Thread

Hello all,

Just installed EE for the first time and I installed the record label theme to take a look around.. a bit overwhelmed with everything so how do I start from a blank slate at this point?

I’m using EE to build a website that has the following:

Video Section
Contact Directory
Store Directory with or without map
Ecommerce
Membership/Pricing Plans

For the Store Directory, what would be the best way to set this up? It’s pretty much like a store locator but I’m not sure how to do that part yet has anyone done something like this?

Welcome to the greatest CMS in the world - EE!

More information from you would help.
What version of EE are you using? 
Have you looked at add-ons Brilliant Retail and CartThrob?
Are you a developer and if so what are your skills? 
What are the specifics regarding your e-commerce goals? 
and so forth.

Good luck
Chris

Welcome to the greatest CMS in the world - EE!

More information from you would help.
What version of EE are you using? 
Have you looked at add-ons Brilliant Retail and CartThrob?
Are you a developer and if so what are your skills? 
What are the specifics regarding your e-commerce goals? 
and so forth.

Good luck
Chris

Hey Chris!

I’m using EE 2 Commercial License.. just downloaded it last night so the latest build I’m guessing.  I havent looked at anything regarding ecommerce since that is the last part of the development. I’m a Web Designer and I understand a good amount of CMS.. so I know this wont be that much of a problem I’m just a bit confused with everything thats loaded in EE.. not sure if thats from the theme or if I’m just not used to things yet.  I’ve seen a very little bit of the code, but it kinda seems similar to what I remember from modx

nyc - there are a few addons can help with “store locator”/location searches type functionality, check out http://devot-ee.com/ which is the main addons site for all things EE.

Tag-wise EE isn’t a million miles from Modx and much of the logic is fairly similar, but EE probably offers more ways to manipulate things and is a bit cleaner to type out.

The core of any EE site are Channels
- think of these as containers for different types of infomation.

Each Channel can have it’s own set of input fields
- you can these Custom fields up to match the content of the Channel
- for example, your store directory might have custom fields for address, county, state, map, telephone, logo etc

Each Channel can have one or more category groups assigned to it
- for example, your store directory might have one category group for states, and another for type of business, this then allows you to say browse by location or business type

That’s a quick overview anyway!

nyc - there are a few addons can help with “store locator”/location searches type functionality, check out http://devot-ee.com/ which is the main addons site for all things EE.

Tag-wise EE isn’t a million miles from Modx and much of the logic is fairly similar, but EE probably offers more ways to manipulate things and is a bit cleaner to type out.

The core of any EE site are Channels
- think of these as containers for different types of infomation.

Each Channel can have it’s own set of input fields
- you can these Custom fields up to match the content of the Channel
- for example, your store directory might have custom fields for address, county, state, map, telephone, logo etc

Each Channel can have one or more category groups assigned to it
- for example, your store directory might have one category group for states, and another for type of business, this then allows you to say browse by location or business type

That’s a quick overview anyway!

 

Thank you! this is pretty helpful. Is there anywhere I can take a look at how a general site in EE is built? I found this http://www.train-ee.com/courseware/free-tutorials/category/building-a-church-site/ but is it still a good source of information?

No problem 😊

train-ee.com is a great source for tutorials, a quick web search should reveal plenty of reading as well.

There isn’t one set way to build an EE site, since every site has different content and management needs. The first step might be to plan out the site, how many different publishing sections does it need, what input (custom) fields does each section require? do you need categories (eg if you want to group content by a type)?

Here’s a couple of blog posts that demonstrate some planning:

http://www.netmagazine.com/tutorials/build-portfolio-expressionengine
http://www.designkarma.co.uk/blog/comments/designkarma_redesign_chapter_3

For your site I’d probably look at the following:

A channel for Video section
A channel for contact directory, but could also use member based info
A channel for the store directory
Ecommerce could be a channel but i’d need more info 😊
Member pricing etc - again need more info 😊

Thanks for the link & comment.  I’ve updated my book to EE2, but the free tutorials on the site remain EE1 code yet.  The overall implementation approach is still valid, but you’d have to translate the EE1 code to EE2 (mostly switching ‘weblog’ to ‘channel’, etc).