Thread

I think the more preconceived notions one has, or experience with other CMSs (enterprise/other), blogging tools, or databases, the more trouble one has grokking EE. I know it caused me major problems way back when. I basically gave up, returned a couple weeks later, zoned out previous knowledge and had it pretty much figured out by the end of the week. In a lot of cases I had been over-thinking everything.

I think the more preconceived notions one has, or experience with other CMSs (enterprise/other), blogging tools, or databases, the more trouble one has grokking EE. I know it caused me major problems way back when. I basically gave up, returned a couple weeks later, zoned out previous knowledge and had it pretty much figured out by the end of the week. In a lot of cases I had been over-thinking everything.

I’m absolutely not discounting what you’re saying ... but I’ve never worked with a CMS before and my experience with blogging tools is limited to a bit of exposure to Wordpress. And most of my database experience was back in the pre-PC days.

So it may well be that dumping your preconceived notions is a good, uh, notion for those who have them to dump. Good, sound advice from someone who’s been in that position.

But I came in with a knowledge of CMSs that was basically, you put all your stuff up there in a database and tell the system where you want it all to appear, and it magically happens. And the telling the system part has just been way harder than I expected it to be.

I remember when I first got the skeleton of my various entry listings and single-entry page working. I looked at the amount of code that was involved, and was impressed by how little there was. And depressed by how long it took me to figure it out. And then I went back and looked at the docs again and saw how the info was all there, but it wasn’t in a form that really helped me.

I know, there’s a ton of stuff in the forum and the wiki, and some of that stuff was invaluable to me. But I can’t even estimate how many hours I spent looking through those resources, trying to figure out which magic combination of keywords would give me the one forum entry or wiki article that would prove the key to my latest puzzle.

I just wonder if everyone who’s involved in documentation is too close to the product, and while they may do their best to come at it from a fresh recruit’s perspective, it’s just not happening.

Or maybe I’m an idiot. Maybe this stuff is a whole lot easier than I’m experiencing it as, and the fact that I’m a month and a half from being able to take money out of my retirement accounts without penalty means I just don’t pick stuff up as quickly as I used to.

Nathan

and it magically happens

So far I haven’t found any system that does that. Sure wish they would 😊

I looked at the amount of code that was involved, and was impressed by how little there was

The method I used (and still recommend) was looked at the base templates that were installed. Found there really weren’t that many tags, went to the docs, reviewed them one at a time, going back-n-forth to the templates changing things to see what happened with each change. One of the keys was figuring out that the URLs passed a lot of info.

I just wonder if everyone who’s involved in documentation is too close to the product

Not sure that’s it. I’ve often thought about how it could be rearranged but the more I know about the system the more the docs make sense or I find less daunting. I think there probably just needs to be some more unified “getting started” resources.

trying to figure out which magic combination of keywords would give me the one forum entry or wiki article that would prove the key to my latest puzzle

I feel your pain. I’ve never found searching the forums that worthwhile as everything returns just too many entries to weed through. If I hadn’t bookmarked a lot of threads I’d be lost. Searching the docs works well but not the forums.

Or maybe I’m an idiot.

I doubt that.

Maybe this stuff is a whole lot easier than I’m experiencing it as

Once the light bulb moment comes, it all does seem pretty simple, at least all the basics. But, over the time I’ve been in the forums I’ve seen some get it in as little as a day or two and others take a long time. I was somewhere in the middle. I’ve never discerned what the difference between us all is though. There is a magic moment though.

EE’s documentation (Knowledge Base and wiki) are a mess.

I am pretty new to EE too and have to agree on this point a 100%. I tryed to figure out a structure of those resouces (wiki, KB..) but really could not in reasonable time.

Coming originally from Textpattern and knowing WP + a homegrown CMS of a big client, my learningcurve is not that steep as it might be for a newbie on CMs in general. Still all those (blog)CMS are different and one has to get into them step by step. Michael Boyink´s tutorial was/is of great help to me. Thanks for that Mr. Boyink.

I did not dive deeply into EE yet but from my knowledge right now i would always advice people who mainly wanna blog using WP or TXP. For small company sites, TXP is really sufficient.

