Although supporting XML, ExpressionEngine remains focused on manual entry of content by individual users. Alfresco needn't worry yet.Alfresco as a company seems to be convinced of the value of the open source (free) business model for enterprise-class document management and content management. The result of this is that you and I can download Alfresco’s CMS for free, right from their web site. But when you do, you will soon discover the Alfresco CMS is so complicated to install and maintain, you’d better have a dedicated programmer / IT staff in the house who can spend some time with setting up the system and keep it running.
True: Alfresco’s CMS is based on a robust document management system, and therefore it is not often used by small businesses. The Alfresco marketing director shared with me his thoughts on his market: the Fortune 1000, and that says enough. Everything below that is not really Alfresco’s target. But what should the companies below use, then? All too often they are using “solutions” bolted together using Adobe Creative Suite and some custom programming. It can be much more efficient and much less expensive. Enter ExpressionEngine 2.0.
I asked the people at EllisLab, the developers of ExpressionEngine, if they would mind answering ten questions that I had. They didn’t. EllisLab started out as “Rick Ellis”. Before starting EllisLab, Rick Ellis was a musician, audio engineer and sound designer in Los Angeles, working on feature films, television, and interactive projects. Rick’s specialty was computer-based audio, which would later serve as natural segue into computer programming.
When the web emerged in the mid 90’s he fell in love with the new medium and immediately immersed himself in it. Soon he was building sites for himself, then for others, as his hobby grew into a web development business. In 2001, while in Japan mixing some shows for Disney, he began developing a blogging application for his client’s use. When he returned from Japan he had a working prototype, which he installed at Nancy Sinatra’s (daughter of Frank Sinatra) website, one of his web clients at the time. She loved it, and Rick decided to call his program “pMachine” (Publishing Machine) and make it available to the public.
In 2002 pMachine was released. Within a few months it was featured in major magazines like Mac World and Mac Addict, and in a book about Blogging published by McGraw/Hill. Excited by the success his program was enjoying, Rick took a leap a faith and quit his audio career to focus on software full-time. Within six month he would hire his first employee.
In 2004 the small company released their next-generation publishing system, ExpressionEngine. In 2006 CodeIgniter was released. CI is a web application development platform for PHP developers. And now, in or before the summer of 2008, ExpressionEngine 2 will see the light of day. ExpressionEngine 2 is a full-scale CMS, it’s not free, but it is easy to maintain and to obtain support you don’t have to buy yourself a ticket into the Fortune 1000 club first. Support is almost instantaneous and always to-the-point.
And while ExpressionEngine 1.x was still a hybrid between a blogging application and a CMS, ExpressionEngine 2 really is a CMS that can be integrated with other publishing channel solutions.
ExpressionEngine’s Kurt Deutscher answered my questions. The first one that I asked was whether ExpressionEngine 2 could compete with Aflresco, but Kurt declined to answer that one. “We never compare EE to other systems. Instead we help people evaluate whether EE is right for a specific project. We simply do not engage in “feature wars” or discussions of this system versus that system because that’s a really bad way to decide on a CMS. Its always best to understand why you need a CMS in the first place and then take a look at solutions that have the top features you need,” he said.
My second question got a more elaborate answer. Most small to medium-sized publishers will want to have a system that integrates—for example through XML—with QuarkXPress or InDesign.
ExpressionEngine Has XML SupportAccording to Deutscher, most people use a CMS so that they can enter content directly through a web browser. That may well be true for bloggers and individual web publishers like myself, but most publishing companies will want the integration with whatever program their editors use before the content gets poured first into their layout application. Nevertheless, ExpressionEngine 2 will support direct content entering as its primary method.
“We do our best to make other options viable such as the various “blog editors” and supporting popular APIs like the MetaweblogAPI that make other forms of content entry possible,” said Deutscher. “None of us are experts in QuarkXPress or InDesign so we’re not qualified to speak specifically about those products.”
Nevertheless, he passed this question on to ExpressionEngine’s CTO Derek Jones and he had these insights: “ExpressionEngine 1.5.0, released in August of 2006, added tools to help facilitate the migration of XML-based data into EE, but requires good understanding of EE’s database schema. EE 2.0 will continue to improve on those tools to simplify third party developer’s work in this regard.”
Jones adds that supporting specific XML formats output by any application will still require developmental knowledge, as ExpressionEngine cannot possibly natively support every application’s proprietary XML formats, nor make assumptions about how each data point would translate to ExpressionEngine’s metadata and custom fields.
