DerekAllard.com

ExpressionEngine 2.0 “official” screenshots

There’s been a lot of speculation over what our big secret was, and what EE 2.0 would look like.

I’ve very proud to announce that ExpressionEngine is now built on CodeIgniter, and each is able to share resources with the other.  You an ExpressionEngine developer?  This represents an instant expansion of EE’s capabilities.  Faster, easier, more modular code, with a huge number of libraries and functions.  You a CodeIgniter user?  How about instantly being able to drop ExpressionEngine on top of your codebase, and have fully accessed, fully shared information between each.  Instant forums, instant wiki, instant EE - on your existing code… now.  Its VERY exciting.

We’re still in development, but I wanted to take a moment to post some “official” screen captures of our new Control Panel.  Now I want to make it very clear that this is a work in progress.  While things are largely “in play”, its entirely possible that it will undergo so minor, or major, changes between now and release.  Oh, and on the topic of release, we haven’t announced a date, and truthfully, I don’t know.  We’re working our asses off, and we’ll get it out as soon as we possibly can.

I will write more about the development, and post more information when I find a bit of time.

Comments

Kevin N. Murphy wrote on

WOW! This looks awesome, I can’t wait. Really good work.

yoshi wrote on

wow this is exciting. Thanks Derek for posting these. I really like that it looks like you can detach certain fields. Very exciting.

and the ability to add custom fields on the fly…wow. I’m anxious to see how the templating system works out myself!

Lee wrote on

Oh man… I couldn’t wait for Saturday, now I cant wait for whatever day it happens to be that I actually get to work with it.

Its like sneaking a peak of a present before you get to open it, it seems like a great idea until you find out that its something you really want. Then you regret looking and every day until you get it is agonizing and painful.

I don’t know whether to thank everyone or curse you because I want to play with my new toy and cant.

Adam wrote on

Could I ask, if a new version of CI would be released at the same time? Also would using EE mean you could use the basics (IE. auth member management) but then construct the rest of the code on your own?

Tobz wrote on

I was so hoping was what the secret news. really exited to see it now.

101CI wrote on

wow, the possibility already exceed my expectation. Must push my staf to learn OOP faster.

Sean Murphy wrote on

As both an avid CodeIgniter and ExpressionEngine developer this is very, very, VERY exciting news. Although these screenshots reveal some obvious improvements to the user interface, I am most excited about the integration with CI that’s going on under the hood. Derek, I know it must have taken a lot of work to port EE to the CI codebase, and that itself is probably an understatement. I think I speak for the entire EE and CI community when I say thank you. Thank you for building well-designed tools that help us do our job so much better—tools that are a pleasure to work with. You guys at EllisLab rock!

cybele wrote on

It does look quite snazzy. Everything looks like it’s right where I want it, but so much cleaner. I’m excited to upgrade (but I’ve never been unhappy with the current version).

Yannick wrote on

Looks amazing Derek. Great news that it’s also built on CodeIgniter. Keep up the good work.

Delay wrote on

Wow this is fantastic news!  I am currently developing a rather large program in code ignitor and was hoping to be able to integrate some EE stuff eventually if for no other reason than to thank you guys for releasing code ignitor because it has made my development so much easier and better.

I definitely will be buying an EE 2 license now.  Is there a way to buy an ee 2 license now to get some beta code now or in the near future?  I would love to know more so I can figure out how to merge my CI App with EE…

Great News…
Keep up the good work.
-Delay

Jon wrote on

I’ve always wondered why EE isn’t powered by CI! Now I will have the best of both worlds.

iain wrote on

Is the Build:20080401 something sinister like… hah, 2.0 on CI - we really had them going!....

or is it a target for launch date…

or am i looking into it too much…

Carlos wrote on

Excellent!  My wife has used EE in a limited fashion so far, and it has worked as advertised.  I’m more of a developer so naturally have been more attracted to CodeIgniter.  So even though the features and capabilities of EE are pretty good, I never felt compelled to build on top of it. Kudos to EllisLab for making that issue go away.

Nate wrote on

Thanks for the update Derek,

I’d be interested in hearing about some of the improvements to CI as a result of this “synergy” (I hate that word) between the two projects.

