Just a reminder to please keep this thread civil. People are welcome to be critical of ExpressionEngine here or discuss other products so long as its constructive and positive in tone.
gspark, your comments are borderline on this. Since its your 1st post we’ll be forgiving but you’ve got to realize your posting very negative comments about a product you haven’t tried on the company’s forums. We’ve been very successful at what we do for 6 years now. EE’s pricing is not an accident or ill-considered. If you don’t like it, that’s just fine, but to call our pricing stupid is being very naive on your part. EE’s pricing and business model is how we feed our families and take care of the people who work for us. Its how we stay in business and its what allows us to pour our professional lives into EE.
There are literally hundreds of products on the CMS/blog tool market and EE is easily considered one of the best and has been since the day it released. While you can certainly find other solutions you would do well as to really investigate why EE is so well received even though there are free, open source alternatives.
If it were mine i’d include this with EE for the $250
EVERYTHING, including unlimited domains, yearly updates or if absolutely necessary (doubtful) make it a small fee like $15 for upgrade - the forum add-on INCLUDED........every add-on INCLUDED yes even the kitchen sink add-on, one-time, life-time fee,
now you are talking about an investment that I think would have some value to it, and you’d attract maybe everybody on the internet
that’s what I would do
MMmmmmm… if I had a nickel for every time I have read or heard someone say “*If* I ran <insert company here>, I would do it much differently”, I would not need to be the owner of a successful business Its much easier to think you know how to run a business, until you actually run one yourself.
Reminds me of people who get ticked off with a parent because their kid is acting up. It’s easy to say your kids will be perfect all of the time before you’ve ever had the honor of trying to make that the case with your own kids.
Not to say there aren’t some bad parents out there that need to learn how to give their kids boundaries.
Not to say there aren’t some software companies selling things for entirely too much money.
But, anyway. One thing I love about this community is how civil this has stayed despite the possibly attempted trolling. You guys/gals are all great.
Hi all, let me step in for one minute. I just wanted to say that I’ve been playing with EE core again for the last several weeks and, having worked with many other CMS’s I just have to agree with the praise EE has received from a lot of designers. It’s a very powerful and flexible tool, incredibly fast and easy to style.
Having worked with Drupal, for example I can appreciate this separation of content and design. Drupal is a very powerful tool, too, but I’ve been so frustrated at the difficulty of theming it that I’ve even hacked the core only to style its comment form(for some reason the developers don’t understand “how and why someone would want to theme the comment form"). Sometimes this is a big waste of time, EE excels in giving you complete control of how things look. Not only that but it makes things that are very complicated or impossible with other CMSs look very easy(the ability of sharing templates, custom fields groups and categories between blogs, etc).
But EE is not perfect, there are things that I believe should be a priority for its developers. For example, URLs. At this stage of the game you should be able to name your urls and its structure however you want. Take Drupal and its path and autopath modules as an example, wordpress makes this very simple, too. I know you can achieve this with EE but with no small amount of work and mod_rewrite trickery.
Despite that, an awesome product that crearly deserves its reputation, and EE core is powerful enough for most small sized and personal projects. The community is very helpful and nice, with time you will have every little question answered in an understandable, human way. Try asking something on the Drupal forums, on the other hand, and you will know how important this is.
All in all, an awesome product.I don’t know how you can not thank the developers for making EE Core free.
drupal
wordpress
b2e
mt
joomla/mambo
and EE
php-nuke
post-nuke
The other blog systems (the only CMS listed there is php-nuke post-nuke and mambo) are built for people with limited knowledge and built so anyone can just install and go. Some of them have lots of expandability, but let’s be honest here, they’re open source systems designed to be as simple and easy as possible. In some cases putting that over flexibility
There’s a big market for that. but it simply isn’t the same market that EE is in. None of those systems are even remotely close to the flexibility and power of EE. And one of them is written to the point that many hosts won’t even allow you to use the software (mt).
EE is simply in a different league here and I guess my thoughts are that if someone wants a freebie, limited blog system, go with those others. But if someone wants a flexible scalable system for a dirt cheap price I think EE is the only answer. And yes it’s dirt cheap for commercial versions. Any business that couldn’t afford a couple hundred bucks has a lot more concern than what system to use.
