"Flexible web publishing with Expression Engine". Delivered by Johannes Booy, Jeff Ausura, and Michael Witwicki of Booyant, on April 14th, 2010 at Lamont Library, Forum Room.

1. WELCOME
Flexible web publishing with Expression Engine
Presentation by Booyant
Lamont Library, Harvard, Wednesday April 14th

2. ABOUT BOOYANT
Booyant build beautiful, functional, accessible web sites,
web apps, blogs and more; all from our office in Beverly,
MA.

3. ABOUT BOOYANT
Booyant build beautiful, functional, accessible web sites,
web apps, blogs and more; all from our office in Beverly,
MA.
Key ingredients:

4. ABOUT BOOYANT
Booyant build beautiful, functional, accessible web sites,
web apps, blogs and more; all from our office in Beverly,
MA.
Key ingredients:
• Standards based design & development

5. ABOUT BOOYANT
Booyant build beautiful, functional, accessible web sites,
web apps, blogs and more; all from our office in Beverly,
MA.
Key ingredients:
• Standards based design & development
• Creative technicians solving client problems with
technology

6. ABOUT BOOYANT
Booyant build beautiful, functional, accessible web sites,
web apps, blogs and more; all from our office in Beverly,
MA.
Key ingredients:
• Standards based design & development
• Creative technicians solving client problems with
technology
• Content strategy & management

7. ABOUT BOOYANT - DIGITS
http://booyant.com/ @booyant 978.OKAY.BOB
Johannes Booy Jeff Ausura Michael Witwicki
Creative Director Senior Developer CTO
@drj @thtp @michaelwitwicki

8. EE - OVERVIEW
By Johannes Booy, Creative Director

9. EE - INTRODUCTION
Yes. It’s another content management system
EE is a powerful CMS that can be used to manage your
website, application or blog.

10. EE - THE BASICS
Nothing too unique here
• Written in PHP and runs on MySQL
• Self hosted on your server - see http://
expressionengine.com/overview/requirements/ for exact
hosting requirements.
• Web based administrative control panel

11. EE - IS IT “OPEN SOURCE”
Yes. Well, erm, sort of.

12. EE - IS IT “OPEN SOURCE”
Yes. Well, erm, sort of.
• Built on a open source PHP framework, CodeIgniter.

13. EE - IS IT “OPEN SOURCE”
Yes. Well, erm, sort of.
• Built on a open source PHP framework, CodeIgniter.
• However, EE is a commercial product built by Ellis Labs.

14. EE - IS IT “OPEN SOURCE”
Yes. Well, erm, sort of.
• Built on a open source PHP framework, CodeIgniter.
• However, EE is a commercial product built by Ellis Labs.
• Costs $300 for a commercial license, and $150 for a non-
commercial license.

15. EE - IS IT “OPEN SOURCE”
Yes. Well, erm, sort of.
• Built on a open source PHP framework, CodeIgniter.
• However, EE is a commercial product built by Ellis Labs.
• Costs $300 for a commercial license, and $150 for a non-
commercial license.
I know what you are saying........

16. EE - IS IT “OPEN SOURCE”
Is the license model all bad?
...but sometimes it’s OK to pay for products, if the company
invests in providing a better product and better support.

17. EE - SUPPORT
Documentation. Community. Forum.
• Because it’s commercial software, real resources are
dedicated to writing quality documentation for
ExpressionEngine.
• In addition, there’s a very active forum with a small staff of
technical support staff employed by Ellis Lab and a wiki that
contains useful ExpressionEngine tips and tricks.
• Many sites outside EllisLabs also run tutorials, podcasts
and other information around EE. There is also a
conference.

18. EE - SUPPORT
http://expressionengine.com/docs/

19. EE - SUPPORT
http://expressionengine.com/forums/

20. EE - SUPPORT
http://expressionengine.com/wiki/
Screenshot.

21. EE - IN USE
The community of EE users is growing quickly
• Created in 2007, Expression Engine has caught on, with
good reason.
• The following are some excellent examples of Expression
Engine in action.

22. EE - IN ACTION
http://my.barackobama.com

23. EE - IN ACTION
http://www.gop.com/

24. EE - IN ACTION
http://www.miami.edu/

25. EE - IN ACTION
http://www.bmi.com/

26. EE - IN ACTION
http://www.campaignmonitor.com/

27. EE - IN ACTION
http://www.topgear.com/uk/

28. EE - IN ACTION
http://www.alistapart.com/

29. EE - REASONS FOR USING
Distinguishing attributes.

30. EE - REASONS FOR USING
Distinguishing attributes.
• Content out approach & workflow

31. EE - REASONS FOR USING
Distinguishing attributes.
• Content out approach & workflow
• Template with your own valid HTML / CSS / Javascript

32. EE - REASONS FOR USING
Distinguishing attributes.
• Content out approach & workflow
• Template with your own valid HTML / CSS / Javascript
• Easy to learn, no PHP knowledge required.

33. EE - CONTENT OUT
Building around your content
News Products Bio’s Whitepapers

34. EE - CONTENT OUT
Basic Workflow

35. EE - CONTENT OUT
Basic Workflow
• Create a weblog / channel for each type of content your
site has (News, Events, Bio’s, Products)

36. EE - CONTENT OUT
Basic Workflow
• Create a weblog / channel for each type of content your
site has (News, Events, Bio’s, Products)
• Create a group of custom fields for each channel, for
example the “News” channel might have: date, title, brief,
link, article.

