Thread

Is there a page that I can go to and see what the different things look like, including the photo gallery module, the calendar, and such. It would be useful to have that as a “sticky” in this presales forum for potential EE customers to see. Thanks.

Hi Pkhunter,

We have three ways to try EE before buying. You can find them all here.

Your idea to have a Pre-sales sticky post with some information is great. I’ll see what I can do about putting something together.

We have three ways to try EE before buying. You can find them all here.

Thanks, but none of those options show me the published website, with the gallery for instance, or how I can easily apply different themes (template groups) to my published website. Any direct pointers?

I have downloaded the EE thing and quite like the interface, although the template bit is a bit daunting. I am now looking for a link on my local install that allows me to easily change the entire theme of my published site, a bit like Movable Type’s “Style Manager” or WordPress “Theme Manager plugin”. Any pointers?

TIA!

Hiya pkhunter,

I agree that it would be nice to see some of the modules in play before purchasing just to give an idea of what they could look like but I think the reason this isn’t done is probably due to the massive amount of flexibility that EE gives with each and every module. Nearly every single module that I can think of can be customised to almost the nth degree to look however you want it to. Also the fact that the mere styling of a page would also make many of the modules look very different too makes this quite hard to accommodate for.

I do however think that it might be nice if the fantastic admin bods here at EE could possibly mock up some pages and then perhaps provide screen shots of different modules and the way that they can be used. Perhaps a couple of each module being used in a slightly different way or on different page layouts just to show the sheer customisability (think that’s a word!! 😊 )of each of them. That would be nice to have when showing to prospective clients.

If you look through the EE gallery though at some sites that have already been created then you should be able to find at least one site for each of the modules.
I know this probably isn’t what you wanted to hear but to tell the honest truth there are so many hundreds of ways that each module can be used / laid out that I understand why they (EE admin) might be a little cautious about doing this because people might see an example and then start asking millions of questions about the layout due to the fact that one was demonstrated but you may need something slightly different.

Hope that made some sense as I do have a tendency to babble on at times!! 😊

Just to let you know though that I have used nearly every single one of the EE modules extensively (apart from the Gallery module) and I have always been able to get them styled perfectly with the rest of the site that I have been designing which I think is absolute testament to the extreme flexibility and power of EE.

Wowch I just read that back and I sound like I should be selling EE!!! 😊

Anyway hope your quest goes well and maybe a few screen shots will find their way up on to the site in the near future. Who knows!! 😊

Best wishes,

Mark

Mark sums up the difficulty with your request pretty well. I’d recommend browsing through the Showcase to get an idea of how people are using ExpressionEngine in a real world setting.

I don’t think there is much value in mocking up fake uses of EE when the Showcase has so many real examples along with the Site Introductions forum.

EE doesn’t have 1-click theming as its approach to development is significantly different then Wordpress and MovableType. If you want a system that lets you make use of someone else’s design/theme, EE may not be the best choice for you. If you want a system that lets you do whatever you want with your own design, you’ll be hard pressed to find a better choice then EE.

Thanks for the patient note.

I think people like myself would fully understand how customizable EE truly may be, but to prove this point, there are several better approaches for presales than to offer nothing at all:

1. Show the absolutely vanilla template, and 2-3 variations of it that are alarmingly different.

2. I notice that EE does a pretty decent job of showcasing websites that use it. Perhaps some screenshots from these showcases could be culled for different modules. It’s not like I need a barrage. Just 2-3 would get my mind working.

3. A written *sample* of the kinds of mods that could be done. Yes, a lot inside EE is customizable, but EE will win a lot of customers even with the possibility of simplifying gallery management and such with the very simple idea of having the same user authentication through out the website—and this is only one example. Here is one gallery example from the MT world, and just looking at it made me want to go with MT (about two years ago)—http://dbowman.com/photos/

It would be exceedingly disingenious of me to look at “samples” and think that they represent the limit of a product. The whole point of a sample is to give a flavor. But at the same time, it is useful to see a sample that also illustrates some degree of complexity.

For now, I think it would be great to have some samples at ALL!

1. Show the absolutely vanilla template, and 2-3 variations of it that are alarmingly different.

You say this because you don’t understand how EE works. If you look at the Showcase and many of the example sites you will see that they are drastically different. How would showing templates not in real world use be better?

2. I notice that EE does a pretty decent job of showcasing websites that use it. Perhaps some screenshots from these showcases could be culled for different modules. It’s not like I need a barrage. Just 2-3 would get my mind working.

Have you been to the Showcase yet? They are categorized, including categories that focus on a particular module like the Discussion Forum and Photo Gallery.

3. A written *sample* of the kinds of mods that could be done. Yes, a lot inside EE is customizable, but EE will win a lot of customers even with the possibility of simplifying gallery management and such with the very simple idea of having the same user authentication through out the website—and this is only one example.

Again… have you been to the Showcase 😊 We have a number of interviews with developers that talk about a wide variety of real world EE uses and customizations.

It would be exceedingly disingenious of me to look at “samples” and think that they represent the limit of a product. The whole point of a sample is to give a flavor. But at the same time, it is useful to see a sample that also illustrates some degree of complexity.

Does the Showcase and Site Intro forum not show the degree of complexity possible with EE? Just cruising over to the Site Intros I see Backpack Malaysia just launched along with Idea e-solutions. If I head over to Showcase I see a monestary, AIGA Richmond, Union Bay, and TruthDig. Each one is “alarming” different, each with a varying degree of complexity. Those are just a few of the 200+ sites currently in the Showcase.

We can’t possibly show a more diverse set of “samples” than our customers. While your suggestions are well taken, I would recommend exploring what we currently offer a bit more because we already have most of what you are suggesting.

Also, if you haven’t yet, I highly recommend reviewing the Getting Started section of the docs and watching the video tutorials.

I missed that level of granularity in the Showcase section. Thanks! Me lookey..

As a joomla and EE user I get what you are thinking. Joomla and Drupal and Wordpress are a bit different than EE in that you could literally take any site on the web and integrate it with EE. You would be hard pressed to do the same using any of the aforementioned CMSs. EE is one of the most wonderful pieces of software for web designers. You can make the site look like you want and still have a CMS undergirding it. Unlike Joomla that is limited by user positions (I believe Drupal works the same way).

You really need to take a look at Michael Boyink’s articles that explain how this all works in great detail.

http://www.boyink.com/splaat/weblog/category/building-an-expressionengine-site/

M.