Derek Jones not Kurt Deutscher may be aware of this, but this places ExpressionEngine 2 on exactly the same level (in terms of XML support) as Alfresco and other XML capable CMS’s that are way more expensive and dedicated to enterprise-class publishing. Perhaps it’s good to also note that the primary method of entering content into ExpressionEngine 2—the direct editing in the web browser—is what most cross-media publishers want these days. It offers them the capability to have freelancers or travelling journalists enter their articles into the CMS directly.
ExpressionEngine 2, A Cross-media Publishing SolutionThe only thing that separates ExpressionEngine 2 from being a complete cross-media publishing tool is the ability to get content out of the system and into a layout program—there’s no “two-way traffic” possible unless you hire a CodeIgniter developer to program a module or plug-in for this purpose—the database that drives ExpressionEngine is MySQL, so it can’t be that hard to program some sort of communication between the online database that is in the open, and the Document and Digital Asset Management system where content is being kept behind the firewall.
With reason, Kurt Deutscher believes ExpressionEngine is a great candidate for enterprise solutions, and an even better candidate in the hands of a highly skilled and knowledgeable team. “ExpressionEngine is already employed in a respected cross-section of government and multi-national corporations and we anticipate its adoption rate to increase with the release of EE 2.0. Like any enterprise-class tool, the success or failure of the software frequently depends more on the skills of the team implementing it within the culture and expectations of a large organization, than with the merits of the software,” he says.
Although ExpressionEngine is not free, its code is completely accessible to all licensed users and starting with ExpressionEngine 2.0, will be built on CodeIgniter, EllisLab’s open source web application framework. This will greatly increase the likelihood of successful software integrations between ExpressionEngine and other software, such as InDesign Server or QuarkXPress Server.
Deutscher believes ExpressionEngine will make for a more flexible and open system, although he’s not sure that that will get folks closer to pushing one button and having instantaneous print and web publishing. “Our expectations of printed publications are different than that of web content. While some content works well in both (text, images) some content is better suited for the web (hyper-links, perma-links, image slide-shows, audio and video),” he says.
“Also if you’re speaking of medium-sized print publishers, they’ll likely want to write for the printed version of the publication, then translate it over to web content. Your medium-sized web publishers however (a rapidly growing demographic), will likely want a reverse work-flow, in that they’ll be creating web content, then (if they do have a printed version of their publication) translate the web content over to a print format,” says Deutscher.
Different Publishing Channel, Different Workflow“There are a lot of web publishers of all sizes using ExpressionEngine successfully on the web. How well ExpressionEngine fits into their workflow likely depends a lot on their expectations and their readers.”
Kurt Deutscher believes there’s a generational element in play here too: “I grew up delivering the evening paper, and typing research papers on a manual typewriter. When I compose something for publication, I do it with some traditional (ink and paper) expectations that my 20-something contemporaries in the world of web publishing just don’t have. Until and unless readers’ expectations evolve to be more similar between print and the web, I don’t expect to see a perfect one-button publishing solution from any software provider.”
I asked whether ExpressionEngine 2 will potentially integrate with DAM systems such as Canto Cumulus or the brand new Elvis system (based on Adobe AIR/Flex). Deutscher: “Its unlikely we’ll provide first party options for those directly but there will be aspects of 2.0 that make such integration more straightforward. Our goal is to provide a platform that lets developers built the type of integration tools they need so they can extend EE to their specific needs.”
On the content side, ExpressionEngine supports publishing with multimedia formats very well. EE 2.0 will include a new file manger to make working with these formats even easier than before.
Where Will ExpressionEngine 2 Be Sold Primarily?When ExpressionEngine was first released, the company sold most of their licenses directly to the end user; the web publisher. As users became more experienced with ExpressionEngine, many of them began building ExpressionEngine sites for others and have started or joined web development and design firms. A significant number of ExpressionEngine licenses are now sold to professional web developers and designers who are creating thriving businesses building ExpressionEngine sites for others. With the addition of CodeIgniter, EllisLab is now also meeting the needs of PHP-based application developers.
“You’ll find that we’re pretty focused on giving this newer group of advanced users the tools and support they need to succeed with EE in their enterprises,” says Deutscher.
This entry was posted in None. Bookmark the permalink. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.
