All entries filed under “EE Add-ons”
Coverage of interesting new EE Add-ons that are released.
Planet-EE released their first module for EE 2, Search Results, which makes it easier to get your search results organized how you would like.
This straight forward, easy-to-use module gives you greater control over your search results without having to add PHP scripts to your templates, modify the EE core files, or use the SQL query tags.
Some of what this module does: group results by any field, sort by any field, and manage excerpt sizes. EE Insider has not yet tested this module.
This module is available only for EE 2 and costs $15 per site license.
As always on Thursday, we bring you the latest batch of additions to the definitive EE add-on directory, Devot:ee.
Thanks to Ryan Masuga for putting the list together. No matter what Kenny says about him, I think he’s swell.
Recently I’ve been thinking that the EE control panel could use more robust logging. This is especially important for me during the late development stage of a project when the number of people with access to the control panel increases. It’s not really to expose and assign blame if something goes wrong, but at least have a complete record of what happened.
With a similar idea, Erik Reagan posted a great article on his blog this week about adding action logging to you add-ons. EE add-on developers take note! Erik walks you through, step-by-step, how to use the existing Logger class, load it in your add-on and use it.
Excellent idea! I hope add-on developers start adopting this method.
Read the whole article: Logging Actions in your ExpressionEngine Add-ons
Say what? New in BucketList 1.1 is the ability to choose which s3 buckets are available. From the changelog (short and sweet):
Implemented the option to specify which buckets are available for each field or FF Matrix cell.
This was one of my wishes from the beginning, so I’m really glad to see it implemented. Now I can create a “article_images” bucket and make it only available to the Articles section of the site. Very nice!
If you’re an existing license holder, like I am, you just need to enter your license key to get the update.
Read the announcement: Introducing BucketList 1.1
WooThemes released two new themes for ExpressionEngine: Delegate and The Station. These themes were previously available on other platforms but have been moved to EE.
I’m not sure what to make of the idea of using themes on EE. I’m sure they’re helpful to some people but I choose to work with EE because of its flexibility and extensibility—not because I can drop in a theme and have a blog in 22.5 seconds. Maybe it’s just me. What’s your take?
Read their entire announcement: WeeThemes Gears Into Business
Last month, I quietly released the EE 2.0 version of my First Timer extension. It’s an exact copy of the EE 1.6.8 version with no new features added except (as mentioned last week) it now supports NSM Addon Updater.
First Timer allows you to point users to a specific URL upon their first login and the a different URL on subsequent logins. I plan to add more features (it still doesn’t support MSM) in the near future, as time allows.
Learn more about First Timer.
The popular FieldFrame fieldtype, nGen File Field, has finally reached its 1.0 release. Included in the release are bug fixes, improvements and a few new features:
- New feature: Hide existing file option
- New feature: Use/create low resolution thumbnails (lower memory usage). Found in FieldType Manager/FieldFrame settings.
- New feature: Respects upload location maximum image dimensions
- General speed/performance improvements
The new low resolution thumbnails feature is nice to see. I’ve had a few instances where the fieldtype used up the allotted PHP memory.
nGen File Field works on EE 1.6, is free and available now.
In a sign that the EE 2 momentum is increasing, yet another developer has updated their add-ons for EE 2. This time it’s Newism and they’ve released two new add-ons for our delight and nerdy pleasure.
NSM Addon Updater
This new accessory (was an extension on 1.6.x) keeps you up-to-date on your installed EE add-ons. The add-on does explicitly have to support NSM Addon Updater but adding it is simple and quick. In just a few minutes I updated my First Timer extension to work with NSM Addon Update accessory.
Displaying an update to the First Timer extension.
NSM Live Look
NSM Live Look is the EE 2 version of the popular LG Live Look, which allows you to easily preview your entries before posting them live. I use LG Live Look here at EE Insider to preview every entry before it appears on the site.
Previewing an entry before posting to the blog.
