17/03/2009 : Posted by Matthew Lanham
Modules we used when building our site in EE
As you may already know from previous blog posts, we have recently decided to build our websites using the powerful ExpressionEngine CMS.
Now to give you some background, we have been coding our own Content Management Systems into websites for the whole time we've been building them, i am a web developer, so why should i use another companies system, i have the skills to do it myself, right? Wrong! when you're a small agency like us, you can't possibly spend enough time upgrading, fixing and securing a CMS or if you can, it has to be a core part of you're business, and our business is to create good looking and functional websites.
When we first looked into ExpressionEngine almost 12 months ago, we discounted it after a quick play around, mainly because we didn't understand some of the terminology used, i.e. weblog, we just wanted to create pages in a traditional CMS fashion, and had no idea what this weblog rubbish meant, we've now come to learn that a weblog (which you can rename in the control panel) is basically a group of content.
For this website we have a couple of weblogs which are: client, service, blog, link, testimonial and other, we've used the singular term as it flows better with the Publish tab... i.e. Publish Client or Publish Service. One of the main things we had looked at on our journey through Content Management Systems is the template system; we design our website around what our clients want, their brand, our ideas, and ultimately lots of instinct, and we don't want to be constrained to a set website structure, ExpressionEngine gives us the freedom to design in anyway we want...and we love their easy template tags, and the overriding ability to integrate some real PHP code when you want to feel like a developer again!
I have to say one of the things i spent most time on was finding good modules/extensions, unless you know where to look these seem to be difficult to come by, i've found that there are a few core people making reliable extensions/modules and some of these are key to having proper website functionality.
Here are the modules/extensions we used when building our site and what they do for us:
Freeform This is a nifty module for creating custom forms in your website, the built-in ExpressionEngine module does doesn't match up when you want something a little more exciting
LG Better Meta This extension is fantastic, it adds in all those essential meta tags to your templates and allows you to customize per page easily
LG Twitter Well, we're all getting obsessed with Twitter now, and this puts it at your finger tips when in the control panel
SL Developer Info This module brings together all the parts of the control panel you need for development
Playa We've used this extension to relate services to clients, tesimonials to clients, it's a fantastic extension
LG .htaccess Generator Essential for those slick SEO friendly website addresses, and to get rid of index.php in the URL
LG File Manager This extension is fantastic, we love the TinyMCE File Manager, and this extension allows you to use this in your custom weblog fields
SL Combinator We're not actually using this extension, but i think it's worthy of a mention
CM Template Editor This extension is essential if you are working with templates, it provides syntax highlighting, line numbers and allows you to tab Check out the other extensions by the above people/companies
Comments
Posted on 28/03/2009 by Stephen Lewis
Hi Matthew,
Glad you’re finding SL Developer Info useful.
I agree with your comment that “one of the things i spent most time on was finding good modules/extensions, unless you know where to look these seem to be difficult to come by”.
Hopefully Ryan Masuga’s soon-to-be-launched http://devot-ee.com/ will make this process a lot easier in the future. If you haven’t already checked it out, I recommend doing so.
Cheers,
Stephen
Posted on 02/04/2009 by Shanky - Seo Service India
Nice posting,very informative, i also interested in the seo services and web development.Thank you, very interesting to read, you should be proud of your blog. I was really enjoying to check your messages from time to time. We are looking forward to your future posts.
Posted on 29/04/2009 by James
Good choice with ExpressionEngine. I’ve been using EE for a good while now and I don’t think that will change. I’m with Stephen in looking forward to http://devot-ee.com, as you say there are a good few reliable developers but it’s not always easy to find what you need. I remember hearing about http://www.lumis.com/page/imgsizer/ a long time after I could of really used it—that one’s worth a look if you haven’t already.
