In our last update, Les hinted that the next update on ExpressionEngine 2.0’s progress would be more significant than the last few, which have been pretty standard fare, letting you know that we were progressively on the march and happy with where we were.  But this week we’ve crossed a major milestone and I’ve crawled from the icy confines of the Fortress of Solitude to bring you this news: our focus is now shifted to beginning a beta program.

The beta for ExpressionEngine 2.0 will be conducted in multiple phases, the first of which is invitation-only (but don’t worry, it’s short!).  This first phase of the beta will begin in early July and include Team Kaylee (our developer preview participants), the Pro Network, and a short list of private invitations, such as those who won at last year’s ExpressionEngine Roadshow.

The second phase will be a semi-open beta. Participants will be determined via an application process. We’ll post the details on what we’re looking for here on the EE Blog. We hope to keep the time between phases short, but please understand that the intention is to have a high-quality beta process, which may require extending the time between phases. We will keep the community informed here on the Blog, as always.  And don’t worry, the criteria will not be as tightly focused as the developer preview.  We will be pulling from all segments of our community.

During the beta, participants will be under a loose NDA, but unlike Kaylee, will be able to use the software on live, non-critical or personal sites, and will have access to a 2.0 bug tracker and specific support forum.  In addition to updates as the phases open, keep in expectation of our biweekly updates on the overall progress; we’re still not spinning up the Van de Graaff just yet.

Dear Mr. Camacho,

I have little time to write this note as paper is hard to come by, and I don’t know how much coal is left on this sharpened stick that I’m using to write. My sled dogs are weary, and the light in my makeshift igloo shelter is dim at best. It is June 16th, and I fear my updates may not continue long.  Regardless, I hope this letter finds you in good spirits, although I do not know how swiftly my messenger will deliver it. 

I know you have waited patiently as I navigated the perilous landscapes of Canada in search of Jones, a miserly wizard who resides in a strange tower using his dark techno magics to teleport o’ the land. After much searching, I located him and spoke with him at great length regarding the Quest for 2.0. While I have much to tell you, alas, the Wizard Jones has forbidden me from writing too much, fearing this letter may be stolen and disseminated on something he only referred to as “the intertubes.” Still, I will share what I can.

Jones believes we have found a clue to EE 2.0’s progress in Voltaire’s Candide, ou l’Optimisme in which he predicts “ExpressionEngine 2 is like totally right on track. It should be the fondest desire of EllisLab that the June 30th update will be much more substantial then the last few have been.” He goes on to predict that “A beautiful Beligum woman will deliver unto thee new icons; Packages shall be a boon unto developers, thanks be to feedback from Team Kaylee.” Or something like that. Much to my mother’s shame, my French is poor and this translation is paraphrased at best.

I must end here as I may need the stick and the coal to fend off the ravenous wolves that even now wait patiently in the dark. I will see you in two weeks so that I may more fully share the news from the Wizard Jones.

And there you have it. If you make sense of it, let me know. Otherwise, I’ll just be patiently waiting for Allard’s return on the 30th for more 2.0 news.

In the midst of all of this, Les asked me to join EllisLab full-time.

The rest is a matter of history - of course I accepted, who amongst us would turn down such an incredible opportunity?

On June 4th, 2007 I went from part-time to full-time to begin what has been a whirlwind of learning and growing, making new friends, being part of an incredible team, and learning how to shape our presence to better serve the community.

To celebrate my 2 year full-time anniversary I wanted to share a brief update with you, the community—one of the main reasons for my personal success.

In the time since I have joined we have grown the company immensely.  We have had several new Technical Support Specialists come on board, allowing Robin to move up to Code Mechanic.  Pascal also joined us as a TSS and quickly moved on to join the development team as our second Code Mechanic.  Greg Aker and John Donovan joined us to become highly successful in helping the community.  John’s addition to the team allowed us to greatly extend our support hours.

Early in the two years I reviewed our main, community-input resource: the wiki - cleaning out old articles, updating several articles, and categorizing all articles.  As I read through each of those articles my pride continued to grow as I realized just how much my “pet project” had grown and been adopted by and adapted to the very users it was created to help.

As to the future?  I love my work and part of that is improving the experience for everyone that has made myself and the team so successful.  I can’t tell you how exciting it is to be a part of such an awesome team and amazing community.

That is it for this update.  It has been an incredible ride and I am eagerly looking forward to the continuing adventure.