Our favorite Dutch add-on developer that lives in a houseboat, Lodewijk Schutte, has released Low Reorder. It is an EE 2-compatible module and based on Elwin Zuiderverlds Reeorder module (which is still freely available for EE 1.6) but with some extra seasoning.
Low Reorder comes with a custom field type that is used to store the sort order of each entry. You can assign multiple Low Reorder fields to a field group, allowing for different orders for different uses. In addition to this, you can also filter sortable entries by status, category and expired/future entries.
Create a custom tab and then it’s never been easier for you or your clients to manage the ordering of content. Gone are the days of editing each entry individually.
Low Reorder is 12 Euros (about $16 US) and available now.
Along with the launch of his new company and website, Brandon Kelly has also snuck in a nice little surprise: Wygwam 2.0. The updated WYSIWYG editor for EE now works on both EE 1.6.x and EE 2.x. In addition, it also got a new set of threads:
We went back to the drawing board for Wygwam’s custom CKEditor skin, and came up with something that does a better job of blending into your ExpressionEngine control panel, allowing you to focus on That Which Matters Most – your content.
For those of you that are already using EE 2, Wygwam 2.0 is a free upgrade for existing license holders.
Derek Hogue has released his Google Analytics accessory. Much like its younger 1.6.8 sibling, the Analytics accessory displays your site analytics in the control panel.
Congratulations to Derek on this release, and also a thank you for that lovely accessory tab next to yours in that screenshot (our own accessory, which you can have for yourself here).
The very useful Markdown Extra plugin has been updated. Here are the changes:
I’ve updated the markdown plugin with “Markdown Extra 1.2.4”—the latest version—and added a fix for block quotes. Every feature I’ve testing is working including blockquotes, tables, definition lists, images and links by reference, and all the basic stuff (of course).
This plugin is not compatible with EE2 (or hasn’t been tested at least). Someone get Joe a copy of it so he can update it!
Over the weekend Crucial Web Hosting released a new module, KeyAds, that lets you better target content (or ads) to visitors.
KeyAds is a module for ExpressionEngine that allows you to display content to your visitors—like an ad or block of HTML code—based on keywords they enter in a search engine, or based on the referring domain.
This is a fairly common tool, so it’s nice to see this come to ExpressionEngine. The module seems easy to use and you could even combine it with an ad server like OpenX to display certain ad zones depending on keyword or referrer.
The module is currently only available for 1.6.8 but I’m hopeful a 2.0 version will be just around the corner.
Learn more: KeyAds Module by Crucial Web Hosting
Viget author Doug Avery has written a great article on Structure and the perfect setup.
Even with the EE 2.0 release in December, I think the best ExpressionEngine event in 2009 was the rise of Travis Schmeisser’s Structure. While 2.0 lays the groundwork for a bright future, in the short run it’s more of a step backwards because so few of EE’s amazing community-built addons have been ported so far - even with new functionality, a 2.0 upgrade takes away far more than it gives at the moment.
Be sure to check out the rest of the article for a well-written and reasoned article on doing cool stuff with Structure.
There are two ExpressionEngine tag modules being released today. The first one Tagger Lite is being released by Parscale Media. What does it do?
Tagger Lite allows you to tag all your Expression Engine entries. This powerful module allows you to add “Keywords” to your entries in a new simple integrated solution right within your entry tabs. This allows you to showcase content by tag and create tag clouds within your Expression Engine templates.
In the other corner we have the beta of Taggable a new module by CodeIgniter Chieftain Jamie Rumbelow. What it does may shock you!
Taggable is an easy-to use, powerful folksonomy engine designed exclusively for ExpressionEngine 2.0. It works with any channel entry, so you can add tags to your blog, news archive, pages, photo gallery - anything that’s powered by a channel! It features a rich set of template tags that let you list, filter, and display tags and their entries with no code necessary.
Indeed, it is a glorious day to be a tag.
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