Diving into EE
How Do I?
Hello,
I’ve just found out about ExpressionEngine and I have a few questions about features that I need for my future website.
What I need is:
Search results page (categories and posts), as seen in WP.
Multiple languages
Post page
Category page
Custom UL, LI, A attributes (role=”something”) and classes
Contact form
User registration/login system
Does free version have any limitations?
Welcome to the EE Community!!!!
RE your questions:
Yes, EE has native search out of the box. It’s fairly robust, but there are also additional add-ons that can help, like Low Search.
You can support multiple languages with a plugin like Transcribe.
Post page is totally doable, as EE is completely customizable.
Same with categories pages!
You would be in charge of the code, unlike Wordpress, so you can build this out however you would need.
EE has native contact forms out of the box!
EE has native registration and login system out of the box!
EE has a really robust community on the EE Slack, so you can definitely find answers to your questions there as well. I also have a basic starter EE repo set up to get someone started or help them learn the basics.
Thank you.
Exactly what I needed. Thanks for your fast response. 😊
Doug gave some good answers. Just wanted to add that EE isn’t as “1-click” as Wordpress might be. I think it takes a little more development. But I think that development is easier than trying to get Wordpress to do what you want it to do. As someone who started as a designer, I never liked Wordpress because I found it backwards trying to bend a template to match my designs. I rather start with my own design/html/css and wrap a CMS around that. Anyway, good luck!
I echo what 5by5 said. Unlike Wordpress which has quite a rigid structure out of the box, with EE you start with a blank slate so you can built your site however you want.
With multiple languages if you will only ever have 2 or 3 languages you can use multiple channels to cover them, e.g. News (English), News (French), News (German). The only downside to this approach is that the number of channels can grow quite long, but if it’s a basic site it negates the need for an additional module. Some thorough pre-planning goes a long way before deciding what approach to take.
As you’re just starting with EE I would always recommend installing it somewhere and use it for testing and learning how to do things before committing to a site build.
ExpressionEngine is a flexible and powerful content management system (geometry dash) that provides a wide range of features for website creation and management.