-Lisa

Our internal targets are on track and no major obstacles have shown up during the Dev Preview to beta transition thus far. If this type of progress continues there won’t be too many more of these short updates.

In other news EllisLab will be making an official trip to Europe this fall to attend the European ExpressionEngine and CodeIgniter Conference October 22-23 in Leiden, the Netherlands. We’ll have more details once the conference site launches and the date gets a bit closer, but for those of you early planners, you can count on us being there. I know I’m looking forward to meeting our friends across the pond!

Next update is June 16th! See you on the boards.

For the curious this includes code, docs, UI polish, and everything in-between. Of course, the question everyone is asking is when will the beta arrive.

We learned a hard lesson last year about public dates so we’re not going to do that until we’re 100% sure we can meet whatever we say publicly. But let’s just say we’ve whispered it internally and that is significant. I’m not being coy or a tease, I’m being honest and trying to strike that balance between transparency (which is good) and pre-mature disclosure (which is bad).

However, I do have a date to share with you!

We’re very pleased to announce that Lisa Wess and I will be hosting ExpressionEngine 2.0 101 at Train-ee’s Be True to ExpressionEngine event on July 13th-16th in Portland.

For those who don’t know, Portland is in EllisLab’s backyard and we’re excited about teaming up with Mike and getting to meet more people.

EE2 101 will cover the basics of working with 2.0. In particular we want to show how straightforward the upgrade process is and how the skills you learn in 1.x transfer seamlessly to 2.x. We’ve said it many times already but its worth saying again. EE 2.x does not make what people learn on EE 1.x obsolete by any means. EE 2.x is about making how you work with EE better, but the core engine remains unchanged.

I want to be clear that I’m not saying we’re releasing EE 2.0 beta at the class or anything like that. I’m just saying we’re bringing Kaylee in whatever state she’s in to the event and teaching the basics to attendees.

Rick and I will also be hosting a Question & Answer session about anything EllisLab at the Train-ee event.

Before you ask, yes the information will be released publicly after the Train-ee event is over. If you are attending you’ll get it first hand from us before anyone else but its not meant to be “exclusive” to the event.

We’ll have more details about the Train-ee classes in the coming weeks. If you’re interested in attending, you can find registration info at Train-ee.com.

Next update in two weeks.

Devot:ee is the brainchild of ExpressionEngine Pro Net member Ryan Masuga who defines it as “a website devoted to learning, teaching, tweaking, extending, and having fun with the ExpressionEngine CMS.” So far Ryan’s made good on all those statement.

Devot-ee.com has two unique things that set it apart from the growing number of ExpressionEngine community sites. First, it has the most comprehensive collection of ExpressionEngine Add-ons anywhere (including ExpressionEngine.com). I think of Devot:ee’s Add-on section as a fan-curated museum of community created EE code.

Second, though registration is free you also have the option of becoming one of the Devot:ed, which costs $39 per year. Only the Devot:ed get to rate add-ons and save favorites. This means all the ratings are from people who are committed to the EE Community and not just random strangers with an opinion. I’m sure Ryan is catching flack for this approach but personally I think its brilliant and hope it works out. And yes, I signed up, paid my $39 bucks and became one of the Devot:ed. For the record, I used my own cash and was not given a free-membership or otherwise enticed to sign up and promote it. I find the ability to save add-ons useful but I plunked down my money to “fund awesomeness” more than anything else.

If you register (free) or sign up as one of the Devot:ed before by the end of June 14, 2009 you’ll be automatically entered to win one of 16 prizes, including $250/$100 Amazon Gift Certificates, ExpressionEngine licenses, and a slew of high-quality add-ons from some of the best EE devs on the planet. The Official Launch Giveaway post has the details. 

There’s an aphorism from the TV series “Babylon 5”: Understanding is a three-edged sword: your side, their side, and the truth.  In a similar vein comes the title of this blog post.  Web security is a three-edged sword: the server, the software, and you.  Like most truisms, it is self-defining, obvious, and relatively uninteresting because it doesn’t tell you anything that you don’t already know; it’s just wrapped up in pithy phrase.  Perhaps due to their boring “heard-it-before” nature, the truths spoken in such phrases are easily and quickly forgotten in day to day routines or in moments of panic, both times that we as humans tend to run on instinct and auto-pilot instead of giving weighty thought to matters.

So, reminders are handy.  As is the case in this build, some changes we make to ExpressionEngine do not deal directly with the security of ExpressionEngine’s code, but try to make up for failings of either server security or lack of precautions taken by the user.  Each edge of the sword is not wholly independent.  Many times, one edge can make up for a deficiency in another.  But all three edges must be considered and sharpened to have a complete solution.

