Bend-based EllisLab took SXSW as an opportunity to give attendees a sneak preview of the upcoming version of ExpressionEngine. [Update: EllisLab has released a video of the ExpressionEngine 2.0 sneak peek.]
From a user standpoint, the big news is the new ExpressionEngine control panel, which the team has designed to greatly simplify the usability of the product with a wealth of AJAX-y goodness.
From a coding standpoint, the big news is that ExpressionEngine 2.0 is now built on top of CodeIgniter, EllisLab’s open-source PHP framework. This means a huge leap forward in the options for customizing and extending the functionality of the tool.
Don’t like how that feature works? Build a new one yourself.
The most interesting thing about this move is that both the ExpressionEngine and CodeIgniter community become one single community, which should push ExpressionEngine development farther and faster than ever before. Best of all, this marks a decided step forward in the EllisLab philosophy as it continues to embrace open-source collaboration.
Oh and one more thing? JQuery. Boom.
For those of you not familiar with ExpressionEngine, it’s designed for the power user or company who has grown beyond the capabilities of current blogging tools, but isn’t interested in wrestling more unwieldy content-management systems. Or, in EllisLab’s words:
ExpressionEngine is a flexible, feature-rich content management system that empowers thousands of individuals, organizations, and companies around the world to easily manage their website.
If you’re interested in seeing ExpressionEngine 2.0 for yourself, I’d recommend checking out Startupalooza where Kurt Deutscher, Chief Technology Evangelist for EllisLab, will be providing a similar preview of the product.
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@Ingmar Thanks for the official screenshots. Much appreciated!
@Michael Looking forward to meeting you at Startupalooza, if not earlier.
And thanks for the side note. We’ll get that fixed.
Definitely going to go to Startupalooza too then. I’m really curious if Ellis has done anything to improve the customizability of their forums. I love its integration into EE but it lacks the grace of their blogging module. I doubt it got any love but would love to be pleasantly surprised.
Small side note – You might consider not setting diplay:none for the label on the subscribe checkbox. It’s just a floating checkbox with no label at the moment.
By the way, there are official screenshots: http://www.derekallard.com/blog/post/expressionengine-20-official-screenshots/
I did, of course, but not much luck yet; I had seen those already.
@Ingmar I didn’t take any photos, but I saw people snapping shots. You might try a search on flickr for the tags “sxsw” and “expressionengine.”
Here are some shots I found:
http://twurl.cc/9b
@Tripp Happy to do it 😉
@metafluence Most definitely. And possibly the opportunity to do a deeper dive into the new functionality.
‘Nother reason to look forward to Startupalooza.
Thanks for keeping us in the loop!
Nice. You wouldn’t have any screenshots or pictures to post, would you? Just askin’.