Thread

Without giving up too much of my new venture, I have a few questions.  I apologize for being vague.  Intellectual (might be giving myself too much credit) property, you know.

A little about me:  I’m an above average PHP, Java, JavaScript, developer with lots of other little bits in the tool box.  Jack of all trades, master of none.  Lots of experience with off the shelf packages, free and commercial.  Lately a whole lot of BPMS / ITSM solutions with DB’s in Oracle and MySQL.  That’s enough.

My partner and I have a new venture we’re looking to start and I DO NOT want to code anything from scratch.  I see the value in off the shelf frameworks.  I’m just about sold on EE, but need to ask a few questions before I plunk down $300.00.  😊

Essentially, registered users would be content authors with the ability to create new content items based on a structured form (template?) with pictures, text, pre-defined ‘tags’ they can select (checkboxes) and the ability to add a ‘tag’ that isn’t listed.  Maybe even some auto-complete text searching for existing tags that may not be listed initially.

Once submitted, others user can read their content item and select ‘like’ some ‘tags’, categories, attributes about the piece of content.  Along with that, users would be able to connect with other users permanently, upon request, and receive updates when a user performs certain actions.

I’m fairly sure that EE, combined with the community, and my experience, something could be made to work. 

With that, would EE be a good candidate for us?  I understand I may not have given all the facts and I apologize for that.  Maybe if you guys see anything glaring that EE just won’t do, let me know.  I will hold off for a few days unless there is an overwhelming ‘YES’, from you guys.

Thanks in advance,
Matt

In general, yes, EE can do what you need - you may need to buy or build the odd plugin to do what you need, but in terms of permissions/authentication/content submission etc EE has you covered with the built in SafeCracker.

For the social piece, you might want to look at something like http://www.solspace.com/software/detail/friends/ or code an extension yourself, as EE has nothing like that out of the box.

Hey MattGatten,

Thank you for your interest in ExpressionEngine.

As Daniel mentioned, this is all possible with the right bit of Add-Ons and some customization work. If you are handy with PHP then development will be key in getting your ideas out. Think of ExpressionEngine as a blank canvas just waiting for you to create.

Safecracker should be able to handle most of the administration items you mentioned as well.

If you have any more questions, please let me know!

Cheers,

Excellent.  I will give those few plug-ins a look and probably give it the 30 day test drive, shortly.

I am in the business of ‘extending’ off-the-shelf suites in my day job.  Figuring out how to extend them is a big part of my job.  I just want to avoid attempting to cobble something together from scratch and ending up with something I am not happy with or doesn’t give the users the best they can get.  I decided to leave the architecture and framework development to folks who are much, much, smarter than me. (grin).

One last question:  Are there any major releases planned in the next 12 months?  I want to avoid a ‘double-purchase’, if I can. 

Thanks again,
Matt

Hello MattGatten,

That sounds great.

Nothing has been announced for the next year. I honestly do not know when the next version is coming along.

Thanks again for your interest.

Cheers,

One last update for the pre-sales crowd.

Bought it, installed it, configured it, altered the configs for security.  Very straightforward.  I have been through much more complicated installs of lesser packages on my servers before. 

The only issue was the ‘Pages’ module.  The URL for it did not update when I changed my config files (post-install best practices document).  I actually found the URL for the ‘Pages’ area and clicked the ‘Add’ button at the top.  Blanked out the original and changed the sort order on the remaining records.  Done and done.  That’s an FYI for someone, I suspect. (grin)

Impressed so far!

Thanks,
Matt

P.S.  Shane:  Just Matt works for me.  LOL!

Hey MattGatten .... I mean Matt,

Awesome news!! Thanks for updating the thread with your experience.

I really look forward to seeing you around the community!

If you need anything else, please just let me know by opening a new thread.

Cheers,