One edge of the sword is the software, and is the responsibility of the developers.  Application security is something that we have always taken very seriously, developing from the ground up with security in mind.  That mindset is what drives us to write code that can prevent common problems that result from server inadequacies, or to block certain input that if a third party were to use in their code without validating could cause problems, and so forth.  You can’t control ExpressionEngine’s code security - that’s strictly our responsibility and on us.  But there are some things that are under your control that can help keep your sites safe, regardless of what software you are using, by examining the other two edges of the web security sword.

You.  If you’re implementing add-ons or PHP in templates, are you or the developer fully aware of potential security issues?  Do you have old versions of software left on your web site?  Scripts that you aren’t using any more?  Do you keep the scripts that you are using up to date (including tools that the host may have pre-installed for you like phpMyAdmin)?  Have you renamed your system folder to something unique and hard to guess (“sys”, “admin”, and “cp” fail this test)?  Do you change it regularly?  Do you keep a ZIP archive of your site in a publicly accessible web directory (this one’s bad if that’s not clear)?  Is your password any of the following: password, password1, 123456, 123456789, or expressionengine?  You might laugh at these, but a number of readers right now are logging into their settings to change their password.  On that note, if you are giving untrusted people access to your site or SFTP account, create a temporary user for them, restrict access as much as possible, and remove their account when done.

The last edge of the sword (in the discussion, not in significance) is the server.  The good news about the server, and some people tend to forget this, is that it is also controlled by you.  If you cannot make or request necessary changes to improve security of your server, you can move.  “The host is cheap”, “I’m locked in for a year”, “the client loves them”, “they’re honest about their failings” etc. are not excuses to stay on an insecure or poorly configured server.  If your software had a flaw that allowed any guest to edit or delete any piece of content they wanted, would you keep using it simply because you had already paid for and installed it?  Certainly not.  Why anyone would put up with less from their hosts is beyond me.  But here are some things you can check for and/or do to maximize safety of your software on a server:

Moving application system folders and other potentially sensitive files outside of a web accessible directory.  Is auto-directory indexing enabled (the mod_autoindex Apache module)?  If it is, ask your host to disable it and failing that use .htaccess Options -Indexes.  Choose a server that runs Apache as your user or with equivalent permissions.  If Apache runs as www/nobody without additional “jail” type security, run away.  Choose a server that uses SFTP only.

These lists are not in any way intended to be complete but just to help encourage thinking about security from all three sides, since a failure of one cannot always be mitigated by the other two.  Hopefully this post will be helpful to those new to the game, and remind the adept to stay on their toes!

EllisLab and EngineHosting are sponsoring the project along with Campaign Monitor, Stock Icons, and the ExpressionEngine gurus over at Newism.

This is a reminder that the deadline is May 22! If you are a startup in need of a web site or know someone who is, apply soon.

Aside from that, the dev team is busy polishing up Kaylee. As reported last time, this is not exactly exciting work but its the type of thing where doing it right instills a certain pride and is critical to making EE what it is.

Here’s just a snippet from our internal task list:

- the fields on publish stacked side by side needs some fine-tuning visually FIX IT!
- the non publish tabs don’t look spiffy… FIX IT!
- ping tab has “select/deselect” that doesn’t work like the rest of the CP. Lets put it into a table and make it work like the others FIX IT!
- “I just noticed, and I can’t believe I only just noticed this, that our tabs are not block links, you have to actually click the text.”  FIX IT!
- publish page spring loaded field drags FIX IT!
- Make the upload path database fields 150 chars in length. FIX IT!
- Not using “packed” javascript versions FIX IT!

For those of you wondering, the FIX IT! is definitely a reference to Oscar Roger’s strategy for fixing the economy. Turns out Oscar’s vociferous approach is also appropriate to software development.

Take it one step at a time. Identify the problem, FIX IT, identify another problem, FIX IT! Repeat as necessary until its all FIXED! - Oscar Rogers (2:15 mark)

There is a good chance that subsequent updates will be “Oscar like”. That’s my gentle way of telling you that from this point until the beta is ready we will not be releasing any new information regarding 2.0. We’ll continue to report on progress regularly and be as transparent as possible about how things are going (good, bad, or “meh”), but we will not be disclosing any new 2.0 info until people have the opportunity to apply for the beta. Our focus is a 100% on transitioning Kaylee from “programmer friendly Developer Preview” to “Web Professional friendly Beta 1”. Thanks for understanding.