I know I’ll be using EE for any projects moving forward. After using this for awhile, and especially after taking the initiative to learn how the software works I can’t imagine using anything else.
The security of the system alone is beyond great. The code is sanitized and is very secure. They also have developers submit 3rd party add-ons to them for inspection. my guess is how secure the code is has a lot to do with approval. But whatever the case, your cms is only as secure as the weakest module/plugin/extension you add. Not too long ago there was a huge rucuss becaues of exploits being used in Wordpress plugins. I don’t know how it came out but the bottom line is It goes to show you how important those things are.
If you don’t believe it’s secure compared to the others, do a fresh install of all those systems, then run accunetix against it and see how many vulnerabilities it finds.
To be fair, I can’t comment on EE Core because I never used it. I purchased EE when I wanted my site. I have customers that use the system and over the years I’ve had to help resolve problems with all the different blog software and many CMS. I liked the way ee was structured, it’s flexibility the security and the power so i bought it.
By the way, I’m not knocking any of the other options except maybe MT. They’re all good for someone who doesn’t know anything about design and development and just wants to install and post.
Ok, I’m looking for a CMS too. The purchase cost is not really so much an issue - however, the time I invest in learning a new system is very valuable and I’d like to pick a product that will make my time invested pay off in the short and long run. So far I’ve tried WordPress and Textpattern, and have followed my research breadcrumb trail here (after reading about some folks who recently migrated from Txp to EE). I haven’t tried the EE core yet but will soon.
But I am pretty anal about my code being Standards Compliant (i.e. W3C valid XHTML and CSS) and this is very important to me. So one of the first things I do when I visit the main company site of a product I’m interested in is to perform a (ctrl-alt-V) three finger salute in my browser of choice (Opera), which automatically performs site validation of whatever page is currently displayed a-la (http://validator.w3.org/). I noted that both the WP and Txp sites pass validation but your main EE site gets:
This page is not Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional!Result: Failed validation, 25 Errors
This is a relatively minor issue and is certainly not a deal breaker for me, but this does reflect poorly on your attention to detail. However, I’ve read a lot of really good things about EE and have not yet made up my mind. But I thought I’d let you all know that at least one person has noticed this.
Right now its definitely Textpattern over Wordpress, but now I need to check out EE.
Standards Compliant (i.e. W3C valid XHTML and CSS)...With EE, this is totally up to you, produce valid, strict code and you have valid, strict code. EE won’t interject anything to screw that up. Content, Code, Presentation are all seperated.
My own site and the the last two EE sites I’ve done have zero errors / zero warnings so it’s very doable if you know how to code.
Standards Compliant (i.e. W3C valid XHTML and CSS)...it’s very doable if you know how to code.
But that’s my point. A company selling a product that makes web sites should know how to make web sites! Certainly they should know how to code and this should be blatantly apparent (and flagrantly showcased) on the face they show to the public - their website. So far I’ve been to only a half dozen or so pages on expressionengine.com, and every one has failed validation (including this one). Just say’in....
That aside, last night I installed EE core, with the “Logical Blocks” theme (as recommended by the book: Blog Design Solutions which I’m reading) and played around with it a bit (and ended up staying up very late as I was captivated). I started writing down my thoughts and impressions as they came to me in a Pros & Cons format. Let me just say right now that so far I am very favorably impressed! Here’s some very preliminary first impressions I’ve come up with after playing with it only a few hours:
Pros:
* fine detail controls of admin features
* nice breadcrumb display in Admin panel
* can set local path to user documentation. nice
* can select secure SMTP mail settings with username/password
* video tutorials. excellent.
* good documentation
* has native forum plug-in
* licence agreement written in plain layman terms. refreshing!
Cons:
* company home web site is mostly non-compliant
* size is bloated (compared to Txp)
Regarding the size concern, I realize that a product that does a lot more will obviously be bigger. But overall, my very first preliminary impression (after only having scratched the surface) is that this thing is pretty cool! I’m going to be looking under the covers to see if the underlying code is any good and will be spending more time reading up and learning how it all works. Being a software developer myself, I realize that unsolicited detailed critical feedback from users is very handy. I’ll post back here again once my impressions become more educated. But, so far so good!
