Expression Engine - a few obvious things...

red_ice · 04-06-2013 11:14am #1

Hi!

I've been working with wordpress for a number of years now and I've just started with Expression Engine core. I'm getting sick of working with wp, tbh I think wp is complete crap! EE seems to be a little confusing for me right now, but I'm coming to terms with it and I can see it being very powerful.

I've started to get to a point where I'm second guessing everything I'm doing with it and despite what I've heard about the 'amazing community', I'm finding very little information on what I would consider basic stuff. Such as, how would you go about populating a navigation bar? Like wp_list_pages in wordpress? I can't expect a client to locate and append a list item to the nav bar!

I managed to build the basic blog, following the standard tutorial. Then I created a static template for each page (about/contact/etc). Surely you cant expect a client who knows next to nothing about HTML to go into these template files and edit content? I'm near positive there is a better way to approach this, but I don't know what I'm meant to be search for. Ideally, the user would have the same view as the publish page in the admin area. (off the top of my head) Using channels to hold page data for a single page, not a blog.

I'm learning expression engine with a view to have a more solid eCommerce platform for clients as I have no faith in most packages that I've used and tbh, eCommerce with WordPress is just laughable. Which brings me on to another question - the simple commerce module. Is it any use for a shop with over 1k products? Or would anyone have a recommendation for an addon/plugin for EE eCommerce sites.

Thanks in advance!

KonFusion · 04-06-2013 12:39pm

If you're going down the eCommerce road I'd heartily recommend Shopify.

Alternatively I know @mickykelleher is a Dublin based web designer working with EE if you want to pop him off an email for advice. Never used it much myself.

red_ice · 06-06-2013 10:08am

bump!

Trojan · 08-06-2013 10:16am

I don't have much to add on EE, but it strikes me that you're dropping one CMS with bolt-on ecommerce for another CMS with bolt-on ecommerce.

WordPress is great for ecommerce in certain circumstances - if it's a membership site, if you have a very limited number of products (1-10) - and especially if they're electronic.

red_ice · 12-06-2013 3:02pm

Trojan wrote: »

I don't have much to add on EE, but it strikes me that you're dropping one CMS with bolt-on ecommerce for another CMS with bolt-on ecommerce.

WordPress is great for ecommerce in certain circumstances - if it's a membership site, if you have a very limited number of products (1-10) - and especially if they're electronic.

Well the idea is that we can get a CMS that is scaleable. There are about 4000 products to be inserted to the new site and a number of other random pages that would have to be developed for handling customer comments and other media - which is the main reason(and security) that I'm leaning towards EE.

The previous site wasn't built in WordPress, it was an ancient portal to an ancient shopping cart. I wouldn't dream of using WordPress for commerce. Expression engine comes with a module for eCommerce, but there are more specialized 3rd party packages which are getting good reviews - I'm just wondering if anyone has used them!

Trojan · 12-06-2013 5:31pm

red_ice wrote: »

Well the idea is that we can get a CMS that is scaleable.

I have to disagree with the implication that WordPress isn't scaleable. There are many examples of massive single and multi-site installations.

Trojan · 12-06-2013 5:50pm

... and back on topic, I did work with an EE site, I think it was running CartThrob. I only worked on the front end, so I don't know what it was like behind the scenes, but it seemed like a great system. Around €250 or so, so not the cheapest option, but worth it if it's good, have a look for a trial version.

colm_c · 12-06-2013 10:29pm

If the site is primarily eCommerce then you're better off using an eCommerce platform with bolt on CMS, rather than a CMS with bolt on eCommerce.

Magento springs to mind, although there are many more.

13-06-2013 10:32am

Hi @red_ice - i have worked extensively with EE over the last few years (up till about a year ago) - so will try and shed a bit of light on your questions -

For navigation I can suggest two things - first is a plugin called NavEE (http://devot-ee.com/add-ons/navee) - its pretty easy for a client to use, once shown how to add and order and remove pages, they will be set.
Alternatively if you dont want to spend $35, you could create a template that would loop through all your pages (say they are all in a channel called 'pages') and build an un-ordered list - then embed this in you page template

e.g.
<ul>
{exp:channel:entries channel="pages"}
<li><a href="{page_url}">{title}</a></li>
{/exp:channel:entries}
</ul>

So when the client creates a new page, it gets picked up here too.

For eCommerce, i would give CartThrob a miss, i used it once and found it to be a bit of a disaster for any thing large scale, Simple Commerce might hold a few products for you ok - but the one to use in my experience is a module called BrilliantRetail - http://www.brilliantretail.com/ - its very comprehensive , great for stock levels, multiple instances of products for sale (e.g. if it were clothing, different colors, sizes etc) - handles sales, shipping and comes with support for many popular payment gateways - i have used it and i am happy with it.

In comparison to WP, I see them in different camps completely to be honest.

Expression Engine - a few obvious things...

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