The document discusses ExpressionEngine 2 (EE2), a content management system. It highlights some key features of EE2 including being built on the CodeIgniter framework, having powerful and friendly tools, and excelling at content entry through the use of forms, fields, and channels. It also discusses starter files that can be used as reusable templates for beginning EE projects and how accessories can add extra functionality to the EE control panel. Finally, it briefly covers the EE2 application programming interface (API) and some of its advantages for developers.
20. Fieldtypes Native to EE2:
* File
* Select Drop-down
* Relationship
* Checkboxes
* Multi Select
* Radio Buttons
* Textarea
* Text Input
* Loveā¢*
* May be lacking from your EE2...or stalled, horrible relationship.
99. Whatās an API
āDocumentedā way of interacting with an
application
Standard way of interacting with data
That means it wonāt change, at least not
without notice
Twitee module by Shapeshed (not yet available for 2.0)
Could use Twitter Timeline -- free plugin converted to EE 2
Using magpie plugin to pull in Twitpic RSS feed for Riot Racing.
Using a bit of PHP to make things pretty.
Custom plugin that uses the Twitvid API to pull in latest videos.
Originally written for EE 1.6.x but now available for EE 2.0
I will be talking about these wonderful things called Starter Files and how you can use them for ExpressionEngine 2
I will also be making some bad overused jokes
So what are starter files. Pretty simply they are
a reusable set of folder, files and code snippets that we use to begin the start of a project.
Daniel Mall, Mark Huot and I began using starter files at happy cog a couple of years ago to kick off all our template builds. We were seeing similarities between each of our projects and we started using them to save a bit of time when it came to reusable code and folder structures.
So here’s an example of what they can look like - So for instance, we always use CSS files on our sites, so there’s a c folder that we start with on every project that holds our commonly used CSS files - such as one for ie and one for print styles. As well as some empty include files like a header and a footer - that we will use to markup those global sections. So even though we might not know the specific styles that are going to go in those css files or we don’t know what kind of navigation markup will go into our header file, 98% of the time, we will need these files created to fill in with our project specific markup.
Once I started working with ExpressionEngine, I found more and more the need to write some of the same code I had written previously. Things like contact forms and search forms and search results. There all very common components from project to project. I was consistently going to the user guide or to past projects I worked on to grab the some of the same code snippets for almost every project I worked on.
So with that in mind, I created starterfiles.com to demo these ExpressionEngine2 starter file templates.
starterfiles.com is a small site built on ExpressionEngine 2 that features these components that I have often found myself needing to reuse from project to project. Things like...
a Simple search form - I’d say pretty close to 100% of sites Ive worked on have had some type of search. This search form has an example of pre-filled values in it to provide some additional context for users. I’ve also included some JavaScript to clear out the form on focus and reset the text if there is no change.
Search Results page
That also has a link to an Advanced Search Page
For this search form, Ive updated the example from the user guide to have a bit cleaner fieldsets as well as I’ve added labels for all the fields for added accessibility. Lastly for this one, Ive removed the table markup that the user guide suggests.
No Results page for searches that don’t return any results. But also includes a suggestion for the user to try the advanced search.
A contact page using the email contact form. Again, this is another example to where Ive added labels for the inputs and text areas.
An about page that can be repurposed for other basic content pages that has a corresponding Page Channel and Custom Fields for the page channel
Login functionality that lives in the header can be accessed from any page with ease using a JavaScript based popup. This popup is using the jquery load method to pull in the content from a login page.
And its done this way so the login page exists For users without JavaScript enabled who will not get the popup.
A news landing page with pagination based on dynamic content from the News Channel. This could also be a basis for a site blog.
Theres a news detail page template for all news or blog entries that feature the full text for the entry. Also on these news detail pages is the code for comments and the commenting form
Also on these news detail pages is the code for comments and the commenting form. You’ll notice the image in the comment section - I’ve included the code for the gravatar plugin for this. Ive also included the built in captcha
the twitter_timeline plugin is also included. and currently is featuring the public timeline. You’ll also see that the CSS3 styles included for talk bubbles.
Ive also added some simple logic to make the site logo the h1 on the home page and a strong tag on the others - in order to let the page headings on sub pages be the h1
With ExpressionEngine2, All I have to do is copy these templates to my default site folder, load up the template manager and hit refresh and these templates are ready to go.
with the Starter Files can be as detailed or general as you like.
If you need different types of fieldsets or listing styles - or prefer your heading structure different - all these things can be tailored to how you code your projects.
The Starter Files that Im showing in these slides are available to download for free on the starter files site - and you can use all of the parts or some of the parts to start off your ExpressionEngine 2 site as well!