But that’s my point. A company selling a product that makes web sites should know how to make web sites! Certainly they should know how to code and this should be blatantly apparent (and flagrantly showcased) on the face they show to the public - their website.
On the other hand, there are only a few code nazis out there
I code all mine to strict with zero errors/warnings but I’m also aware that it isn’t “always” curently possible.
On the other hand, there are only a few code nazis out there
I code all mine to strict with zero errors/warnings but I’m also aware that it isn’t “always” curently possible.
Actually, no you don’t,
[quote author="http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://www.geise.com/"]
This page is not Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional!Result: Failed validation, 4 Errors
Address: http://www.geise.com/
Encoding: iso-8859-1
Doctype: XHTML 1.0 Transitional
Root Element: html
Its neither strict nor has zero errors (as of 2007-10-07 11:50 MDT). But your website doesn’t matter to me. I am looking for a supplier that takes pride in their work and strives for excellence with regard to modern web design, which for me includes 100% compliance with Web Standards. And yes, it most certain is “always” currently possible for a website to pass validation. And it should, because, well… nevermind, I don’t have time for this.
But that’s my point. A company selling a product that makes web sites should know how to make web sites!
I have to go with PXLated on this one. Not to belittle anyone who works for EE as they do an absolutely fantastic job of everything they do but they are not actually a company that makes web-sites per se but a company that foremost makes the software to enable designers to create great sites.
Whilst some of the pages on this site are not 100% perfect in code I have to go with the fact that no one is perfect 100% of the time…
… ever and if they are then they must be some sort of god. Sure it is possible to code a 100% strict page but after that when you start making pages dynamic and maybe have other people posting on those pages then you are letting go of the design very slightly to what people might post on the pages.
Please don’t let the fact that some of the pages on this site are not 100% strictly coded put you off a purchase. It is exceptionally easy to create a site with that in mind if you wish. Nothing that EE spits out (with the exception of one form which is easily fixable) can’t be made to be 100% strict, it is entirely up to the site designer to do that.
So far I’ve tried WordPress and Textpattern, and have followed my research breadcrumb trail here (after reading about some folks who recently migrated from Txp to EE). I haven’t tried the EE core yet but will soon.
But I am pretty anal about my code being Standards Compliant (i.e. W3C valid XHTML and CSS) and this is very important to me. So one of the first things I do when I visit the main company site of a product I’m interested in is to perform a (ctrl-alt-V) three finger salute in my browser of choice (Opera), which automatically performs site validation of whatever page is currently displayed a-la (http://validator.w3.org/). I noted that both the WP and Txp sites pass validation but your main EE site gets:
This page is not Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional!Result: Failed validation, 25 Errors
Right now its definitely Textpattern over Wordpress, but now I need to check out EE.
i have to admit i was *almost* one of those who wanted to convert from TXP to EE. not because TXP wasn’t working the way i wanted but more just to check out something new, with seemingly more features and as sleek looking as EE (although jon hicks himself recently released an admin theme eerily and pleasantly akin to EE) . they’re very similar in its approach. you get to write your xhtml/css layout templates exactly the way you want, and essentially plug in dynamic content where its needed using EE/TXP tags. both will output exactly what you input. so if you can code xhtml strict/transitional/whatever then you will get that out of EE and TXP. no need to mess around with pre-built in ‘blocks’ and such ala joomla/drupal etc. (although if i had to choose between those two, drupal would definitely be my choice.)
i tried to give wordpress a shot but no thanks. textpatterns only known security flaws were back in its pre-gamma days. i believe EE has been known for its tight security as well.