What surprises me often is that on all different CMS forums you can read: this is the greatest CMS on earth… That falsly implicates YOU need exactly this CMS.
Truth is, this is mainly written by people who do not know anyother ones. For different needs, there are different CMSs available. Each has it advantages and drawbacks. In the end, it boils down to: what do you really need.

I think the documentation is what sets EE apart from other CMS Frameworks such as ModX (and maybe silverstripe). ModX has a somewhat easier to handle backend than the current EE version. Furthermore, ModX seems to be very flexible and powerful aswell. However, it lacks a good documentation and support. I personally don’t care how powerful a framework can theoretically be if I have to guess how to use it. Most of ModX Tags, Snippets, etc isn’t documented (yet). EE however tries to offer a good documentation and they should continue doing so as this is one of the reasons whay ppl keep buying EE.

I figured out EE by dissecting the default templates and reading the documentation. There have been moments of frustration, but by and large I don’t consider EE to have that steep a learning curve. The drawback of this learning methodology is that some advanced and rather powerful features escape notice and it’s there where some in-depth examples would go a long way.

I have a lot more problems with Solspace’s modules. Their documentation is purely a reference and without working examples I picked up from friend’s sites, I would have been stumped. Having said that, I still haven’t made the time to figure out how to use their Favorites module with all of jquery’s AJAXy goodness.

Writing documentation is hard and time-consuming. Good coders are not necessarily good documentation authors and good authors usually face a learning curve themselves to grasp their subject. Until such time as EL hires somebody to document, it’ll be up to the community to fill the gap.

I figured out EE by dissecting the default templates and reading the documentation. There have been moments of frustration, but by and large I don’t consider EE to have that steep a learning curve.

One thing to note, different “standard” template themes implement different features. All have the basic blog but some go slightly further. I recommend studying the templates for features rather than style. Most design their own so the base is just a starting point.

The drawback of this learning methodology is that some advanced and rather powerful features escape notice and it’s there where some in-depth examples would go a long way.

The flip is that if they had the more advanced features it would make it more difficult to dissect and understand. One really, really needs to thoroughly understand the basics to move forward.

An observation - many try to dive right into creating an actual site, their site, often under deadlines and that site requires advanced features. I think this delays the learning/understanding. Many then rely on the forum participants to implement everything (copy/paste - next) without really having the basic EE knowledge. Taking the time to just “play” with the basic templates is time well spent.

Edit: Modified the last paragraph slightly.

An observation - many try to dive right into creating an actual site, their site, often under deadlines and that site requires advanced features. I think this delays the learning/understanding. Many then rely on the forum participants to implement everything without really having the basic EE knowledge. Taking the time to just “play” with the basic templates is time well spent.

Good point. I was one of the ones who dove right in. In fact, on both of the first two question threads I started, one of the responses was along the lines of, “Wow, you’re diving right in, aren’t you?” I’m not up against a deadline, and I did take a quick run through the documentation first, but without the context of something I was working on, it was of limited value. (That’s more a function of my learning style than anything else.) And once I started having problems, I looked at the Boyink stuff and Lisa’s series and the like, but they didn’t really help.

N

context of something I was working on, it was of limited value. (That’s more a function of my learning style than anything else.)

I generally work best that way too, have a purpose. I have a local install of EE that is my play pen. The weblog entries have nothing to do with work but are of interest - golf courses, butterflies, whatever interests you - Includes posts and pics, etc. It started out based on the original, minimal install, just added more posts, changed the categories, etc., and of course changed the layout. When I want to investigate another EE feature, I go there. Want to try a plugin, I go there. Has worked out well.

I agree that the documentation is a weak point with EE, but these forums have been invaluable with extremely fast turnaround time with spot-on responses. This thread does point out a place for improvement for EllisLab.

Sorry guys, I have to disagree. The documentation is one of the main reasons I always recommend EE. Have you ever tried to read WP’s or Drupal’s documentation—they suck! Whatever documentation they have is not as organized or well written as EE’s.

With EE I never had to think about buying a “dummies” book to figure out how to use and develop with the system. And I don’t consider myself a programmer. There has been many times, I’ve ask a question, and Lisa (and others) point me right back to the docs.  As a former tech writer, the EE doc goes hand and hand with the ease of use and flexibility of EE.  Could it be improved, probably. But go check out some of those other CMS systems. For me EE doc is the Gold standard.

