-List to embrace it. I’m not someone who instantly jumps at trends, and Expression Engine’s recent popularity appeared to be mostly trend-setting, so I hesitated about even approaching it for awhile, but now that I’ve taken a closer inspection – it really does start to make a lot of good sense!
So, I’ve checked the suitability with my current web hosts (Dreamhost) and I’ve now successfully installed a test-only version of Expression Engine Core (Core is the free version that actually does everything that Textpattern could do!)
My plan is to test it some more and get used to it over the next week or two, and then hopefully roll-out my Version 4.0 design after that. If my experience with Expression Engine (or ‘EE’ as it’s known for short) is satisfactory and I feel I know it well enough, I’ll definitely recommend it as the CMS of choice for some, possible web design projects in future.
Expression Engine and Dreamhost – a Geeky side-note…
Dreamhost (my web hosts) DO support Expression Engine, but they also run PHP code as CGI...which won’t work too well with Expression Engine at all! So, if you want to do the same thing as me and want to avoid a bundle of frustration, make sure you read this useful page about what to do before you run the EE install process!
Not as easy as it first looks…but I did get it working on just my second attempt! :D
Steven Clark
Hey great stuff. I didn’t realise the core was free.
Keep me informed how it works out as I’ve been tempted to have a look at it myself.