I was wondering if you (Ryan) had access to EE 2.0 and were planning to move your screencasts to it when it is released. Some future 2.0 users might be surprised to find their installation doesn’t match with your ‘casts.
Hey, Shawn. Yeah, I’d like to create screencasts to match EE 2.0, for sure. Until it is released, however, I’m going to focus on more screencasts for the current version.
Hi Ryan, I just downloaded and watch the two freebie episodes and am very impressed with the quality. I will definitely be purchasing and watching the other three this weekend.
The thing I’ve had the most difficulty learning is how to sensibly structure my data in EE. The documentation is great for finding out HOW to use a feature… but hints about WHY I should use one feature or method over another is pretty difficult to come by. It is this type of guidance that I am hoping to find in your screen casts.
I would also love to eventually see one on the ins and outs of optimizing an EE site for performance. The system gives access to a variety of different tools, especially related to caching, that an informed person could potentially put to very good use.
Thanks for making these! I will check back in after I have watched the rest.
Hi Ryan, I just downloaded and watch the two freebie episodes and am very impressed with the quality. I will definitely be purchasing and watching the other three this weekend.
The thing I’ve had the most difficulty learning is how to sensibly structure my data in EE. The documentation is great for finding out HOW to use a feature… but hints about WHY I should use one feature or method over another is pretty difficult to come by. It is this type of guidance that I am hoping to find in your screen casts.
I would also love to eventually see one on the ins and outs of optimizing an EE site for performance. The system gives access to a variety of different tools, especially related to caching, that an informed person could potentially put to very good use.
Thanks for making these! I will check back in after I have watched the rest.
Hi, Joe. Thanks! I’m glad that you like them. I look forward to hearing your feedback after you watch the first three episodes.
You’re right, the entire goal of the screencasts to is to show by example and that includes how to structure data. While it’s not always explicitly explained, you can infer a lot by how I set things up.
Thanks for the suggestion of EE site optimization, it’s definitely on the list.
Now that I have seen all 3 of the paid “episodes”, I have a few comments.
First, for those EE rookies who are still trying to decide weather or not they are worth $5 each… they definitely ARE worth it. They are fast-paced yet still clear, and very insightful.
Second, in video #3 Ryan assigns each of his demonstration articles to a single category - just remember that weblog entries (or “section” entries) may belong to more than one category. I just looked it up because I’ve started re-thinking the design of my own site.
Third and finally, please keep up the good work, Ryan!!
I went through the 3 videos and I like them a lot. They are just what I needed to make it to the next level (of getting a grip on EE). Of course I can’t wait for new videos to be released. I have watched several other videos on EE the past months and all good but what I still like to see is a bird’s eye visual overview of a web site and how that translates to EE.
Example
You have the Engine City Times web site. Take the home page and there you have embeds and a variable. I understand this but it doesn’t really sink in… What I would like is to see a map of some sort where is your visual web page (rendered), the code and to which places this links to EE. What in the page/code is a template group, what is a weblog, what is a category group, what is a category. Yes, some of these are obvious I know but the EE terminology is confusing. A map with lines, circles, blocks and words would definitely help for a person like me who seemingly lacks the capabilities to think “abstract” and is left with a visual brain :-D I tried to do this myself in Omnigraffle (Macosx product) but got stuck.
Please do mail me if this is unclear. English is not my mother tongue and I got a stack of work on my desk waiting to be finished so I write this in a rush
I am also new to Expression Engine, and I bought the 3 screencasts to help me better understand what this CMS do. I started by free screencasts, and in the installation, it is recommend that the server should support the URL segments. My online server don’t support the PATH_INFO variable and I’ve turned on “Force URL query strings”. Can I follow your screencast despite that or I must find a way to support URL segments?
Your screencast are also very well done and easy to understand. I already look forward to continuing with the next screencasts.
Jeroen and François, thank you both for taking time to give feedback.
Jeroen, I know exactly what you’re talking about and reason I haven’t done anything like that is because, in my experience, showing examples is usually the most efficient way to learn how the system works.
François, you can follow the screencasts using your setup and the “Force URL Query Strings” preference enabled.
I agree with you, examples are often the best way to show. For me, and this is likely different for others, an example and a high level overview of “what went where” would help even more. But, if I think it is such a good idea I better do it myself :-D I will look a few more times at your vodcast/video and slowly begin to convert my html/css into EE.
Hope to see soon more of your videos. Perhaps one about a photo gallery?...hint hint
Wonderful job providing these much-needed screencasts Ryan. They help demystify the entire process for an EE novice like myself who has been frustrated by the appalling (and inexplicable) lack of training material out there.
Your presentation of the material is thorough and wonderfully explained—and, I have to add, one appreciates them even more after viewing the catch-as-catch-can video tutorials offered as an introduction on the EE site.
Just something that I found to be a problem with removing index.php from your links… Ensure that $site_index in your ‘path.php’ file does not contain a value.
Mine was originally set to $site_index = “index.php”; and so I had to remove the index.php in addition to the steps that Ryan mentioned in the screencast.
Ryan… I believe you stated in the screencast to set the if statement to segment_4. On the News listing page, the navigation correctly highlighted the News section. However, when you clicked on an article, the News navigation item was no longer highlighted.
Changing to segment_1 seems to resolve this. Of course I may be preempting something that you will pick up later on.