The next update will be on Tuesday, May 19th. See you on the forums!

Mike decided to auction the finished site from the Church series along with an extensive package valued at over $9700 (includes ExpressionEngine licenses along with EngineHosting’s S2 solution)! The auction is live on eBay if you’re interested. All proceeds from the auction will go toward building a fresh water well through Charity:Water (which he thoroughly researched as part of the selection process). Here’s how Mike puts it on his site:

My goal is just this - I’d love to see one well put in the ground from support by the ExpressionEngine community.  To pay for one well we need to raise $5,000 USD.  This will completely fund one freshwater well and provide 250+ people with a constant source of clean drinking water.

Better yet, check out the promo video for the whole idea.

Train-ee.com’s dedicated Water from a Website section has all the info you need to participate including other ways to help with the project if you don’t want to participate in the auction.

Paramore|Redd’s Brad Haynes wrote Adding dynamic styles with CSS for Web Designer Magazine #156 available now in the UK and the US (available in print only).

The tutorial guides a person through downloading ExpressionEngine to creating pages based on Paramore|Redd’s beautiful Us section. The tutorial provides a download location for the template and the PSD. Check it out (hint, pages 56-59)!

That pretty much sums up how things are going with Kaylee (the ExpressionEngine 2.0 Dev Preview). The past several weeks have been filled with feedback from the Developer Preview that we’ve used to shape 2.0’s add-on strategy and make a few key architecture decisions.

The process has been very deliberate and organized. Its also fairly boring as most of these decisions don’t directly translate into “cool” things to report on, other than providing a solid foundation for EE add-ons. We don’t call that “cool”, we call that “absolutely necessary.” Its like saying “hey, I have wheels on my car.”

Update: I’ve expanded on what we mean by “architecture decisions” in the forums.

Here is an example conversation from the amazing Robin to the participants.

The next build will force strict mode at runtime to help you catch non-strict queries.  We’re running in strict mode already and it’s a lifesaver for helping id the trouble spots.  So- wanted to give you all a reminder of the strict mode requirement as well as a ‘heads up’ on what’s coming.  And just to be clear- we’re forcing strict mode for development purposes- it’s not going to be standard on EE installs - Robin Sowell

And Robin, being awesome, includes a code example.

What all this means is that the EllisLab dev team is happy with progress.

We plan to do one more round of Developer Preview invitations (in the next week or so) before closing off the Dev Preview and concentrating on the next part of the release phase, the semi-public beta.

The next update will be on Tuesday, May 5th. Perhaps we’ll write it in Spanish to celebrate Cinco de Mayo!

Thanks for understanding and have a great weekend!

The entire reason we’re making ExpressionEngine 2.0 a CodeIgniter application is because we want to establish it as a valid platform for years to come. It was a forward thinking decision, one that has informed everything else about 2.0’s design and implementation. IE6 is not forward thinking and hasn’t been considered a “modern browser” for 5 years.

We know IE6 is still in significant use but to paraphrase Capistrano developer Jamis Buck, “Something has to give. In this case (and among other things), it’s Internet Explorer 6. Microsoft may be an 800lb gorilla, but it’s not EE 2.0’s gorilla.”

What this means specifically is that ExpressionEngine 2.0’s Control Panel themes and the Example Site will not officially support IE6. Our target for EE 2.0 is Internet Explorer 7 and up. On the front end, its completely up to the team implementing EE 2.0 on whether to support IE6 or not. That’s exactly how EE 1.6.7 works now and there is nothing about 2.0 that would prevent a person from creating a site that displays perfectly in IE6. We’re talking specifically about the CP themes that will be included in 2.0.

Of course, we can’t ignore IE6 entirely. We know that especially in government and education its still (unfortunately) an important browser that must be dealt with. This is part of the reason why ExpressionEngine 1.6.7 will continue to be available for purchase after ExpressionEngine 2.0’s release. If you or your clients absolutely need IE6 support on the Control Panel side, you’ll have the tried and tested power of EE 1.6.7 on your side.

This week we invited the second round of developers to start converting their add-ons for ExpressionEngine 2.0 using Kaylee. The Dev Preview is going very smoothly and the new CodeIgniter code base well received. If you applied and haven’t been invited yet, we thank you for your patience. We’re working people in as fast as we can and once you do get in, you’ll appreciate the amount of direct access you have to the EE dev team.

