ExpressionEngine - Publish Your Universe!

EE 2.0.1 is Out, Did you Miss It?

Yesterday we released the biggest update to the beta yet, ExpressionEngine 2.0.1. Its got a number of fixes along with some minor, but important UI updates such as a change in how notifications are displayed in the Control Panel. Please see the Change Log for all the details.

Since we’ve got a number of new people to the EE Community I think this would be a good time to let you know the best way to stay current on EE updates. EE releases come in two flavors, Versions and Builds.

A Version, also called a Point release, is considered a substantial update and can be identified by a change in the Version number.

ExpressionEngine 2.0.0—> ExpressionEngine 2.0.1

Version updates typically contain fixes, updates, and possibly new features. The bigger the change in Version number, the more substantial the changes.

A Build is an update to ExpressionEngine within the same Version/point number. For example, ExpressionEngine 2.0.0 has Build 20091207 and Build 20091211. A new Build usually contains minor fixes and updates. The Build number is simply the date the Build was released making it easy to identify how current the Build is. Builds also have their own update instructions when updating within the same Version.

All first party ExpressionEngine software works this way.

The best way to stay on top of new ExpressionEngine, Discussion Forum, and Multiple Site Manager updates is to subscribe to the Builds Forum feed (Builds RSS). We post all updates to the Builds Forum so if you’re subscribed, you’ll get notified immediately of new updates.

Notable releases are typically posted on the EE Blog as well but usually a day or two after the initial release and we don’t blog about all Build updates.

If you maintain an EE site, subscribe now! If you have an EE site but someone else maintains it for you, make sure they read this post and subscribe.

Until next time, see you on the boards!

EE 2.0 Beta, 30 days in

Happy New Years!

I’m writing this update from an undisclosed warm weather location where Rick Ellis, Derek Jones, and I are convening to plan out the next year. Yes, its our annual World Domination Summit. There is energy and excitement in the air (along with the promise of good Brazilian BBQ). We think 2010 is going to be special, but let’s start by reviewing what’s happened in the last 30 days.

Let’s start this update by welcoming Jamie Rumbelow to the EllisLab Team. If you spend any time over at CodeIgniter you probably already know Jamie. Since EE is now on CI I want to formally introduce Jamie to the ExpressionEngine community. Jamie is our new CodeIgniter Chieftain. If you’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting Jamie in person you know that its a title that fits him well and will be a great win for the community due to his passion and commitment to code and people.

I was extremely pleased to discover that Ryan Irelan’s ExpressionEngine 2.0 Quick Start Guide was Pragmatic’s top selling direct online sales book for December. A big thank you to every one who bought it and a big congrats to Ryan!

During the first week of EE 2.0 Beta’s release our dev team performed as promised. There were four build updates within 7 days as our team diligently responded to community feedback. The blog has been quiet but anybody in the beta knows that we’ve been very active on the forums working closely with the community.

We are now 30+ days into the EE 2.0 Public Beta and the dev team is putting the finishing touches on ExpressionEngine v2.0.1. This will be the first significant update to the Public Beta as it includes the implementation of the Custom Field API and its documentation for third party developers. This will open up a more focused conversion path for 3rd party developers that need their add-ons to integrate with the Publish/Edit pages.

There are also additional bug fixes along with a few highly requested UI tweaks. 

After EE 2.0.1 our focus will shift from primarily responding to issues to focusing on a few of the larger goals for the beta.

Let me also give a big, heartfelt thank you to the EE Community. The high quality feedback that started way back in the Developer preview, and then in both phases of the private beta, has continued in the Public Beta.

Your ability to ferret out issues, file good bug reports, tell your use case stories, and work closely with our staff and team to resolve issues is a testament to how communities should work together. We’re very proud to be working for you and we’re blown away that sales have exceeded expectations.

What I want to emphasize to the community is that this is a beta and that means you have the opportunity to influence the final result. That’s the entire purpose of the beta and part of what made EE 1.X so special. This opportunity is now yours for EE 2.X. Many of you are already taking advantage of this opportunity and I encourage you to continue that with your feedback and the conversations we’re seeing on the forums and elsewhere.

This also includes the chance to influence your favorite 3rd party developer. Make sure you talk to them about what you want them to do with EE 2.X. The EE dev community is awesome. If you’ve never checked it out before start by heading over to EE Insider and Devot-ee.

Together we can make 2010 the year of ExpressionEngine.

I need to close this update with a public thank you to our tireless support staff. On December 2nd they were handed a very big challenge, and have been doing a fantastic job. They put in overtime, worked extra shifts, and went beyond the call of duty to support the release. In the space of 7 days our community grew at an accelerated pace and our support team handled it like artisians.

Ingmar, Sue, John, Greg, Adam, and Lisa, thank you!

See you on the forums, next update in two weeks.

New ExpressionEngine.com Feature: Events

Over the years, I have proudly witnessed and taken part in the growth of our community.  This growth has included a natural progression to physical gatherings amongst the ExpressionEngine and CodeIgniter communities.  I love to see our community coming together, networking, and putting faces to names and avatars.  To facilitate these activities I would like to introduce our new Events section.

One part of this that you may have already noticed is EE Live on our home-page, where you can find next three upcoming events.

Opening today is the Event Listing where you can see all upcoming events.  You can also add your own events to this listing by using the new Add Event form.  To allow for coordination and discussion, there is a new Events Forum.

New events will be lightly moderated, and creating a forum post prior to adding your event will allow the Events Listing to link to your discussion.

These new features can be used for any gathering centered around ExpressionEngine and/or CodeIgniter, from an informal chat over coffee, to a multi-day conference, to a training class, please feel free to add your event.  An EllisLab team member may also unexpectedly show up.  Myself, and the rest of the team, love getting to know the community better!

The Last Two EE Mug Winners

Today we officially bring the private beta to a close by giving away the promised EE Mug to the best tester from Team Beta.

(Photo copyright Michael Swindler)

The EllisLab dev team got together and reviewed beta participation. It was a difficult decision because a lot of people made great contributions and the overall quality of feedback was stellar. But the dev team agreed that two people really stood out during the private beta. And, fortunately, there are two EE Mugs left, not one like I originally thought.

A hardy congratulations go to Ender and DaveNZ for their outstanding contributions during the private beta! You’ll receive an email today with the details on claiming your EE Mug.

The Public Beta is going very well. Sales are strong and the majority of the initial feedback has been positive. Perhaps more importantly, the negative feedback has been constructive and insightful. The combination of these three has us excited as we steadily work toward EE 2.1.

As promised we’ve been responding swiftly to bugs and issues with no less than 8 new builds since release (that’s EE + Forums + MSM). You can keep track of Build updates by following the Build Forum’s RSS feed.

Last time I said we want to continue doing these updates on a regular basis. To make sure that happens we’re going to move the updates to Fridays starting on January 8. I’ll try to sneak in another update or two prior to that but the holiday schedule might make that a little tricky.

EECore 1.6.8 Downloads, and thank you to .net Magazine and Erskine Design

This month .net Magazine features a tutorial written by the fabulous folks over at Erskine Design on how to build a site in ExpressionEngine.

Unfortunately we have discovered a minor issue in that EECore 1.6.8 is temporarily unavailable for download in our store.  We are working to resolve this issue.  For those of you trying to download this weekend, EECore is included with this blog post, and we do apologize for this issue.

Thank you again to .net Magazine and Erskine Design!

Update:  EECore 1.6.8 is once again available for download in our store.