37. EE - CONTENT OUT
Basic Workflow
• Create a weblog / channel for each type of content your
site has (News, Events, Bio’s, Products)
• Create a group of custom fields for each channel, for
example the “News” channel might have: date, title, brief,
link, article.
• Assign the custom field group to the channel

38. EE - CONTENT OUT
Basic Workflow
• Create a weblog / channel for each type of content your
site has (News, Events, Bio’s, Products)
• Create a group of custom fields for each channel, for
example the “News” channel might have: date, title, brief,
link, article.
• Assign the custom field group to the channel
• Start entering content.

39. EE - REASONS FOR USING
Distinguishing attributes.

40. EE - REASONS FOR USING
Distinguishing attributes.
• Content out approach & workflow

41. EE - REASONS FOR USING
Distinguishing attributes.
• Content out approach & workflow
• Template with your own valid HTML / CSS / Javascript

42. EE - REASONS FOR USING
Distinguishing attributes.
• Content out approach & workflow
• Template with your own valid HTML / CSS / Javascript
• Easy to learn, no PHP knowledge required.

43. EE - TEMPLATES
The part us front-end guys love

44. EE - TEMPLATES
The part us front-end guys love
• Template using your own valid, semantic, lean mean mark-
up. No hatcheting. No lengthy CSS rules.

45. EE - TEMPLATES
The part us front-end guys love
• Template using your own valid, semantic, lean mean mark-
up. No hatcheting. No lengthy CSS rules.
• Break the rules and standards of web design. EE can
extend to manage ANY design, and is not constrained to
header, columns and footers.

46. EE - TEMPLATES
The part us front-end guys love
• Template using your own valid, semantic, lean mean mark-
up. No hatcheting. No lengthy CSS rules.
• Break the rules and standards of web design. EE can
extend to manage ANY design, and is not constrained to
header, columns and footers.
• You can save & edit templates with your favorite editor

47. EE - TEMPLATES
The part us front-end guys love
• Template using your own valid, semantic, lean mean mark-
up. No hatcheting. No lengthy CSS rules.
• Break the rules and standards of web design. EE can
extend to manage ANY design, and is not constrained to
header, columns and footers.
• You can save & edit templates with your favorite editor
• URL structure is built around templates.

48. EE - REASONS FOR USING
Distinguishing attributes.

49. EE - REASONS FOR USING
Distinguishing attributes.
• Content out approach & workflow

50. EE - REASONS FOR USING
Distinguishing attributes.
• Content out approach & workflow
• Template with your own valid HTML / CSS / Javascript

51. EE - REASONS FOR USING
Distinguishing attributes.
• Content out approach & workflow
• Template with your own valid HTML / CSS / Javascript
• Easy to learn, no PHP knowledge required.

52. STATIC TO DYNAMIC
By Jeff Ausura, Senior Developer

53. STATIC TO DYNAMIC
Objectives:

54. STATIC TO DYNAMIC
Objectives:
• Take a static HTML page and plug it into EE

55. STATIC TO DYNAMIC
Objectives:
• Take a static HTML page and plug it into EE
• Learn about the EE CMS model including Templates,
Weblogs, and Field Groups

56. STATIC TO DYNAMIC
Key points about the EE process:

57. STATIC TO DYNAMIC
Key points about the EE process:
• Templating is not a nightmarish reconstruction or
reinvention of the static site

58. STATIC TO DYNAMIC
Key points about the EE process:
• Templating is not a nightmarish reconstruction or
reinvention of the static site
• We can and will simply copy and paste the static HTML
into EE and then swap out static content with dynamic
content

59. EE CONTROL PANEL
Site Admin roles vs Designer Developer roles:

60. EE CONTROL PANEL
Site Admin roles vs Designer Developer roles:
• Designers/Developers will use Templates and Admin tabs
to set up site

61. EE CONTROL PANEL
Site Admin roles vs Designer Developer roles:
• Designers/Developers will use Templates and Admin tabs
to set up site
• Site Admins will use Publish and Edit tabs to flow and
manage content

62. MODULES & MORE
By Michael Witwicki, CTO

63. ADD-ONS
Modules, Extensions & Plugins...Oh my.
Extensions
Augment EE’s existing interfaces using “hooks” created in the system by
EllisLabs.
Example: LG Better META
Plugins
Minor run-time enhancements integrated into the template system.
Modules
Larger systems integrated into the EE Control Panel. Often made up of
extensions & plugins. Anything you could build as a standalone
application can be created and easily distributed as a Module. Example:
Example: Booyant Me LikEE

64. FEATURES
As much a Framework as it is a CMS.

65. FEATURES
As much a Framework as it is a CMS.
Tools
• Member Management
• Versioning
• Multi-Site Management
• Date Driven Content
• Pagination
• Image Sizing / Manipulation
• Commenting
• Data Caching
• Search
• PHP in Templates
• Query Module

66. FEATURES
As much a Framework as it is a CMS.
Tools Security
• Member Management • 160 Bit SHA-1 Encryption
• Versioning • Captcha
• Multi-Site Management • Throttling
• Date Driven Content • Duplicate Data Denial
• Pagination • Password Lockout
• Image Sizing / Manipulation • Secure Password Mode
• Commenting • Banning ( IP / Email )
• Data Caching • Comment Time Intervals
• Search • Comment Rank Denial
• PHP in Templates
• Query Module