Thread

I do some contract work for a design company and they have asked me if it would be possible to do a site like this in EE.

http://www.live-clean.ca/

They have another site which would be similar and their client wants to be able to edit/add/manage products, add pages if possible, add/edit media publications (under the media/promotions section).

I assume this can all be done, but I am wondering how much of it is straight-forward and how much would require custom programming.  I am a programmer and am very familiar with CakePHP.  I have poked around Code Igniter in the past and would be comfortable jumping into it and learning my way around, but I understand the EE is a bit different than just using CI.

Any thoughts on how you would tackle a site like this, whether EE is the right tool and any suggestions regarding plug-ins, add-ons, how long it might typically take to develop a site like this etc?

My Designer is anxious to come up with a system we can start using for pretty much every project and EE sounds very intriguing to me.  I just want to be sure about any limitations before we dive right into it.

Your help is greatly appreciated.

I took a quick look and I’d positively say you could easily create something similar with EE using out of the box functionality with no addons at all, save for the newsletter signup which might benefit from the Solspace Freeform module to collect all that data.

There are one or two addons that might be worth considering, such as Imgsizer (for auto resizing images on the fly), and Playa for managing multiple product relationships (associating products), these wouldn’t be strictly necessary but may enhance publishing abilities for your customer.

If it were my site I’d probably allow a day to get Channels, Categories, Custom fields and basic HTML structure in place, but there again I am very used to EE, so as it’s your first site it’ll take a bit longer.

Hi Conundrum,

I agree with Rob.  EE is a great tool for a project like this.  If you’re looking for a good way to learn the tool, have a look at Ryan Irelan’s webcast series “Learning ExpressionEngine.”  His videocasts on Version 1 were invaluable to me back when I was getting started with EE.

You might also have a look at some neat extensions that help with customizing entries, like Pixel & Tonic’s Matrix File Field.

Thanks a lot guys.

I figured it could handle doing a similar site.  I noticed that there is a Ryan Ireland book ‘Expression Engine 2 Quick Start Guide’.  Have either of you read it and would it be as in depth or comprehensive as the videos, or is it more basic?  If I am going to pay for the videos, and the book is as good, it might be nice to have the book I suppose.