ExpressionEngine 2.0 Ready for Cross-media Publishing?
Although supporting XML, ExpressionEngine remains focused on manual entry of content by individual users. Alfresco needn't worry yet.Alfresco as a company seems to be convinced of the value of the open source (free) business model for enterprise-class document management and content management. The result of this is that you and I can download Alfresco’s CMS for free, right from their web site. But when you do, you will soon discover the Alfresco CMS is so complicated to install and maintain, you’d better have a dedicated programmer / IT staff in the house who can spend some time with setting up the system and keep it running.
True: Alfresco’s CMS is based on a robust document management system, and therefore it is not often used by small businesses. The Alfresco marketing director shared with me his thoughts on his market: the Fortune 1000, and that says enough. Everything below that is not really Alfresco’s target. But what should the companies below use, then? All too often they are using “solutions” bolted together using Adobe Creative Suite and some custom programming. It can be much more efficient and much less expensive. Enter ExpressionEngine 2.0.
I asked the people at EllisLab, the developers of ExpressionEngine, if they would mind answering ten questions that I had. They didn’t. EllisLab started out as “Rick Ellis”. Before starting EllisLab, Rick Ellis was a musician, audio engineer and sound designer in Los Angeles, working on feature films, television, and interactive projects. Rick’s specialty was computer-based audio, which would later serve as natural segue into computer programming.
When the web emerged in the mid 90’s he fell in love with the new medium and immediately immersed himself in it. Soon he was building sites for himself, then for others, as his hobby grew into a web development business. In 2001, while in Japan mixing some shows for Disney, he began developing a blogging application for his client’s use. When he returned from Japan he had a working prototype, which he installed at Nancy Sinatra’s (daughter of Frank Sinatra) website, one of his web clients at the time. She loved it, and Rick decided to call his program “pMachine” (Publishing Machine) and make it available to the public.
In 2002 pMachine was released. Within a few months it was featured in major magazines like Mac World and Mac Addict, and in a book about Blogging published by McGraw/Hill. Excited by the success his program was enjoying, Rick took a leap a faith and quit his audio career to focus on software full-time. Within six month he would hire his first employee.
In 2004 the small company released their next-generation publishing system, ExpressionEngine. In 2006 CodeIgniter was released. CI is a web application development platform for PHP developers. And now, in or before the summer of 2008, ExpressionEngine 2 will see the light of day. ExpressionEngine 2 is a full-scale CMS, it’s not free, but it is easy to maintain and to obtain support you don’t have to buy yourself a ticket into the Fortune 1000 club first. Support is almost instantaneous and always to-the-point.
And while ExpressionEngine 1.x was still a hybrid between a blogging application and a CMS, ExpressionEngine 2 really is a CMS that can be integrated with other publishing channel solutions.
ExpressionEngine’s Kurt Deutscher answered my questions. The first one that I asked was whether ExpressionEngine 2 could compete with Aflresco, but Kurt declined to answer that one. “We never compare EE to other systems. Instead we help people evaluate whether EE is right for a specific project. We simply do not engage in “feature wars” or discussions of this system versus that system because that’s a really bad way to decide on a CMS. Its always best to understand why you need a CMS in the first place and then take a look at solutions that have the top features you need,” he said.
My second question got a more elaborate answer. Most small to medium-sized publishers will want to have a system that integrates—for example through XML—with QuarkXPress or InDesign.
ExpressionEngine Has XML SupportAccording to Deutscher, most people use a CMS so that they can enter content directly through a web browser. That may well be true for bloggers and individual web publishers like myself, but most publishing companies will want the integration with whatever program their editors use before the content gets poured first into their layout application. Nevertheless, ExpressionEngine 2 will support direct content entering as its primary method.
“We do our best to make other options viable such as the various “blog editors” and supporting popular APIs like the MetaweblogAPI that make other forms of content entry possible,” said Deutscher. “None of us are experts in QuarkXPress or InDesign so we’re not qualified to speak specifically about those products.”
Nevertheless, he passed this question on to ExpressionEngine’s CTO Derek Jones and he had these insights: “ExpressionEngine 1.5.0, released in August of 2006, added tools to help facilitate the migration of XML-based data into EE, but requires good understanding of EE’s database schema. EE 2.0 will continue to improve on those tools to simplify third party developer’s work in this regard.”
