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As reported earlier by Derek Jones, Beta1 is going quite well. I’d like to spend a little time explaining in more detail how we’re approaching the beta and processing the feedback. Today I’m going to focus on what is easily the trickiest part of polishing any web application, the User Interface (UI from here on out).

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Well, that’s a big change, for the better I would guess. In past betas as I recall, everything UI related was pretty much locked in stone and all testing was just for functionality. It was somewhat “our way or the highway”

😊

For ExpressionEngine 3.0, may I make a suggestion? Start with the UI, and hook the program up to the UI once you’ve settled on what it will look like and how it will work. That’s the Apple Interface Builder paradigm, and it works. It’s also how Mark Boulton and his Drupal 7 UI team are doing it.

For ExpressionEngine 3.0, may I make a suggestion? Start with the UI, and hook the program up to the UI once you’ve settled on what it will look like and how it will work. That’s the Apple Interface Builder paradigm, and it works. It’s also how Mark Boulton and his Drupal 7 UI team are doing it.

That’s what we’ve done with 2.0. If you’ve followed Mark, then you know they are going through a similar process. Its the “hook the program up” that has taken a long time due to the move to CI.

Personally I am really appreciative of this deliberateness on the part of your dev/design team. In my opinion the UI can ruin a really great CMS. If my clients don’t feel comfortable updating their site no one is happy, users, content makers and designers.

Rock on and make it awesome! I don’t care what it’s called…EE 1.0,2.0 or 3.0 IMHO it’s an amazing CMS and a thoughtful organization behind it. Keep on keepn on I trust your judement.

Please keep the updates coming this one was one of the best!

Are things going as they “should” or have you run into any big problems that might slow down EE2.0 train a bit?

Cheers
- Pete

Is it just that switching to CI in itself took along time or wasn’t CI in fact up to the task and needed to be expanded/enhanced. Just kind of curious why this one seems to be taking way longer then pmPro or the first version of EE. Or, at leaste it seems like it’s taking forever 😊

Is it just that switching to CI in itself took along time or wasn’t CI in fact up to the task and needed to be expanded/enhanced. Just kind of curious why this one seems to be taking way longer then pmPro or the first version of EE. Or, at leaste it seems like it’s taking forever 😊

CodeIgniter was up to task.  Those who are familiar with CI will see only minor differences between the CI base and the current version of CI.  The area we severely underestimated development time?

Any developer who has converted an add-on from 1.x to 2.x will tell you that the most tedious aspect is pulling the Display class and presentation out of their logic and converting it to the much easier to work with view files. [ed. from last week’s 1.6.8 update]

This holds true for first party code as well.  In addition to separating PHP-generated presentation from logic, which by nature had become part of the logic, many parts of the cp moved around, and we also streamlined and abstracted a great number of things.

EE being a large and complex application, this is not an insignificant task, and essentially this meant a rewrite from the ground up.  We looked at our situation, at our two flagship products, and deemed that we were in the rare and unique exception to the rule of Never Rewrite Your Application.  It was absolutely the right decision, and we knew very much what we were getting in to, but even our absurdly high estimates for development time simply proved to be grossly underestimated.  Particularly given the size of our team, the need to support existing products and users, and the simultaneous and sudden influx of new users into the community.

Given all of these things, it’s taking about the same time that EE 1.x spent in development in terms of productive hours.  The “seems like its taking forever”, well, we opened the can too early, a departure from previous policy, and have learned from that one-time mistake. 😉

If this type of entry proves useful to the community then I’d be happy to share more of our development practices with you in future updates as well. Just let us know on the forums.

very interesting update, give us more from this!

+1 to know more… Although I imagine it will be tricky without going into specifics!

One factor i am slightly concerned about though - but i am sure is covered… The BETA for the UI is open to the Pro Network, and as such will be being tested by highly web literate and technologically minded people. I know this is important as otherwise you would not get logical communications that you could understand.

However, considering that for EE you do have another level of user in “handing over to the client”, how is this level of Beta testing being considered? Was this something you have got the Pro Network to do as well?
More curious than worried, as at the end of the day it will be a time polished gem.

What do they usually say - twice the time and twice the budget - on most software endeavors. Once done, it sounds like you’ll have nice, clean, segmented code which should make life easier in the future I would think.
Looking forward to seeing it.

One factor i am slightly concerned about though - but i am sure is covered… The BETA for the UI is open to the Pro Network, and as such will be being tested by highly web literate and technologically minded people. I know this is important as otherwise you would not get logical communications that you could understand.

Only Beta1 is restricted to the Pro Net. Future betas will be “semi-open” meaning there will be an application process to get in, but a person will not have to be in the Pro Net to participate. We intend to look for different experience levels with EE.

Very happy to hear that the UI is a prominent/leading part of the development. It’s so much easier to sell the system if it rocks at first glance. Nevsie does have a point though; it should also be tested by total oblivious users that are not pro webdevelopers but just the end-users.

Letting your mother have a go at the back-end can be an eye-opener :ahhh:

At the same time I suppose that the test group has experience with typical UI problems from their clients.

Having just joined the EE universe I am happy to hear that the new UI is being tested by „real people and users“. Coming into this CMS just now shows a lot of long ways which really feel like stitch work, as things do as they develop over years and get more and more features. I am happy to contribute as soon as I get a chance. Hopefully I am able to maintain my fresh look at things until then. Thanks for sharing the information and being transparent about things, once again.

Letting your mother have a go at the back-end can be an eye-opener

Can’t even imagine it 😊