Thread

Hi.  I ran into EE by accident while researching wordpress.  I’m building a simple website and have looked at wordpress and joomla1.5.  Wordpress is super easy, but lacks certain flexibility.  Joomla1.5 looks awesome, but I don’t understand the template systems at all.  Since I found EE, I may as well ask these questions:

1.  I need a very robust forum.  Good speed, security, and stable.  I like the idea of jooma and phpbb3 or vbulletin, but integrating them slows down joomla too much and the bridges are of questionable quality.  If my website have 20k users, is EE forum ok?

2.  How difficult is it to make template/theme for EE.  I don’t know php, and very little css.  I know the basics of HTML.  Is there a demo site where I can see how to build a template?

3.  can flash video be integrated into the site/gallery?
thanks.
jim.

1. This forum has over 40,000 users and it works great. And it’s completely integrated with the rest of your site.
2. Theming (like in wordpress) is not something that EE can handle. Due to the dynamic nature of your data, custom fields, etc… the layout options are very customizable. So, one “theme” won’t fit others on another site. (not in all cases…but most) That said, If you know HTML, some CSS, and can grasp how EE’s tags are used, you can create a website that should take care of all your needs.
3. You may have to upload the videos separately, but flash video, slideshow, etc can be integrated with any EE project.

I think that the complete integration of the forum is what’s going to drive me towards EE.  I can learn HTML and CSS quickly enough, I think.  If I like a web site’s design, can I copy it’s html into EE, then mod the graphics?  btw…where does EE store images?  Do I need to know mysql to use the forum?

OK.  Maybe I don’t understand the concept of CMS.  If I have to code html and css, why use EE instead of just doing the entire site in dreamweaver?

EE will allow you to update the sites content, create additional articles, etc. via a web browser.  It will also automatically create archives, etc. which can be pulled with EE embeds, if you were to maintain this type of site manually it would be a lot of work and very inefficient.

As for templating EE there is a bit of a learning curve, however from my experiences with working with joomla and drupal I love EE’s approach to skinning.  Only thing that I’m a bit unhappy with is how the forum templates are totally seperate from EE’s, well not so much the templates, however the whole coding system in general.

Regardless, If you are good at CSS and HTML you can design to your hearts content and the flexibility that EE allows is wonderful.

OK.  Maybe I don’t understand the concept of CMS.  If I have to code html and css, why use EE instead of just doing the entire site in dreamweaver?

EE and other CMS systems allow for a “dynamic” site.  Dreamweaver and hand coding your HTML makes for an excellent static site; but one where you have to change the site files every time you want to change the content.  EE allows for a separation, if you will, between content and presentation.  With EE, you can update the news, say, of your site, with an easy to use screen, and EE will automatically update the home page with the new news entry.  Other content is easily changeable as well. 

HTML and CSS should be the presentation, or looks and design of your site.  Yes, that needs to be done in HTML and CSS (and indeed, Dreamweaver and/or hand coding is usually necessary for this part).  After the design is done, though, EE allows the content to be managed far easier than changing all the HTML files every time you want to put a new testimonial about your new ACME widget, for instance. 

EE also allows much easier user interaction—commenting, forms, etc.  It allows for a community site, rather than a series of pages.  You don’t need to know mysql to use EE, unless you are doing some fairly advanced stuff. 

Basically, you use EE if you want 1) a community site or 2) ability to update the content without changing the presentation.  If your website is never, ever going to change (or change very rarely) then sure, use Dreamweaver or hand code it—no need for EE.  But if you want comments, updates, forums, user accounts, etc—then EE is the way to go.

Now, as for your questions:

I think that the complete integration of the forum is what’s going to drive me towards EE.  I can learn HTML and CSS quickly enough, I think.  If I like a web site’s design, can I copy it’s html into EE, then mod the graphics?  btw…where does EE store images?  Do I need to know mysql to use the forum?

Yes, you can copy the HTML into EE and modify it.  I’d recommend looking at Boyinks Building an Expression Engine Site series for a great example of this.  EE can store images anywhere, usually, though there’s an images folder directly off the same directory as the main index.php file.  No, you don’t need mysql to use the forum. 

Hope that helps!