Thread

So I started doing contract work for a client 2 weeks ago and they wanted to use EE. EE is completely new to me. I have used many others, WP, TXP, MODx, Xoops (cringes), Joomla, Drupal, etc. I just figured “what the hell!” I did just fine in those other CMS’s.

After a few days scratching my head, I finally got the tagging system, and I use ‘got’ loosely. Anyway, I’m really pretty blown away and excited continuing to use EE on this project.

One thing that has definitely perplexed me though is what is the best way to take a mockup then integrate into EE? Due to the time constraints I just built the pages off my Photoshop mockup, then ported those pages into the template structure within the EE backend. I’m probably not using the proper EE terminology to explain, but like this:

1. Mockup
2. Build Static HTML/PHP pages w/ my CSS working
3. Then port those elements into EE, then incorporating the tagging
...la, la, la, the site works great

While I find the tagging system quite exciting, the process of building sites and EE admin panel is a bit cumbersome imo. This is probably due to my fumbling the EE to quickly deliver the clients needs, but I’m hoping some you can shed some insight on EE ‘best practices’.

I should also add I’m still really sour about not being able to directly edit the pages ala CODA. Yes, I read the many walk throughs, asked for help, etc. no dice.

Thanks in advance for any and all insights.

/a

If you save your templates as files, you can edit them in Coda with no problem, I used to do it on a daily basis before I went back to a Transmit/Textmate based workflow. In fact, there’s a tutorial about using Coda’s live preview function with your templates here

Don’t get me wrong, Coda’s awesome, Textmate’s just more powerful considering how much PHP coding I do.

If you save your templates as files, you can edit them in Coda with no problem, I used to do it on a daily basis before I went back to a Transmit/Textmate based workflow. In fact, there’s a tutorial about using Coda’s live preview function with your templates here

Don’t get me wrong, Coda’s awesome, Textmate’s just more powerful considering how much PHP coding I do.

Yeah, I did that. You can see my prior CODA problems here: http://ellislab.com/forums/viewthread/88255/

*EDIT: Got Coda running. This helps a ton.

So I started doing contract work for a client 2 weeks ago and they wanted to use EE. EE is completely new to me. I have used many others, WP, TXP, MODx, Xoops (cringes), Joomla, Drupal, etc. I just figured “what the hell!” I did just fine in those other CMS’s.

After a few days scratching my head, I finally got the tagging system, and I use ‘got’ loosely. Anyway, I’m really pretty blown away and excited continuing to use EE on this project.

One thing that has definitely perplexed me though is what is the best way to take a mockup then integrate into EE? Due to the time constraints I just built the pages off my Photoshop mockup, then ported those pages into the template structure within the EE backend. I’m probably not using the proper EE terminology to explain, but like this:

1. Mockup
2. Build Static HTML/PHP pages w/ my CSS working
3. Then port those elements into EE, then incorporating the tagging
...la, la, la, the site works great

While I find the tagging system quite exciting, the process of building sites and EE admin panel is a bit cumbersome imo. This is probably due to my fumbling the EE to quickly deliver the clients needs, but I’m hoping some you can shed some insight on EE ‘best practices’.

I should also add I’m still really sour about not being able to directly edit the pages ala CODA. Yes, I read the many walk throughs, asked for help, etc. no dice.

Thanks in advance for any and all insights.

/a

I also build the static templates first and then create EE templates and slowly “light up” the templates using EE tags. Personally, I develop all of my sites locally (using WAMP or MAMP) and deploy to a server when the site is ready.