The next EE 2.0 update will take place around April 17th.

Hat tip to John Gruber’s Not My Gorilla post on Daring Fireball for rekindling the discussion.

Yes, we’re all excited about seeing the ExpressionEngine Developer Preview (Kaylee), but underneath that SXSW 2009 was a wonderful reminder that it is the people, all of you, that makes what we do worth it. That includes those of you who couldn’t join us. We thoroughly enjoyed every event, every date, and every conversation (check it out on Flickr).

I want to take a moment to give a big thank you to the teams that provided prizes for the Party at the Moonshine.

EngineHosting
EE Screencasts
GearLive
Hambo Development
Newism
Solspace
Train-ee

I will now make a valiant effort to recount the highlights and bring everyone up to speed on 2.0 progress.

Friday

The team arrived in Austin throughout the day. We took the time to relax during the afternoon and make sure that we were well rested. In 2008 we were busy scrambling to finish a big presentation. This year we recovered from traveling quietly in our rooms or in the hotel lounge; we met Robin and Greg for the first time (well, first time in person). As one might expect, they both are wonderful.

Ryan Irelan (EE Insider, EE Screencasts) was kind enough to treat the entire team (including Nevin, Laurie, and Neal from EngineHosting) to a delicious Mexican dinner. 

(checkout Ryan’s SXSW 2009 set)

Saturday

We were up bright and early to meet Hadley Stern (AppleMatters.com):

Then it was off to our first EllisLab Date back at the hotel:

We had no formal presentation or plan for the Dates. We were simply committed to sitting down with people and getting to know them. And, of course, we demoed Kaylee. We asked people if they had specific questions or if they wanted us to to give them a brief highlight tour, or if they just wanted to “click around”. Usually they wanted all three and we obliged. The Dates went anywhere from one to two hours. They sometimes involved food and almost always involved coffee. Some people took us up on our offer to help them with technical questions on their sites. Lisa even mapped out an in-depth plan to implement a section of a large library site. But they always ended with Kaylee. I’ll have more info on Kaylee later on.

At 5:00pm we turned our attention to the Party at the Moonshine Grill. So did about 600 other people (yes, 600). We expected somewhere between 150-200 people to show up but at 5:30pm our party was announced on the official SXSW Twitter feed… twice. We ended up with an extra 400 people! This is, of course, the type of “problem” we want to have. 

We ran out of food around 7pm but the stellar team at the Moonshine Grill quickly whipped out more and we fed everyone who showed up. A big thank you to everyone in the EE Community who introduced EE to new people at the party.

At 7:30pm we started the prize giveaway. I need to take a moment and give a round of applause to Laurie (EngineHosting), Lisa, Robin, and Greg for doing such a great job handling the large crowd. Greg, as it turns out, can make himself heard over hundreds of people.

Also at 7:30pm the first ever Community World Domination Summit was held in a private room at the Moonshine. Twenty-four web development teams were represented and they ranged from one-person shops to teams that implement EE for enterprise clients on a regular basis. ExpressionEngine veterans Mitchell Kimbrough (Solspace), Greg Storey (Airbag Industries), and Ryan Irelan (EE Insider) hosted the event.

The discussion was 99% business-to-business related, 1% ExpressionEngine 2.0, which is exactly what we hoped for. Our goal was to listen and give teams the opportunity to tell us how EllisLab might help them utilize EE better and improve how we do business. It was a great discussion and we walked away with a ton of ideas. For those of you who were not present, let me assure you that this was just the beginning of the discussion. We are committed to making it continue online and of finding ways to offer something similar to the numerous international teams outside the United States.

To everyone who did attend, our sincerest thanks to you. Your insight, honesty, and innovation was inspiring to hear. We’re really looking forward to seeing where this all leads.

The party began to wind down around 9pm and it was time to head to the sleeper hit of SXSW, the Solspace Nightcap hosted by Mitchell Kimbrough:

Solspace reserved the upper level of great Mexican restaurant and provided cocktails and other goodies free of charge for everyone to enjoy. The entire thing is devoted to connecting EE people with each other in place where we can all just relax (and is relatively quiet). It was a blast.

Sunday to Tuesday

The rest of SXSW was filled with EllisLab Date. Every date was unique, each conversation different, and the discussions motivated us a great deal. The highlight though was watching Derek Allard give Veerle the grand tour of Kaylee. For those of you who don’t know, Veerle worked closely with us to develop the new look of 2.0 Control Panel. Two of the three default themes that will ship with 2.0 are hers. This was the first time she saw her themes in motion. Seeing her delight at how we implemented her work was a pleasure indeed.

