Even though we didn’t attend that many panels at this year’s SXSW, what we did see was actually pretty awesome. One that I was particularly interested in was the Expression Engine 2.0 Sneak Peak hosted by the fine folks at Ellis Labs. After spending a lot of time under ExpressionEngine’s hood during the 45royale redesign, it was apparent that there was still some room for improvement. I am a big ExpressionEngine fan, but since we earn a living doing front-end design and development for sites and applications, it was blatantly obvious to me that the EE control panel needed some major work. The default theme that ships with version 1.6 is certainly tolerable (and is a huge improvement over previous releases), but the information isn’t always arranged intuitively or as efficiently as one might expect in a robust Content Management System.

While experienced developers can certainly learn their way around the admin section, the control panel can be quite daunting for a first time user. Especially when many of those first time users are the clients that you pitched EE to and shelled out the money for it. You can see how that might become a problem! It means as the developer, you have to do more to justify the purchase and then spend additional time teaching them how to use it. Luckily the guys and girls at Ellis Lab have had their ears to the streets and have been working hard to address several issues put forth by the community. And judging by the sneak peak we saw during their SXSWi panel, boy did they deliver!

The Panel

The EllisLab staff were all almost all in attendance at the panel including Rick Ellis himself, Leslie Camacho, Paul Burdick, Derek Jones, and Derek Allard. All were on hand to show the world just how exciting the next version of ExpressionEngine will be. After some initial comments from various members of the team, Derek Allard started off the “meaty” part of the presentation by talking about one of the biggest changes in EE 2.0.

Put the code in the ignition

ExpressionEngine now runs on CodeIgniter, which is EllisLab’s open source PHP framework. Although I’m not a CodeIgniter user myself, it seems that people who love both the CodeIgniter PHP framework and ExpressionEngine CMS are real jazzed about it. As Derek Allard aptly put it, “The nerds are excited, and you should be excited that the nerds are excited”. You can bet that I’ll be making some time over the next few months to give CodeIgniter a try! You can read more about the latest “merger” on Derek’s Post at ExpressionEngine.com.

The nerds are excited, and you should be excited that the nerds are excited.
— Derek Allard, Ellis Lab

An old friend gets a makeover!

After the CodeIgniter announcement Derek passed the mic to Derek Jones who performed a live demo of the EE 2.0 control panel on a large screen in the corner of the room. The first thing that jumps out when you see screenshots of the new control panel is that the old design has been thrown out the window completely. For 2.0, Ellis Lab partnered with designer Veerle Pieters, who’s blog also runs on ExpressionEngine, to completely overhaul the look of the CP. The fuzzy screen was probably not the most ideal way to unveil the new design, so on first glance I wasn’t sure how I felt about the new look. I am a big fan of Veerle’s site and her work, but I think I was just expecting something other than what was shown. Design is so funny sometimes! But even with the poor resolution, you could instantly see a change in the dashboard’s organization and layout, allowing for a more “client-friendly” design that will surely make it easier to find information.

Since the panel, they’ve posted a video summary of the demonstration that has changed my opinion of the design entirely. This new theme may not be for everyone (Large fonts and the use of Green and Orange), but seeing the design at the proper resolution proved that the fuzzy screen was impacting my initial thoughts. I still think we’ll change the theme to meet our particular design style, but out of the box I would be more than happy to show this control panel to a client.

Easier to see and now easier to use

As Derek walked us through the new features of the control panel you could tell that they’ve spent a lot of time with the information architecture. They gave some real thought to how people actually use the CP and they’ve adjusted the layout accordingly. The CP home page is now divided into three areas: Create, Modify, and View; these areas give you quick access to the most commonly used tasks. On the right sidebar is an area where you can upload a company logo (a la Basecamp), and a button to to change the now flexible width of the dashboard area. With one click you can hide the sidebar and take advantage of your screen’s maximum resolution.

Another new addition to the Control Panel is the notion of Accessories. Accessories allow you to add information to the CP on any page in order to expand the functionality available to you and your clients. One of the most useful examples they demonstrated was the ability to add an accessory containing videos. Clicking on the designated “Videos” tab allows you to watch a streamed video from directly inside that page. This would prove incredibly useful if you want to add a simple screencast for your client that shows them how to use a particular feature, like writing a new weblog post for instance. I think the benefits of this feature alone could be HUGE and might end up saving us (and our clients) valuable time and money. Accessories is only one of a ton of other new features and improvements in the demonstration, so I highly recommend watching the video to get the full experience.

In retrospect

After the panel, Matt and I talked briefly with Derek Jones and there is currently no set launch date for EE 2.0. However, they’re thinking that they’ll be able to release at some point later this year. Even though we might have to wait a little while longer to get our hands on 2.0, seeing the new version of ExpressionEngine demoed first hand by the Ellis Lab team was incredible! Panels like this are one of the things that make the SXSW experience so great. Where else could a guy from a small web design studio meet face to face with the brains behind an incredible CMS he uses every single day? Reading the company’s blog posts and forum threads can’t really give you a sense of the excitement and passion that goes in to making a product like this. The guys from Ellis Lab are truly an inspiration; the session was fantastic and their energy was contagious. I can only imagine that the product will continue to get better over the next several months and we will likely be one of the first in line to buy the new release when it becomes available!