Shoot, EE has spoiled me. I don’t even bother with systems if they don’t have strong (or at least good) documentation and forums like EE.

One more note, I do think you have to have some aptitude for “general” programming concepts to adequately use EE. If you don’t, EE might seem hard to pickup (and if so you might need to find a good HTML/CSS or minor PHP programmer). EE is definitely not MS FrontPage (thank God for that), but after some time, you can see all of the power.

Sorry guys, I have to disagree. The documentation is one of the main reasons I always recommend EE. Have you ever tried to read WP’s or Drupal’s documentation—they suck! Whatever documentation they have is not as organized or well written as EE’s.

YMMV.

In general ExpressionEngine’s docs are excellent.

Those who say otherwise perhaps mean something other: they expect that one can intuitively grasp how to use ExpressionEngine. Although ExpressionEngine is very elegant CMS, it is not very intuitive; in order to understand it, docs (and perhaps tutorials) should be studied carrefully.

I do not mean that EE’s docs are without weaknesses. From my point of view the biggest weakness is coverage of add-on development in docs: very scarse, no tutorials, no step-by-step examples.

Just popping in to say thank you for all the feedback, good and bad.

Learning resources are one of the most difficult things to develop for just about anything. There are so many learning styles, educational methods, approaches, skill sets, language variables (figuratively and literally), etc…

The current collection of resources does the job very well for the audience they were developed for. They have certain assumptions about skill set, back grounds, primary language, and learning style. We were fairly deliberate in their development and the feedback was (and continues to be) mostly positive. However, we’ve spotted a new trend. We are getting an influx in the EE Community that doesn’t remotely match the profile that the resources were developed for. In short, the bigger the community gets the more the original goals and assumptions about the learning resources and EE itself need to be adjusted. 

2.0 will have have a significant departure from 1.x in how people are initially introduced to EE from a “how to learn EE” perspective. This has little to do with EE itself and a lot to do with how we’re adjusting our approach in getting people with a wider variety of learning styles to that “aha” moment. I hope to talk about this particular subject in more detail before launch. As someone pointed out earlier in this thread, it is a good time to have this discussion.

I hope to talk about this particular subject in more detail before launch.

Nuts. At first I thought this said “before lunch.”

YMMV.

Couldn’t have put it better myself.  At the end of the day, people learn in different ways.  It’s inconceivable and unfair to expect the guys & gals at EllisLab to anticipate and accommodate each of these styles.  I personally find EE’s documentation to be amazing.  In all my of my experiences with web apps, I’ve never encountered documentation of this caliber for such a complex piece of software.

Some people, I suppose, need more examples and more step-by-step stuff whereas others do more of the trial-and-error approach.  I subscribe to the latter.  It’s always worked for me.  It worked with EE.  I only started learning EE two months ago and I have three sites in the final launch stages that are all built upon EE.

There will always be some gaps in the documentation.  That’s why these forums, the wiki, the KB exist.  If you’re unclear about something, ask away.  EE’s community is one of the most helpful and knowledgeable support communities that I’ve come across.  Also, where there are gaps people, like Mike Boyink, will eventually step in to fill them.

If you’re on these forums long enough, you’ll hear about the proverbial “aha” or “light bulb” moment (as Leslie mentioned).  And that really does exist.  Learning and using EE does take a paradigm shift from other CMS software.  Even if you haven’t use CMS software before, that term carries a certain meaning.  EE makes you think and analyze the relationships between content and the interplay in layout.  It’s not just a plug-and-play system, which is what I love about EE.  It makes me better as a web designer/developer.  So, those who can make that paradigm shift will succeed with EE.  For those that are frustrated with EE at first, I urge you to roll your sleeves up and just dive in.  Play around with the default templates.  Browse the forums.  Read the tutorials mentioned here.  If you have still questions, come post here.

The important thing to remember—and this applies to any product—is that EllisLab has put forward what I believe to be a revolutionary product to increase the efficiency and efficacy of building and maintaining websites.  Any product, including EE, is not meant to appease everyone in every situation.  I think we should all understand and appreciate the hard work to create a product such as EE and be cautious in faulting and/or blaming the work/efforts when we don’t immediately grasp the logic behind the product.

Moral of my rant:  Just give it a while.  It’ll sink in!

The End.