I love CI but would love it more with improvements to Active Record and having true ORM and a nice authentication lib built in. Played with EE 1.6 for a bit, but haven’t delved too deeply into it - I was initially confused by the admin setup. I think I’ll hold for EE 2 as I’m already familiar with CI.

Purdy screens though, to be sure!

Derek wrote on

Thanks all for your kind words - development is moving forward quickly, and its a pleasure to build on CI.

New versions to CI will be released as they get done - and this may or may not coincide with EE, but we won’t specifically aim to have them coincide.  Plus, new CI code is always available in the SVN.

@Jon: I’ll be posting something on the EllisLab site that will explain the CI/EE relationship, and why EE wasn’t built on CI, and when I do I’ll make mention of it here.

Thanks all for the support.  These are exciting times!

Michael Sigler wrote on

Looking good. Really excited to see you guys at Startupalooza. The new text editor UI looks interesting. Curious if the forums module is getting any love.

Justin Kistner wrote on

Sigler has been bugging me to switch to ExpressionEngine. These screenshots make me excited to dig in.

Alex Iatskovski wrote on

Beautiful! But I do hope it will be possible to get read from a word “duoh!” (which is not appropriate in my native language) in the right side of the panel and to change a picture under it (looks like a pair of handcuffs) for something else. Anyway, I think this is a completely new product than a current EE. (Not just a new version). So, how about a back compatibility?

Alex Williams wrote on

This is absolutely incredible achivement. I’m happy for you guys and can’t wait to beging using it.

Are you going to change names and call it Expression Igniter? Or Code Engine? Or Expression Code Engine Igniter?

José Carlos wrote on

This is really great news! I think CI will meet even more improvements from this.

Thanks for the update and keep up the good work.

José Carlos wrote on

@Alex Iatskovski: i think that the word your referring to is just the logo of Veerle Pieters’s design company, Duoh!, as, I read somewhere, they’re responsible for the design of the control panel.

Jimmy wrote on

I can’t say I share everyone’s love for the design (it looks very “kiddy,” and that orange has to go…) but the new this has definitely gotten me excited about 2.0 all over again. 

I do hope we can change CP themes like we presently can, though…

Tristan Bailey wrote on

I think this is great news. I have been trying to decide which framework to move things to and CI is now top of my list.

Darren White wrote on

Wow is all I can say. I am so looking forward to playing with EE2.0.

I’m not totally in love with the design but looking forward to the increased functionality and I will hang fire until EE 2.0 is realesed.

Ty (tzmedia) wrote on

Still previewing the pics, thanks.
What’s up with Albatross on a lower tab in one of those pics? Integration with CI will certainly make things interesting. I like that the interface looks simple, and maybe more apparent where to find what in the cp admin areas. The hierarchy of the admin menu’s looks better to me.

Derek wrote on

The “Albatross” is an example of a new functionality we’ve included in EE2 called “accessories” (the name might change, but that’s probably what we’ll stick with).  In that case, Derek Jones built an accessory that shows Monty Python videos, and the skit was called “Albatross”, so he named the accessory that also.

Ty wrote on

Do they regulate the accessories at the “Ministry of Silly Walks” or someplace then:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqhlQfXUk7w
T :p

John Macpherson wrote on

This is exciting news and the one thing i was looking for is AJAX integration which seems to much easier now with CI. Is the pricing structure going to be the same?

Colour wise however im really not so sure. We would trying to push this out to very business like clients not the YouTube generation. From a personal point view i think its “OK” but the end user, really have my doubts they will take to it. Guess its a case of swapping the template.

Carlo Laitano wrote on

I have to be honest.. I’ve always found EE an amazing platform but never used it cuase of how some key features work (urls for example), as well as the control panel usability and such. But after seeing these new screenshots I’m really anxious to see what new features it has under the hood. The new UI is a gigantic improvement from the previous one! I can honestly say I’m excited and i’m not even an avid EE user!

Jean-Christophe Courte wrote on

Derek, très beau boulot…! (Yes, Derek speak — a little — French :-)

Je suis impatient d’utiliser ceci pour mon propre site. Je me suis permis d’emprunter deux copies d’écran pour les monter à nos lecteurs…
Une seule question : est-ce que cela va tourner sur mon vieux XServe sous OS X10.2.x…?!!

Amicalement d’un EE user à Paris…!

