Thread

Hi,
I’ve done quite a bit of CMS research and from reading forums and comparing to other systems, it seems like this is the best choice for our company.  I have purchased the 30 day trial and am going through the videos and documentation, but I can’t seem to get my “lightbulb moment” at the end of the video series or going through documentation.  I know for a fact that sometimes I tend to overthink a situation.  Mainly, the whole weblog/template has me confused.  Once I think I get it, then I don’t.  For instance, it looks like I can just use templates for my entire site if I wanted to.  I thought that weblogs were for the content, then the template pulls it in.  I’ve read a forum where Lisa Weiss says that it is mainly “All in your mind”.  I think this may be my problem, I’m a little confused. 

I have been designing websites for about 5 yrs now, but new to having to implement a new cms to a website.  So I know all about html, css, xml, etc. 

I just can’t seem to get it! Can anyone share some stories with me about getting used to this product and specific forums or other sites with EE tutorials? 

Mainly I think stories would help, so I can stop wasting hours feeling scared of the product and mindlessly searching through documentation and more about learning specifics for my report a week from now (including building a small site this week to show my boss…)

Hey, welcome to the community!

Have you gone through some of the showcase interviews? Those might help a bit.  What would help more is writing up what you want to accomplish, so that we can tell you if ExpressionEngine can do it - if you post in the how-to forum; you may also get tips on, well, how to do it. =)

Thanks!  Well, I have to redesign a large non-profit website, http://www.aws.org

Here are all the features it needs:

•  Register for classes
•  Buy / Order books
•  Read news / magazine articles (I know this is possible already)
•  Register for conferences (multiple conferences yearly, and shopping cart)
•  Apply / Renew certification and membership and check membership status (usually have to purchase yearly, so need to have reminders when time to renew membership)
•  Use forums (need multiple forums in future for specific member groups)
•  Donate

•  Search (needs to be able to search for all of the following, separate or together if possible)
    o   Institution members (names and addresses of members)
    o   Student Chapters (listing of addresses and contact info for multiple chapters per state)
    o         Jobs (new job listings per state)
    o         Distributors / Locations (international)
    o   Offices (per technical requirement and state)
    o         Contacts (per department and state)
    o         Phone Numbers
    o         Email Addresses (per department and state)
    o     Welding Docs / Articles (multiple pdf docs, want to use flashpaper to make pdfs searchable)
    o         Committees (separate login/content for each minisite)
    o     Sections (need to build a common template and then each section(state) can manage their own site through CMS or build an easy way for them to update their sites) currently everyone has their own site and most have very little html skills

Also, when a member logs in to the site (not required for guests) I want to show them specific news articles and sponsor ads according to preferences they specify when they register

I am pretty sure that EE can do everything we need (not sure about how powerful the search can be for what I want, though).  But I just need to get used to this new product and was looking for stories from others and how they got used to Expression Engine.

Alright, that’s a lot of detail, which is a good thing. 

For the commerce stuff, you could potentially use the Simple Commerce module, however, you’ll need to note that it only handles PayPal, and only initial purchases. For the recurring subscriptions and reminders you will need a custom solution; potentially working with a shopping cart through aMember; and others have implemented solutions in ExpressionEngine but I have not seen one released for public consumption.

For the search, I would recommend implementing all of those items as entries in weblogs dedicated to that type of data.  So a weblog for institution members, where each member is an entry.  That’ll let you leverage the search module perfectly.  You’ll need a custom solution for Flashpaper and the PDF searching.

In short: you’re going to carefully need to map out this site and will need some custom work to make it all come together; but ExpressionEngine can help you get a large part of the way there.

I would recommend perhaps working with someone from the Pro Network to help you work all of this out, so that you have a sane, scalable solution going forward.

other sites with EE tutorials?

Here’s a series I’ve been putting out covering building an EE site from the ground up:
http://www.boyink.com/splaat/weblog/category/building-an-expressionengine-site/

Reminds me..I need to write the next chapter..

Thanks for all of the suggestions!  It looks like this is going to work for us.  I really appreciate the fast response in these forums.  As for the Boyink website, I looked at the tutorial and I will definitely use that to get more familiar with the system.  Thanks again, I will let you know of my progress.

Just wanted to say thanks Michael for your website and explanation of using expression engine as a cms for hosting websites.  I think without your site, I would have taken a much longer time to determine if EE was right for me and I might have abandoned going forward.

I would say that Michael’s site should be linked to in the help section or somewhere on the ee site which is easy to find.  Because while I think ee has a lot of potential it also is a turn off to go through all these tutorials and read a lot of information on the EE site.  Then have to digest terminology that is commonly known to most as something else in the web development world(ie Templates=webpages, weblog=datasets-I know I can change these terms, but I am thinking ease of use here)  But I still couldn’t find anything on putting together a website and using ee as like a cms, which I am used to, for which I think a lot of people are coming here for. I think someone should take note of this as perhaps you could sell a lot more or sell more easier, if you demonstrated how to use ee for a website in an easy way.  I mean this should be the first tutorial I see when I come to EE.  Don’t get me wrong the tutorials and everything are very good, just seems like your target of weblogs is from an earlier time, maybe.

While I am still on not 100% sure if ee is right for me, I think this is what I was looking for.  I really like all the support and everything I have seen here with expression engine, but the ee concept is a bit difficult to grasp in the beginning and I am still learning. 

I am hopeful that in a few weeks it will be my new website of choice.

You’re welcome - glad to know the series is being helpful.