[Web4lib] anyone use ExpressionEngine?

[Chris Barr]

Hi Tana,

I haven't used Expression Engine myself, but after exploring the demo 
(http://expressionengine.com/sales/try) it appears to be a flexible 
blogging system. It allows you to use separate templates for things like 
categories to make blog entries turn into pages, and it is also 
expandable through plug-ins or "modules".

On the whole, Expression Engine would be comparable to two *free* & 
*open source* projects with fairly large user bases: Textpattern 
(http://www.textpattern.com/) and MovableTypeOS 
(http://www.movabletype.org/opensource/). I have used Textpattern on 
multiple projects in the past and have found it's template system very 
designer friendly, allowing you to create whole sites, rather than just 
blogs. I run this personal art project with TextPattern, 
(interruptions.org). You can find reviews online comparing Textpattern, 
Movabletype, and Expression Engine, but for my money I would go with the 
open source project that does most (if not all or more) and has a large 
user base.

There are of course downsides of using blog software to manage your 
website. Simply the fact that everything is so date based, rather than 
organized through hierarchy, can become troublesome as the site grows. 
Additionally, these systems won't have the community features of moral 
portal-like systems, such as Drupal or Mambo. (Though those systems 
often need stripped down, unless you want your site to look like Slashdot.)

If you have you are handy with HTML and can understand how to use 
templates I would suggest what I think is currently the most flexible OS 
content management system available at the moment, ModX 
(http://www.modxcms.com/). It want give you the portal-in-a-box that 
other systems will, but it is *extremely flexible*, allowing you create 
for custom data fields and matching them with appropriate templates. I 
run another art thingy with ModX, (temporaryaudio.org). Though it looks 
simple this would have been difficult (in my mind) to create using a 
more blog-like system. The hierarchical system made a lot more sense and 
the ability to endlessly create custom fields for various data-types is 
fantastic.

You can demo most of these open source systems at (opensourcecms.com).

Best,
Chris
Villanova University

Tana Elias wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I recently came across a content management system called
> ExpressionEngine (http://expressionengine.com/)
>
> Is anyone out there using it for their library?  If so, might I ask
> you a few questions about how you use it and how happy you are with it?
>
> Thank you in advance,
> Tana Elias
>
> Tana Elias, Web Librarian
> Madison Public Library
> 201 W. Mifflin St.
> Madison, WI  53703
> http://www.madisonpubliclibrary.org
> telias at scls.lib.wi.us
> 608-266-4953
>
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