Adrienne Adams wrote on

Glad you guys hired Veerle to design the CP. She’s one of the best in the business, and I believe her design will really improve the usability of EE.

I happen to like  lime and tangerine,myself…

Can’t wait to see what’s up with the EE/CI integration, too.

Congrats to the entire development team!

Leo wrote on

I’m starting to have some second thoughts about Wordpress…

Young wrote on

Good job. Can you share?

Steve wrote on

Will EE 2.0 be available to licence holders/subscribers to EEs updates at no extra cost?

Martin Berglund wrote on

I’m really looking forward to playing around with EE 2.0! It’s already a CMS that is great fun to work with, and that is not the case for many other CMS’s. ;)

Sidenote:
If you rewrite the rel=“lightbox” to rel=“lightbox[ee2]” the slideshow should be grouped so it’s possible to navigate between them.

Derek wrote on

Firstly, thanks for the support guys.  New, edgy design is always polarizing, and I don’t expect everyone to love it, but the feedback we’ve gotten has been overwhelmningly positive.  The CP will be themeable also, and we’ll ship with at least 3 themes, one of which will be a conservative one similar to our current CP.

With respect to pricing and upgrading, the short answer is, we don’t know.  Its our policy not to make those decisions until after the software is built.  Also, no release date has been announced.

We’re working on getting more information out, but we just all got back from several days of presenting and no sleep, so as we recover we’ll post more info ;)

Robert Aitken wrote on

Great news! Hopefully the marriage of EE and CI will lead to a better way of doing plugin modules.

I wonder if EE’s templating system will change? EE and CI are quite different in that regard.

Dennison Uy wrote on

I’m loving the new look. And the CodeIgniter tie-up is very tight!

Paul wrote on

Looks Awesome, I was wondering if you are going to release a new version of the forum in conjunction with the EE 2.0 release?

Hadley Stern wrote on

First of all, kudos for all the code work going on, using codeignitor for EE is going to rock.

On the design of the CP my comments are less around the look and feel and more about the information architecture. The big bold buttons and all are fun and all but structurally the page offers nothing new. In fact, it looks more confusing and unusable than the current CP.

I encourage you guys to really step back into wireframe stage and take a look at this as a piece of application design first, and graphic design second.

joao carvalhinho wrote on

I knew I wouldn’t be disappointed…

...and the Veerle Touch is rightforward!! :)

Dn0t forget the localization tools… EE1.6 did a good job, but then it was all done at PHP file level…Now with JAVA taking one of the guiding seats (even for Modules and plugins) just don’t break anything :)

JPCarvalhinho

Ty (tzmedia) wrote on

something that was pointed out in the screencast of the SXSW ‘08 preview podcast:
http://audio.sxsw.com/podcast/interactive/panels/2008/SXSW08.INT.20080308.ExpEngineSneakPeak.mp3
Is that the Duoh Brains & Beauty logo in the Control panel is there by many requests as a place for ee developers to place whatever logo they would like to brand the control panel with, cool!

kameko wrote on

Wow that is extremely ugly. Whats with the idea that making everything ridiculously large = good idea? I’m confused as to why anyone would want numerous giant headers and buttons covering their page. Thats hardly a good call for screen real estate.

Adam Little wrote on

Having anxiously sat in on your panel this past Saturday at SXSW, the 2.0 sneak peak was the ONLY panel this year that I was really jazzed about and it didn’t disappoint!  I will say, the fuzzy movie screen during the demo did not do Veerle’s design justice at all, so thanks for posting these screenshots! We’ll still likely re-theme the CP for our needs, but out of the box I’d be more than happy showing this design to clients.  Regardless though, the features and updates in 2.0 are very exciting to read about and were even cooler to see in person!  I can’t wait to get my hands on it.  Hope you guys finally got a chance to eat something!

Jogos Grátis wrote on

Superb! Screenshots look awesome, I can’t wait. Really good work.

Fabian Wesner - german codeigniter expert wrote on

Well done, i hope that ExpressionEngine and CodeIgniter will be more popular in germany, soon!

Kilian wrote on

I just switched to EE from WordPress and now that WP 2.5 is out I got a bit envious about the sleek Admin interface of “the other guys”.

Seeing your screenshots though, really made me excited about EE again. I can’t wait for 2.0!