I’m evaluating ExpressionEngine for use on a local newspaper site, and have a few questions that will help me decide if it’s the best fit. Some of these relate to citizen journalism features, which my contact at the paper expressed an interest in.

(*) I know that entries from certain member groups can be put into moderation pending approval, but can the same be done with images added to a photo gallery? Say, for example, the paper would like to publish reader-submitted photos from the annual fall festival. Before those pictures are put online, it’s important that someone makes sure they’re appropriate.

(*) How closely is the Photo Gallery module integrated with the rest of the EE system? Can galleries and individual photos be used/embedded in any and all other EE-managed content, or do the galleries exist as a separate entity (like the forum)?

(*) Say a reader wants to include an image in their story. Is there an easy way to do this from the publish page? How much control does the template developer have over the size and position of photos submitted in this way? Is it possible to associate one or more images with a given entry, the way one can in Textpattern with the “article image” field?

(*) Is there a management interface for uploaded files, images, and media? If so, can this be used to attach/associate images and files with an entry?

(*) Can access and posting privileges be handled on an individual user level, or only at the group level? I could see either approach working, so this is more of a logistical question.

(*) Is there a built-in way to import users and posts from an existing forum into the EE forum module? If so, which other forum tools can be imported this way?

(*) I understand that plugins, extensions, etc. will have to be rewritten to work with EE 2.0, but what about templates?

(*) After 2.0 is released, for how long will 1.6.x be supported with security updates?

(*) I’m a freelancer, and therefore operate as a separate legal entity from the newspaper. If we go forward with EE, how do we arrange the purchase so that the license belongs to the paper but I can still post in the official tech support forums as their representative?

Regarding your questions:

1. Not sure about that one.

2. You can use relationships to relate weblog entries to galleries. There are a couple add-ons that enhance this feature as well.

3. You can create a custom field for holding the image. You can use something like Leevi’s LG Replace (search the forums for it) which allows you to pull other content into the middle of other content.

4. The File Manager Module (not extension) can help you organize your uploaded files. It has no relation to entries, and exists on its own.

5. Only at the group level. Meaning by default. You could create logic that says “if user_id==1, do this, that and this other thing”

6. Not by default. I think there might be a few scripts around the forums that people have used to switch from phpBB or such. But PHP and SQL knowledge will most likely be required for that.

7/8. All the official news is at http://expressionengine.com/ee2_sneak_preview. I have no knowledge about it whatsoever, but my gut says that template parsing isn’t going to change that much, since that is one of EE’s many strengths.

9. Since I’m not staff, I have no idea. But you can purchase the license on their behalf, and transfer it to the client at a later date.

Hi Adam,

AJ addressed most of your questions (thanks!) so let me throw in the official company parts you need to round things out.

(*) I understand that plugins, extensions, etc. will have to be rewritten to work with EE 2.0, but what about templates?

Our goal is to make Templates work “out of the box” with the 2.0 upgrade with as little updates as possible (hopefully none if a person is only using 1st party add-ons).

(*) After 2.0 is released, for how long will 1.6.x be supported with security updates?

The 1.6.x branch will be supported for a long time after 2.0’s release. We haven’t declared a set time period for supporting the 1.x branch but we intend to support it for quite awhile. Just by way of example, we supported pMachine Pro (our original blogging tool) for 3+ years after launching its replacement.

We’ve built our reputation around stability, security, and support, so this area is particularly important to us.

(*) I’m a freelancer, and therefore operate as a separate legal entity from the newspaper. If we go forward with EE, how do we arrange the purchase so that the license belongs to the paper but I can still post in the official tech support forums as their representative?

There are two ways you can do this. You can purchase the license yourself and then transfer the license to your client at “hand off”. In this scenario you’d have full tech support access and download access until you transfer the licenses to your client, at which point you’d still have support access, but not download access.

Alternatively your client can purchase the license and request that you receive support access on the forums. We setup your account with full tech support access but download rights are always restricted to the actual license holder.

Thanks for your quick responses! I’m still wondering about moderation for new photo gallery submissions, though (my first question). Can someone confirm if this is possible, or if some other approach would need to be taken in the scenario described? Thanks again.

Hi Adam,

The Photo Gallery module was originally designed as a personal photo gallery and doesn’t share the same work flow system as the weblogs.

However, what people do in the situation you describe is to simply use a weblog as a Photo Gallery. In that scenario you can set up a Stand Alone Entry Form that allows people to post content, in your case photos, to a weblog that can have a status of Pending (or whatever default or custom status you want). Then an admin can approve it and make it live or reject it.

We do something very similar for our Showcase Gallery.

Again, thanks for the fast answer. Using a separate weblog for a photo gallery had occurred to me when I read the documentation, but I appreciate the confirmation and the pointer to a functioning example. I wasn’t aware of the stand-alone entry form example, which is a great bonus. :-)