Jones adds that supporting specific XML formats output by any application will still require developmental knowledge, as ExpressionEngine cannot possibly natively support every application’s proprietary XML formats, nor make assumptions about how each data point would translate to ExpressionEngine’s metadata and custom fields.
Derek Jones not Kurt Deutscher may be aware of this, but this places ExpressionEngine 2 on exactly the same level (in terms of XML support) as Alfresco and other XML capable CMS’s that are way more expensive and dedicated to enterprise-class publishing. Perhaps it’s good to also note that the primary method of entering content into ExpressionEngine 2—the direct editing in the web browser—is what most cross-media publishers want these days. It offers them the capability to have freelancers or travelling journalists enter their articles into the CMS directly.
ExpressionEngine 2, A Cross-media Publishing SolutionThe only thing that separates ExpressionEngine 2 from being a complete cross-media publishing tool is the ability to get content out of the system and into a layout program—there’s no “two-way traffic” possible unless you hire a CodeIgniter developer to program a module or plug-in for this purpose—the database that drives ExpressionEngine is MySQL, so it can’t be that hard to program some sort of communication between the online database that is in the open, and the Document and Digital Asset Management system where content is being kept behind the firewall.
With reason, Kurt Deutscher believes ExpressionEngine is a great candidate for enterprise solutions, and an even better candidate in the hands of a highly skilled and knowledgeable team. “ExpressionEngine is already employed in a respected cross-section of government and multi-national corporations and we anticipate its adoption rate to increase with the release of EE 2.0. Like any enterprise-class tool, the success or failure of the software frequently depends more on the skills of the team implementing it within the culture and expectations of a large organization, than with the merits of the software,” he says.
Although ExpressionEngine is not free, its code is completely accessible to all licensed users and starting with ExpressionEngine 2.0, will be built on CodeIgniter, EllisLab’s open source web application framework. This will greatly increase the likelihood of successful software integrations between ExpressionEngine and other software, such as InDesign Server or QuarkXPress Server.
Deutscher believes ExpressionEngine will make for a more flexible and open system, although he’s not sure that that will get folks closer to pushing one button and having instantaneous print and web publishing. “Our expectations of printed publications are different than that of web content. While some content works well in both (text, images) some content is better suited for the web (hyper-links, perma-links, image slide-shows, audio and video),” he says.
“Also if you’re speaking of medium-sized print publishers, they’ll likely want to write for the printed version of the publication, then translate it over to web content. Your medium-sized web publishers however (a rapidly growing demographic), will likely want a reverse work-flow, in that they’ll be creating web content, then (if they do have a printed version of their publication) translate the web content over to a print format,” says Deutscher.
Different Publishing Channel, Different Workflow“There are a lot of web publishers of all sizes using ExpressionEngine successfully on the web. How well ExpressionEngine fits into their workflow likely depends a lot on their expectations and their readers.”
Kurt Deutscher believes there’s a generational element in play here too: “I grew up delivering the evening paper, and typing research papers on a manual typewriter. When I compose something for publication, I do it with some traditional (ink and paper) expectations that my 20-something contemporaries in the world of web publishing just don’t have. Until and unless readers’ expectations evolve to be more similar between print and the web, I don’t expect to see a perfect one-button publishing solution from any software provider.”
I asked whether ExpressionEngine 2 will potentially integrate with DAM systems such as Canto Cumulus or the brand new Elvis system (based on Adobe AIR/Flex). Deutscher: “Its unlikely we’ll provide first party options for those directly but there will be aspects of 2.0 that make such integration more straightforward. Our goal is to provide a platform that lets developers built the type of integration tools they need so they can extend EE to their specific needs.”
On the content side, ExpressionEngine supports publishing with multimedia formats very well. EE 2.0 will include a new file manger to make working with these formats even easier than before.
Where Will ExpressionEngine 2 Be Sold Primarily?When ExpressionEngine was first released, the company sold most of their licenses directly to the end user; the web publisher. As users became more experienced with ExpressionEngine, many of them began building ExpressionEngine sites for others and have started or joined web development and design firms. A significant number of ExpressionEngine licenses are now sold to professional web developers and designers who are creating thriving businesses building ExpressionEngine sites for others. With the addition of CodeIgniter, EllisLab is now also meeting the needs of PHP-based application developers.
“You’ll find that we’re pretty focused on giving this newer group of advanced users the tools and support they need to succeed with EE in their enterprises,” says Deutscher.