while i was testing out the EE waters, i just couldn’t get over how limited the free core version was (which is fair enough seeing as its meant as a trial step towards the paid version). as far as i could tell, the file/image handling was extremely rudimentary. there was no way to output a simple thumbnail gallery without plopping down the $ for the paid version with the gallery module (which in itself seems very limited in features. i’ve seen a few suggestions on using an external gallery script phpthumb but honestly that seemed a little too dirty to accomplish a seemingly simple task)
i still have not been able to successfully get rid of the ‘index.php’ thats present in the default url structure of EE. textpatterns clean urls have always worked out of the box (minus on a few finnicky shared hosts i’ve used. mainly netfirms aka possibly the worst, extreme overselling hosting service i’ve come across)
of course, over at TXP there is no paid support. in spite of this, i lurk both forums quite frequently and to be honest i find things over at TXP much more friendly and helpful. over here, it seems like unless you pay for a license, the chances of someone helping you out is relatively slim. just take a look at the first 20 or so unanswered posts over at the “community” free EE tech support forum area. considering the EE user base is substantially larger than textpatterns, i find this rather odd! or perhaps the majority have already paid for their EE licenses...i don’t know.
as for txp to ee converts, i’m assuming you’re referring to the blog post “the state of textpattern” by drew mclellan. honestly, unless you’re a ‘serious’ blogger (meaning you need superfluous, silly blog features like ‘openid’), then that post doesn’t apply whatsoever. the never-ending barrage of comments in that post
was just pure mob mentality and child-like EE fanboy’ism (although a few responses within the TXP forum from a certain txp developer were definitely out of line as well imo). either way i’m embarrassed to say it *almost* got to me. i use textpattern as a cms, not a blogging platform (though its obviously quite capable of this.)
that being said, mclellan’s post does have some valid concerns. new versions of textpattern roll out slowly (version 4.0.5 took a while to appear. it was released in august. though 4.0.6 is set to release within a few weeks). if you looked at textpatterns main site you’d probably gather that things weren’t moving along at all. txp developers are all quite active on the forums, but seem to ignore the regular public blog posts/news/inside updates you’d expect from any software project. thats the one qualm i have with the way things are over at textpattern. but if you check the development svn/trac, you can plainly see txp developers are checking in with code nearly every single day for both the current version and 4.1 (aka ‘crockery’, where core code is being overhauled for a completely new version) so i’m not sure what people are expecting...do people really want an incessant release schedule ala wordpress? (the majority being security fixes).
things that are missing from textpattern right now are a proper e-commerce plugin (although one is being developed as we speak), and ‘proper’ deeper navigation levels (although this can be achieved by smartly utilizing sections[generally the first level of navigation] with categories). generally i’ve found working with textpattern as a cms to be a complete cinch. i like EE, but so far i’m not seeing any real benefits to upgrading to the commercial version at all.
Hmmmm...Don’t have a clue where that crap came from...It validated when I created the site.
AND...It does now again
Uhm i think he means www.expressionengine.com does not validate...and indeed it doesn’t.
Altho does an invalid code means the designers are bad?
Or does it mean that Browsers don’t follow the rules..and that we must make invalid code so that the browser render stuff properly..
Uhm i think he means www.expressionengine.com does not validate...and indeed it doesn’t.
I was responding to comment #47.
Or does it mean that Browsers don’t follow the rules..and that we must make invalid code so that the browser render stuff properly
Actually you don’t have to. The site I’m currently coding has all kinds of layers and floats (see attached), it all validates strict and doesn’t use a single IE hack. Ran the master code through BrowserCam and it looks the same in every major browser from v5 on up, Linux, Mac, and Windows. So, it can be done and it’s really not that hard.
does an invalid code means the designers are bad?
Based on my experience, I would say most sites can be coded to strict and validate. In fact, for the last three years I haven’t done one that couldn’t. You’ll have to draw your own conclusion about designers/developers.
In any case, it’s something to aspire to. ;-)
MODERATORS...This has taken a left turn from the main subject...maybe a cadidate for a split?
Sigh… we’re code nazi’s too. Where our sites don’t validate its on purpose trading off functionality and compatibility for standards compliance. Frankly the whole thing bores me. We code to standards but standards are never the goal. A usable site is and the truth of the matter is that those two currently require compromise. Code validation is not the end all of site design or structure. There are also time constraints and other priorities.
If you wish to discuss our site’s validation please open a new thread on it. I’m not saying we’re perfect, I’m just saying its not about being “lazy” or lack of attention to detail as was claimed. There are a number of factors that go into a large site with thousands of members and standards validation, while high on the list, is not at the very top. All that said, it would be good to revisit the issue at some point.
Its much easier to think you know how to run a business, until you actually run one yourself.