Kaylee

We obviously showed Kaylee off quite a bit at SXSW. We were very comfortable demoing her to people when we had the opportunity to discuss what was being viewed face-to-face. This is a critical distinction between SXSW and this blog and our forums. Kaylee is an important milestone, but she is still alpha software and not ready for to be shown to a large, general audience. But, we do want to fill everyone in on the major points discussed at the various EllisLab Dates.

The Date conversations can be distilled into four questions. 

When is 2.0 coming out?

There isn’t a release date, but there is a release process. First, there is the Developer Preview aimed at getting the new 2.0 code base into the hands of EE developers. In fact, if you follow the blog regularly then you already know the First Wave of Invitations went out late last night. The Developer Preview will go for several rounds. During this time our dev team will be completely focused on training EE devs on the new code so they can train others.

Following the Developer Preview will be the semi-Public beta. This will take place when ExpressionEngine 2.0 is feature complete. Right now EE 2.0 is feature locked and the next major milestone is being feature complete. This means that the code is complete and ready for debugging and testing outside of our internal team. There will be an application process but it will be much broader in scope. If you rely on EE but are not an add-on developer, this will be your opportunity to get involved prior to public release.

Sometime during the semi-public beta we’ll set an internal release date. At this point we’ll roll into buzz mode. It will be obvious to anyone following along. 2.0’s release will not be a surprise.

What will happen to EE 1.6.7?

ExpressionEngine 1.6.7 will continue to be available for download and purchase after 2.0’s release. We view 2.0’s upcoming release as more of update to an operating system. EE 1.x has a significant install base and we estimate it will take a minimum of 2-3 years for the majority of the community to update. We will support 1.6.7 for a long time to come and we think it will remain a viable market for add-on developers for some time.

In other words, 1.6.7 is not going away. There is no reason to wait for 2.0 to get started. You can be safe knowing it will be supported for a long time and that the upgrade process will be straightforward. There will be no pressure from EllisLab to jump to 2.0 right away. Like 1.x before it, 2.0 will need to prove itself in the marketplace. We’re very confident it will.

How exactly does EE 2.0 work on CodeIgniter?

This was discussed in-depth with a number of developers and since the details don’t apply to a general audience, let me sum it as “exactly as one would expect.” ExpressionEngine 2.0 is like any other application built with CodeIngiter with all the advantages that brings. If this is a topic of interest I’m sure the dev team will address that in future EE Blog updates.

What Features and new information were made public?

- The Gallery Module is being deprecated. The plan is to incorporate features directly into 2.0 that allow people to accomplish the same thing without having to maintain an additional module. There will be a migration path so that people who rely on the Gallery can easily move it to a Channel instead. We have yet to determine is if this will take place in 2.0 or 2.1, but either way the Gallery sees the beginning of the end as of 2.0.

- ExpressionEngine 2.0 has true file management natively.

- ExpressionEngine will have an Image Editor. It will allow you to crop, resize, and rotate your photos.

- Publish/Edit interface includes direct access to the File Manager, new field types (Upload, Numbers), and can be redesigned using just the mouse.

- Huge improvement to flat file integration with the Template Manager. When you save a template as a file EE 2.0 will create a file with the proper extension (main.css, index.html, feed.rss). If you create the file in your favorite editor and save it to the specified folder, 2.0 will now create matching templates for the new files.

There are literally hundreds of little features and improvements in 2.0. The above are just the highlights from what we showed at the Dates and in no way represent a complete feature list (we will not do that until the beta).

Every new feature can be categorized under a single theme: Control. From start to finish 2.0’s primary goal is to give you much more control… from the installation process to how the Publish interface is presented to clients, to template management, to actually working with the CP, we wanted to take your control of EE to a whole new level.

I’m sure there are things we talked about at SXSW that didn’t make it into this post. We’ll answer as best as we can on the forums, but please understand that we’re moving back into efficiency mode and we won’t be devoting a lot of time to answering “how does feature X work” type of questions. We want to move as quickly as possible to getting 2.0 into the hands of as many people as possible and that requires being less detailed in our forum responses. We apologize in advance for that.

What’s next?

Sometime next week we’ll be launching a new 2.0 FAQ. We’ll also be updating the EE Blog a bit to make it easier to find 2.0 information. The next official 2.0 progress update will take place around April 3rd. See you on the forums!