Getting Started with ExpressionEngine
Posted on October 28, 2007 in Blogging
(last edited on April 29, 2014 at 1:26 am)
(last edited on April 29, 2014 at 1:26 am)
I finally have bitten the bullet and am making the switch from WordPress to Expression Engine. I spent quite a few hours figuring out just how to most simply make the move, and I’ve finally decided that I’m just going to move and fix as I go, otherwise I’ll keep putting it off.
So there may be quite a few broken things on the website this week. On the plus side, the move to Expression Engine will let me start to expand into multiple blogs from a single installation, with forum and wiki integration too.
20 Comments
Do comments work?
How about when I’m anonymous? Hm, the comments template lost all its CSS. Oops.
Go Dave! Let me know if you need any tips: I’ve worked with EE a few times now. And let me throw one at you for now:
Update your .htaccess to eliminate index.php NOW. Else you’ll have two sets of URLs that Google’s trying to index, splitting your traffic metrics.
Welcome to EE David! I’m a fan of your site and happy to see you on EE.
Here’s an EE wiki article on removing index.php from the URLs.
If you’ve got questions, just hop on the EE forums. We’re usually a helpful bunch.
Mark: Awesome, thanks for the index.php tip. I didn’t follow what you meant by splitting the traffic until I actually got past the “eliminate index.php” part and had to fix the various internal link references to no longer refer to my EE subdirectory.
Les: Awesome! Thanks for the link! I’m sure I’ll hit those forums at some point. I have my transition notes all captured, too.
[edit: bah, how do I add my default markdown formatting? custom field prefs?]
Assuming you’ve got the Markdown plugin installed already, then yes, you set it the Default Text Formatting for This Field options. Make sure to click Edit List if you don’t see it in the dropdown.
Welcome to EE. I think it will be a great move for you, and I’ve found it makes the maintenance of the site a bit easier (and easier to manage independent non-blog pages).
I’ve rolled EE out at a few clients now, every time I do, they love it.
I use it as well, but don’t judge EE by my site’s design!
I wish I could offer advice, but the one lesson I learned was to back up my templates before fiddling with them *grin*. But, really, I love working with it. Every time I think about MT or one of the other systems, I blanche and feel grateful for EE.
Hi Dave,
Is there any other reason you did the switch, or is mainly to have multiple sites?
I’ve got you on my “must read” rss feeds, and I’ve noticed the posts got all set as unread. That’s understandable because of the switch.
But also check your links. The links are being set as:
davidseah.com/site/announcement/ instead of /blog/comments/announcement/
cheers,
Congratuations on the switch. I read your articles on optimizing the (dv) server for WordPress and applied them to my server. It worked really well so thanks. If you have any questions about EE on (mt) just ask – I’ve been using it for a about a year and a half now.
Congrats on the move to EE. I always develop professional sites in EE. It is just so much more powerful than the competition. And like others have already said. Come join the community on the forums they are great and always helpful.
Shucks – I’m going to be moving my blog to my main domain, and I’ve decided to go with WP. I’d like to hear why EE is better – is it just the multiple blogs issue?
Matthew: I see you are coming from blogspot. The choice in blog platforms is really a personal one. What I can say is WP is a great product and I use it when most of the time when I am putting together a blog. I only use Expression Engine when I need to control data in ways that is hard with wordpress.
While I love EE and think it is a great choice for many things, it is often overkill for a blog. If you like wordpress and like the interface then stick with it. It offers all the features of blogspot and so many new and wonderful features.
Les: I only see three fields that I can set the text formatter for, related to the blog summary, text, and extended text. I’ll check the forums to see if I can find an answer.
Jakob: Hey man! That’s good to know…going multi-blog was one of the reasons I’m switching.
Daniel Tome: Thanks for calling out the RSS link problem! I’ve fixed it. I must say I like EE’s RSS handling better than WordPress.
George: Thanks for the offer for help, and I’m glad those MT articles came in handy for ya!
Daniel: Very cool…one of the reasons I am switching to EE is the possibility of easily doing sites; the cost of the license is something I can pass to prospects, and that it is professionally supported and maintained goes a long way.
Matthew: The main reason for the switch from WordPress is to gain features. Multiple blogs is one, but the main reasons are the addition of several add-on modules: forums, wiki, gallery, multiple sites, and simple ecommerce. I tried out the forums and the wiki, and they are VERY solid and appealing. The wiki is the only one I’ve come across so far that I like in terms of its look, too. I am also just curious to see the difference between EE and WordPress operationally; I have already had to rejigger my thinking about web apps as I learned how the EE template system worked.
I’m also curious to see if there is a reduction in SPAM due to the captcha built-into the system, and the allegedly more robust security built-in.
Additionally, I would like to use EE as the underlying storage mechanism for future software development, so a single user login to the site, forums, wiki, etc would give you access to the software tools as well. That would be awesome.
What’s the incentive to move to EE?
Brandon: I answered this in Daniel and Matthew’s reply above. Basically the reason for moving is to gain expanded capability in the wiki and forum module integration, which I’ve found to be very nice.
Thanks for the article. Looking at expressionengine. Curious about whether you must have dedicated hosting to run effectively. Any suggestions?
No Expression Engine runs great in a shared hosting environment. I of course suggest Engine Hosting it is a hosting company run by the Expression Engine team. So it works great. And their spam filters can’t beat.
Great blog! I’m just venturing thru East Africa – Kenya, Tanania, and soon Uganda – for the past 30 months or so…was supposed to only be on a ONE WEEK trip when I left Canada. :->
Anyhow, the folks down here are very receptive to my ideas in IT {blogging, eCommerce, open source, etc.} and Expression Engine & CodeIgniter are gonna be my weapons of choice when it comes to implementing many web projects in these parts.
I was about to take the WordPress plunge, but I can’t be bothered with upgrading issues and what not. I also WANT to SEE this beautiful continent and not muck around with trying to get WP to fit my needs other than blogging. After reading the PASSIONATE testimonials over at ExpressionEngine.com, I was hooked.
So…my EE safari will soon be taking off.
Peacies.
Max {also of http://GoAfricaGo.BlogSpot.com}
Arghhhh!! I can’t download the damn EECore zip file on this iBook G4 with Firefox or Safari browsers. I get a tiny zip file and a termination after like 3 seconds. My EE safari will be delayed until someone emails it to me. Probably something to do with iWayAfrica ISP.